Apple Fitness+ and Strava Integration, and New Fitness+ Features – DC Rainmaker
Like clockwork, Apple has once again announced a pile of Apple Fitness+ features the first week of January. Fitness+ being Apple’s subscription fitness platform that has trainers performing workouts in a variety of sports. And, with this update the specific number of those structured training plans and other workout types increases.However, perhaps the most interesting, from a technical standpoint, is the new integration with Strava. The relationship between Apple and Strava has always been historically somewhat lukewarm. While executives at both companies would probably disagree, the technical reality clearly states otherwise. For example, it was half a decade before you could get a completed Apple Watch workout into Strava without 3rd party apps. And likewise, Strava still doesn’t support cycling power from an Apple Watch workout (without 3rd party apps), despite Apple introducing cycling power to the Apple Watch 18 months ago. Point being, this might be the start of a more meaningful relationship between the two sides.In any event, let’s get into the new bits.For this first section, I’ll quickly cover the non-Strava bits. The new content portions in this section start as of January 6th (Monday). They are as follows:– New progressive strength program: This three-week program designed “for efficiency” is a series of 12 different 30-minute workouts. Week one is ‘Progressive Overload’, week two is ‘Tension’, and week three is ‘Dynamic Power’. Apple says it’ll target every major muscle group within that.– New Pickelball program: This is a series of workouts that are focused on strength, endurance, and agility for Pickleball specifically. The program will feature Pickleball world champion Catherine Parenteau. This concept roughly falls in line with both Apple’s recent dabbling in bringing in more celebrity guests, while also their focus on specific sport supported programs (e.g., they have yoga for trail runners, led by a trail runner).– New Yoga Peak Poses: This is a workshop-style class that’s focusing on a very specific yoga pose, and how to get it correct. For each pose there’s a 10-minute warm-up prep period, followed by a 10-minute practice session. Apple says poses include Dancer, Twisted Hand to Big Toe, and Crow.– New Introduction to Breath Meditation: This includes 5 different 10-minute meditations, focused on teaching core techniques. Apple says this includes belly, box, and ocean breathing. This is in addition to the existing 11 meditation themes Apple already has (e.g., Sleep, Calm, Sound).– New Artist Spotlight series: Upcoming featured artists include Janet Jackson (starting January 13), Coldplay (starting January 20), Bruno Mars (starting January 27), and Apple Music Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show headliner Kendrick Lamar (starting February 3).– New Time to Walk Episodes: They’re adding audio sessions with Adam Scott on January 13th, ahead of a new season of Severance on January 17th. In addition, Apple says episodes are coming from Steve Aoki, Lana Candor, Rita Ora, Daddy Yankee, and Maddie Zeigler.– New Guest Trainer: Alex Wong from So You Think You Can Dance will be doing a special 20-minute Dance workout.– New Apple Watch Ring Badge: Ok, this isn’t an Apple Fitness+ thing, but just an Apple Watch Thing. If you close all three activity rings for 7 days in a row, you’ll get the below badge.Got all that? Good, let’s talk Strava.Next up, Strava and Apple have started to increase the integration between the two companies. Currently, in order to get an Apple Watch workout into Strava, you use the Strava app to import the workout from Apple Health into Strava. Meaning, Fitness+ isn’t ‘pushing’ a workout to Strava, but rather, Strava is pulling it from Apple. That doesn’t change here.Instead, what changes is that now Fitness+ workouts will start to include a thumbnail of the workout, workout details, and music genre. In effect, Apple Fitness+ is doing what Peloton and countless other companies have had for years (e.g., TrainerRoad, Zwift, BKool, FulGaz, Whoop, Oura, etc…) The key difference is that in every other scenario, those companies ‘push’ the data to Strava, versus here, Strava is pulling it from Apple. Technically, that actually gets kinda interesting.First off though, you go and complete a Fitness+ workout like normal. That in turn, pushes into your Apple Health repository on your device (also, like normal). For fun, I just did a quick 20-minute session while I typed this post, simple to see how it works (I’ll do a legit workout later). You can see it here in Fitness+, and also in the Strava import