What to consider when Developing a Fitness App like Peloton, Apple Fitness+ or Equinox?

Introduction

Scientific progress resulted in huge developments to ease the lives of humans. Instead of traveling on foot, people have started using cars and planes. Although these are all very helpful on their own lack of physical activity has degraded people’s health. Now people perform most of their jobs from the office limiting their physical activity, greatly disturbing the mind and body balance. To cater to this, the idea of gyms was introduced to create a place where people can focus on their health and become fit. But not everyone can afford this facility. Also, some people are not comfortable exercising in front of others, and yet again, one can argue but gyms and trainers charge a hefty amount for their services.

 

In the end, the home workout becomes the most feasible option for a vast majority and surprisingly huge masses of people practice it every day.

Growth of Fitness Applications Industry

Most people have little to no information about what, when and how to exercise. They need someone to help them out. Realizing this need of the hours, developers have started making home workout applications to help the people who intend to exercise from home. These applications contain videos and tips for their intended users. Some of these applications suggest customized workouts for the users according to their bodies and capabilities. According to Gartner, fitness app market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 31.25% while having a market value of USD 16.82 billion in North America. The highest growing regional market is one of the Asia-Pacific region has an expected growth of 33.46% over the period of 2019-2026.

 

Features of Successful Fitness Applications

There are tons of paid and free fitness apps on the market but what do you need to consider if you want to make your own fitness app?

 

Let’s talk about a few industry trendsetters who have been leading the market for quite some time now.

Peloton and Equinox

Some of the most famous apps are Peloton and Equinox. Peloton has a monthly subscription whereas equinox is free for users. Both of these applications are unique in their own ways. Peloton application has a rating of 4.9 on app store based on ratings of more than 370,000 users.

 

Peloton started its business as an exercise-equipment selling company and their most famous products were bikes and treadmills. But with the passage of time, the company evolved its business and launched its application. The reason behind its success was that the application taught how to use treadmills and bikes of peloton to do exercise. The trainers use live sessions and videos to help users. The application has multiple workouts going on at the same time. Users can also look for their desired workouts in the further planned workout sessions.  Although most of the exercises are planned according to bikes and treadmills they can also be done without them. There are different varieties of workouts available on the application. This is the reason why this application is widely used and preferred despite having a subscription fee of USD 12.99. The workouts are divided into beginner, low impact, rhythm, power zone, advanced, etc. The application also keeps a record of the user’s pace, speed, and heart rate, etc. which can be used to evaluate performance.

 

Equinox also has a similar user interface. The latest version of this application was released in 2018. This application is having a rating of 4.9 based on the ratings of more than 33,000 users. Just peloton, equinox also has many different types of workouts planned for its users. There are pre-recorded videos as well as animations are also used to guide people in performing several exercises. This is the main reason behind the success of these applications. They not only tell people how to perform exercises but also help them keep a track of their performance.

Impact of Apple Fitness+ Application

Apple has recently released a new application for apple watch users which is known as Apple Fitness+. It is estimated that this application will revolutionize the entire fitness application industry. In this application, the best trainers guide people who want to exercise. These workouts also have music of many genres to motivate users while exercising.  One of the biggest advantages of this application is that it can be accessed from anywhere and the exercise can be continued from where it was left. As the workout starts, the sensors in the watch show all the indicators of exercise like heart rate, pace, etc. on the watch as well as on the screen telecasting the workout.

 

 

This application has many different types of workouts. For beginners, there is a beginner guide. Then there are yoga, cycling, strength, treadmill exercises, etc. Although this application has an annual subscription of USD 9.99, it is worth every penny spent on it.

 

Features of a Fitness Application

A fitness application can have many features depending upon the vision and budget of the developer. Some of the common features are:

 

a.) Activity trackers: They are present in almost all such types of applications. An application may use many trackers at a single time. E.g. accelerometer is used to calculate the speed of a person while running, then there are sensors to calculate heart rate, sensors to detect the number of calories burnt, etc.

 

b.) Pre-recorded Exercises: This feature is very useful for people looking for guidance while exercising. Some applications hire trainers to record videos for them while others use animations to guide people.

 

c.) Customization: Some applications allow users to input their personal information such as height, weight, age, and gender and then suggest the best exercise according to their body. People prefer applications that offer this service to avoid any health hazard.

 

 

d.) Setting Goals: Short term achievable goals are a great source of motivation. The accomplishment of these goals gives a feeling of achievement and pride in oneself which further motivates people to achieve more.

 

e.) Notification: Notifications are very important. If you miss a day’s exercise, it is very difficult to do exercise the next day.

 

f.) Music: Some applications such as Apple Fitness+ allow users to listen to music while exercising.

 

g.) Social Media: people love to share their whereabouts with their loved ones through social media. Almost all the new applications have this new feature of sharing on social media.

 

Apart from these, fitness applications have many other features including food tracker, water tracker, multi-device synchronization, live streaming, etc.

 

Cost and Time required to make a Fitness Application

The exact cost and time required to make a fitness application cannot be calculated easily. In order to answer this question, a person must consider a number of factors such as platforms, functionality, features, design, colors, etc. Building an application can be a complex process and the amount and time needed to make such an application is directly proportional to the complexity. If someone wants to create an application like Peloton or Equinox then they should get ready to spend weeks and months in the preparation of such an application.

 

First of all, the developer will need to decide on a design for the interface of the application. This might take some time because it is not an easy choice but this phase does not cost a lot of money. After this, the design is created and this can cost several hundred dollars depending on the agency and location of the developer.

 

After designing the outlook of the application, the developer should focus on the back-end and front-end development. Back-end development is the most crucial process in application creation. All the coding is done here. As the developer is making a fitness training application, he will focus on creating codes and algorithms that will be used in applications such as algorithms for a speed calculator, heartbeat calculator, and the number of calories burnt, etc. All of these require separate detectors. After this, the developer must focus on the content that will be provided by the application which is the material people will use to exercise. This is a process that will not take much time but it will require money. Roughly this development phase needs more than 1000 hours to complete for an application like Peloton or equinox and needs a budget of more than USD 25,000.

 

This completes the creation of the application but it is not yet ready. The developer should test the application for at least 200 hours or more. Although this phase results in the expense of money, it is very important regarding the future reputation of the application. Then there are nominal bugs and errors that require fixation by the developer and the app is ready for the public to use.

 

Conclusion

In a nutshell, fitness applications have become an important part of the lives of the individuals who are habitual of doing home workouts. Companies releasing these applications do a lot of work to make them better and attractive. Most of the applications have material to guide users. Some applications allow users to create a customized exercise plan while applications like Peloton allow users to participate in live exercise sessions. These applications also keep a record of the user’s performance. With the pandemic driving people towards being mindful of a healthy lifestyle fitness apps are growing to grow exponentially in the coming years. Hopefully, we will see updates with AI-based trainers so let’s keep our fingers crossed for more exciting features in the future.