page:Next, once pulled into Strava, it’ll now have the details of the workout, thumbnail from said workout, Episode #, trainer name, and music theme. At left, what it looked like before without the integration, and then at right, with the integration. (Left – Old style, Right, New Style)Interestingly though, Apple/Fitness+ doesn’t appear in my list of partner integrations. Meaning, all other companies I could turn this on/off if I wanted to, but can’t here. Admittedly, I don’t see any reason why I’d want to turn it off, but hey, that’s what privacy choices are for. Next, for those geeks in the crowd, I was curious how this works. Not to hammer this point, but usually in these integrations, the platform (e.g., Peloton/TraineRoad/etc…) is pushing the imagery and details to Strava. But in this case, Apple isn’t set up that way. Instead, it’s merely Strava pulling from the larger Apple Health database on your device. Thus, my assumption is that Apple is writing an ID somewhere in there, that tells Strava which session number to pull imagery/details from a server somewhere.So, I went and downloaded the original file from Strava to check it out. The original file is created by Strava, as a .FIT file, and then I uploaded it to FitFileViewer.com to look at in-depth:And sure enough, listed as a .FIT File developer field (hence the Garmin Connect IQ listing) it shows the Apple Catalog ID. Then, I simply enter that into catalog ID (1777659567) into the online site that lists all Apple Fitness+ works, note the URL at the top.And then of course, just below that image, are all the same descriptive details:Undoubtedly Strava pulls this from a separate API into a database, but functionally it’s all tied behind the scenes. And most notably, very different than how they handle every other company.And this doesn’t seem to be the end of things. In an interview Victoria Song from The Verge, where she asked if other integrations were in the works, Apple’s Fitness+ executive Jay Blahnik noted that the companies “have bold ambitions for what [they] might be able to do down the road in terms of sharing.” Hopefully, that’ll include an API for routes as part of WatchOS12 (or ideally, sooner to support summer activities). Strava would obviously be the biggest fish candidate there, next to Komoot.Lastly, Strava and Apple have announced that all Strava Premium members get 3 months free of Apple Fitness+. That’s somewhat useful, though, anyone who buys a new Apple device also gets 3 months free of Fitness+. Still, this is mostly about converting people who may have overlooked Fitness+ in the past into new users now.All that said, one does have to wonder if there’s any connection between all of this news, and last months’ bizarre error in the Strava Year in Sport ‘most used devices’ where they combined all Apple Watches ever made except Ultra/SE (e.g., Apple Watch 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/10), yet for other brands they selected singular models. While it’d be easy to assume there was Apple pressure here, I actually doubt it. The reason is Strava made a variant of that error the prior year with Wahoo devices. The only difference being that in that case, it was an easy technical error to make as Strava wasn’t listing BOLT V1 vs V2. Versus in this case, someone had to purposefully combine unit/model numbers together, since Strava stores/lists each Apple Watch model individually. Sigh.In any case, the integration is cool – and it’ll be interesting to see if Strava will shift other companies towards the same, or if they prefer that it’s all just pushed to Strava as images/details. And of course, here’s to hoping we get Strava (and Komoot) routes pushed into the Apple Watch ecosystem natively.With that – thanks for reading!Hopefully, you found this post useful. The website is really a labor of love, so please consider becoming a DC RAINMAKER Supporter. This gets you an ad-free experience, and access to our (mostly) bi-monthly behind-the-scenes video series of “Shed Talkin’”.Support DCRainMaker – Shop on AmazonOtherwise, perhaps consider using the below link if shopping on Amazon. 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The conspiracy theorist in me thinks this alliance w Apple HAS to be at least substantially related to the app changes Strava made a few weeks back. I can see the conversation going like this:
Strava: “Hey Apple, join up with us and let’s do some cool stuff!”
Apple: “hmm well maybe but you’ll have to cut the knees out from all your other app and data sharing linkages, if you want to do anything with us.”
Strava: [thinking…thinking] “well ok we don’t like it, but we REALLY want to partner with you so – ok then.”
Apple: [rubs hands gleefully together] “heheheh.’I don’t think so to be honest. In many ways, the changes Strava made have been brewing for quite some time within certain factions inside Strava. Various org changes over the last year finally unlocked those factions having more power…and thus, the results we see.Couldn’t Apple open the same API up to other platforms down the line? While nice and pretty for the user, these thumbnails just look like free advertising for Apple Fitness + arent they? So the wider they offer it the better as far as Apple are concernedStrava already does the thumbnails for other platforms (all the ones I showed in the screenshots above, plus many more). I’m sure one could have a technical debate on which of Strava’s two implementations is better, and I suspect the answer would differ on which side (Strava vs platform), you ask.And indeed, it is advertising, though, I’m pretty sure nobody pays for it. Years ago Strava tried to get companies to pay for it, and the companies all laughed. They got some initially, but the cost was far too high. These days, it’s just part of increasing engagement in Strava, so it’s largely a win-win for both sides (and consumers).Do you think thumbnails are generated by Strava?I would guess thumbnails are generated by Apple (or other companies) and Strava is simply taking it.Sorry, I mean “does” as in ‘showing thumbnails for other platforms already exists’. Not in the ‘creation’ kind of “does”. :)What always scares me with the automatic feeds is the feedback loops of multiple duplicate entries. Garmin already feeds Apple and Strava (as well as numerous other platforms all over the place). If I enable an automatic Apple to Strava I always worry I’ll get multiple copies all over the place in a never-ending vortex of activities. Agggggh!!I have no idea how you cope Ray, with the number of platforms you must be runningYeah, I limit which things go which places.Well, if Strava continues to not make money, eventually they’re going to need a white knight.Ray, another feature that just happened with latest updates is now in Fitness+ you can see cadence on screen and on the watch if you’ve connected a cadence sensor to the Apple Watch.I used Favero Assioma pedals for this and if the picture I added here works out you’ll see the result.Previously, one could connect and get the data in the session report, but not be able to see it “live” during the session.While this is an improvement, power data is still not shown on screen, but does get recorded to the session file.Nice catch – slowly but surely!Also a question Ray, as I believe you use HealthFit on iOS too. Do you think it’s possible for HealthFit to get that Apple Catalogue ID for Fitness+ sessions? I’ve been using HealthFit to selectively send sessions to Strava, and it would be nice to (1) have HealthFit automatically get the Fitness+ catalog info, and (2) also send that to Strava for those who prefer to use HealthFit to upload rather than Strava itself.Yeah, I suspect it’d be pretty trivial for him to do that. Given he could easily have your device grab the data from the page I linked to (and that’s mostly easy to decode).Any news on adding more countries to Apple Fitness+? There is a lot of smaller european countries still in the cold… how difficult can it be? Just take the money Apple.This seems like a nice-to-have feature. I have, in the past, manually entered all those stupid little Fitness+ workout details, because I’m neurotic like that.A huge one would be the ability to automatically use saved routes in Strava on the Apple Watch, the way it works with Garmin Connect. I.e., someone sends me a Strava route and I save it and it automatically shows up as a run- or hike-able route in the Workouts app. That’s a functionality that could possibly part me from my Garmin. That, and if watchOS 12 includes a built-in LED flashlight 😂Would love some ability to broadcast data from my Concept2 Rower. Currently just using RowErg so I actually get some data pushed to Strava.At the moment I don’t see official FTMS (FiTness Machine Service) connectivity support to the Apple Watch. The ability to get power and cadence in cycling comes from the CPS (cycling power service) and CSCS (cycling speed and cadence sensor) protocols and not FTMS is my belief; in a previous article about Fitness+ Ray seemed to think otherwise and if I recall, was going to reach out to Apple about this. I suspect apple did not respond.I think that Apple’s GymKit protocol is mostly using FTMS under the hood; if I’m right, it’s basically a NFC handshake then FTMS to send things over, but that’s a different thing. Annoyingly, from my research I don’t think GymKit support rowing machines. I don’t know of any rowing machine that supports GymKit — certainly not the Concept2.A related thing that annoys me with this is that in Apple Health you cannot get complex rowing data for indoor rowing. You cannot get power(watts), pace(time/500m) and cadence(spm) graphs in there. For outdoor rowing, last fall Apple finally added distance support (which is from GPS) but I’m not even sure if distance is a supported metric for indoor rowing. Therefore, even one’s non-Fitness+ rowing sessions cannot get complete data in Apple Health and additional solutions are needed.I want nothing to do with Strava. I was a member since 2013 and deleted my account. First they decided they wanted to be a social media site which I have zero desire for from a fitness app. To do this they violated our privacy. Then they eliminated many 3rd party apps people depend on and destroyed those companies at the same time. Their route planner is garbage and their “AI” function useless. I can send my data directly to Apple from my Garmin or Apple Watch. I returned a Karoo 3 because the only way they integrate to many things is through Strava.In other news I just moved from Garmin to Pixel Watch 3. Googles “Health Connect” repository and Strava aren’t playing together. This article suggests Stava may be work to adapt to these Mag7 companies.Yeah, Google did all sorts of wonky this past summer in that realm. Sigh. That said, the Strava export piece should be working just fine – or at least, it has for me.Someone gave me a Pixel Watch 3 for Christmas because they knew I have a Pixel phone but apparently not that I like my Forerunner 965.Are there any benefits? Was already considering who I could re-gift the watch to.Ray, I also hope that Strava routes integration with Apple Watch will come soon. The lack of a proper GPX import feature in AW is embarrassing 😖Do you have to do anything to enable this? I’ve done 4 Apple Fitness+ workouts in the last 2 days (2 cycling and 2 active cooldown), and I’ve had to manually imprort the title and image for them still.The routes thing is interesting, but useless for the UK given I still can’t even see a map in activities yet whilst trail running etc.Only new and existing Strava subscribers in the U.S, U.K, Australia and Canada can redeem up to 3 months of Fitness+ at no cost.Now, if Apple would do something that vastly more people care about…allowing broadcasting of heart rate from the Apple watch, we might have something. The lack of this is one of the most consumer-unfriendly things Apple still does. It’s stupid and probably actually hurts sales of the AW.The annoying thing is that they already do allow broadcasting of heart rate, but only to the paired iPhone.I’ve tried several apps over the years with various Apple Watches that claimed to enable HR broadcast, but I never got any of them to work. There’s a Zwift app on my Ultra that seems to be exactly for broadcasting HR to Zwift. I just tried it with Zwift on my iPhone, and the iOS app paired with it, while the WatchOS app claimed it wasn’t paired. So apparently another WatchOS app that claims to broadcast HR but doesn’t work. Apple really should just support broadcast with the standard Bluetooth profile.Agreed. It’s just walled garden obnoxiousness. It broadcasts to iPhone, iPad and Apple TV for Fitness+ workouts. I just don’t understand them not doing this. As far as wrist-based HR monitors, I have found Apple Watch to be the most accurate and consistent, so I’d love to use it connected to my Wahoo. I tried the third-party app thing a couple times and gave up. This will only work right if Apple does it natively.The Fitness+ connection to the watch is a “watch app to device app” connection, with the watch app in this case being basically the Workout app and of course, the other device is Fitness+.This can work for other companies. For example, with Peloton I can run the Apple TV version of the app and it will pick up the Peloton app on the Apple Watch and get heart rate data without the iPhone needing to have Peloton open. It’s a direct watch to television connection. In my experience, it worked well. The problem is companies vary wildly in how well they accomplish this, and it’s additional work that should not be needed. As you say, the watch should be able to just “turn on broadcast” without companies making their own app. If the companies watch apps offered more than just sending over HR then they could still do their own. My belief is Apple wanted to claim the watch had tons of apps for it, and forcing companies to make their own watch app to send to their own (iPhone | iPad | Apple TV) app increased the number of apps they could claim. However, as many are buggy it does more harm than good, and things like connecting your watch to a bike computer doesn’t work well as now you need a phone app as a bridge. It’s easier to get another HRM.Please Exercise Gods, let Apple Fitness learn to read cycling data, including HR and Power, from Strava and assign it a relative effort rather than forcing me to manually add it to every single activity. Really…all the data is there, just push/pull/whatever it from Strava to Apple after my computer/Zwift sends the data to Strava.I swim, bike and run. Then, I come here and write about my adventures. It’s as simple as that. Most of the time. If you’re new around these parts, here’s the long version of my story.You’ll support the site, and get ad-free DCR! 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my weekly podcast – with DesFit, which is packed with both gadget and non-gadget goodness!Get all your awesome DC Rainmaker gear here!I have built an extensive list of my most frequently asked questions. Below are the most popular.View Them All Here →You probably stumbled upon here looking for a review of a sports gadget. If you’re trying to decide which unit to buy – check out my in-depth reviews section. Some reviews are over 60 pages long when printed out, with hundreds of photos! I aim to leave no stone unturned.Here’s my most recent GPS watch guide here, and cycling GPS computers here. Plus there are smart trainers here, all in these guides cover almost every category of sports gadgets out there. Looking for the equipment I use day-to-day? I also just put together my complete ‘Gear I Use’ equipment list, from swim to bike to run and everything in between (plus a few extra things). And to compliment that, here’s The Girl’s (my wife’s) list. Enjoy, and thanks for stopping by!I travel a fair bit, both for work and for fun. Here’s a bunch of random trip reports and daily trip-logs that I’ve put together and posted. I’ve sorted it all by world geography, in an attempt to make it easy to figure out where I’ve been.The most common question I receive outside of the “what’s the best GPS watch for me” variant, are photography-esq based. So in efforts to combat the amount of emails I need to sort through on a daily basis, I’ve complied this “My Photography Gear” post for your curious minds (including drones & action cams!)! It’s a nice break from the day-to-day sports-tech talk, and I hope you get something out of it!Many readers stumble into my website in search of information on the latest and greatest sports tech products. But at the end of the day, you might just be wondering “What does Ray use when not testing new products?”. So here is the most up to date list of products I like and fit the bill for me and my training needs best! DC Rainmaker 2024 swim, bike, run, and general gear list. But wait, are you a female and feel like these things might not apply to you? If that’s the case (but certainly not saying my choices aren’t good for women), and you just want to see a different gear junkies “picks”, check out The Girl’s Gear Guide too.
