charlesn
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Peloton abandons Apple's GymKit health data sharing platform
As a Peleton owner, it pains me to say this, but I'm not at all sure that it can remain in business. I don't know if you follow the company financially, but it's in fairly desperate financial straits. And despite a revolving door of new leaders with different plans for revitalizing the company, the death spiral continues apace. I don't disagree with your very positive comments about Peleton's products and its people--my experience has been the same. But I tend to think the explosive growth it experienced during the pandemic--followed by a collapse in growth as the pandemic ebbed--is what did it in. Peleton wasn't--and really couldn't have been--properly prepared for either event.9secondkox2 said:Peleton is a phenomenal company. Their products (and services) are top-notch.
I had read so many derogatory things. on forums about them by people who don't own their products and then one day I was in an AZ mall looking at the Lucid Air. As I walked out, I saw a Pelotonn store. Didn't even know they had retail stores. As a fitness buff, I decided "Why not?' and went inside just for the fun. of it. After trying out the bike and the. treadmill, I was impressed. The manager answered my questions with aplomb and it was quite shocking to see the quality of services on offer. Far better than the Apple or Nike offerings.
After that, I decided to always judge for myself and not what some agenda-riddled post, article, or whatever had to say. It's a lot like what Apple has to endure actually. How many doomsday news articles, TV shows, etc. have Apple had to put up with? I've lost count. Same with Peloton.
They are the Apple of the fitness world, both in quality of product and service as well as with unjust criticism. Any company trying to succeed will get knocked down, but the get back up, learn from it, and get better. I think this describes not only Apple but Peloton as well.
I never even heard of Peleton until some commercial came along where a beautiful woman was gifted a Peleton. Then the backlash-"oh my gosh! how dare they make it seem like that lady needs to exercise! How dare she be in that commercial, body shaming other women!" And on it went. As if exercise was a bad thing or inspiring others. to get healthy was morally repugnant. LOL
Back in the day, I was a WinTel guy, building computers for myself and everyone else and laughing at Apple all the way. I'd worked for HP, ATT, and Verizon, and thought Apple was crap. A joke. Then one day a friend of mine who was a pastor challenged me on a project, saying he wasn't even a "tech guy" and he could do what I was doing in half the time thanks to Apple's OS and software. In the end, my entire team was shocked. So. I bought a Mac to test. Fell in love with the thing and ditched the WinTel world, only coming back occasionally when a friend or client desperately needed it. If I had stayed listening to the news or tech pundits, I would never have discovered this vastly superior way of computing life.
I feel it's the same with Peleton. Everywhere I turn, I hear something negative, but it's not substantiated. It's always, "Well, they had this disaster years ago" or "They're just the devil" or something along those lines. As if no other great company has had disasters or values that don't align with someone else. Heck, some of Apple's values boggle my mind, but it doesn't detract that they're the best at what they do.
When I first saw this. article's headline, I thought "Bummer. Peleton is removing Apple Watch functionality. Then I saw that they. just using theirs. own Apple Watch app to overcome Apple's limitation on not beignn able to do mixed-focus workouts. It's fine. It's still on the Watch. It's just more theirs now and more capable than what Apple was offering. That's fine. Better even. As I do strength training and cardio together, it's baffling that Apple hasn't recognized this limitation and upgraded their app.
Peleton is stepping up where Apple is uncharacteristically lagging with the Fitness+ limitations.
This may end up a. double win for Peleton actually, considering the rumors that Apple wants to start selling exercise hardware. Peleton gets the added benefit of not feeding a competitor free R&D info. Win for customers and win for Peleton. Everything is great in the end.
As for what's next--I can't think of any company who'd buy them. The downward financial spiral, major layoffs, crashing stock price, changes in leadership and product recalls/QC issues have all served to damage the brand. Apple certainly doesn't need Peleton to enter the fitness hardware space if that's what it wants to do. And I'd argue that an all-new Apple Bike, Treadmill, etc. would have far more cachet, excitement and marketing appeal than a Peleton by Apple reboot. And since Apple Fitness already serves up fitness classes, it would simply need to beef up those offerings.
Hey--I really hope Peleton can figure out how to survive, but I'm not very optimistic. Every turnaround plan thus far has failed.
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Jon Stewart became a problem for Apple TV+
Apple wouldn't greenlight half the shows it does if "ratings" were the coin of the realm for its decisions. Prestige, originality, global appeal and content that reflects well on the Apple brand are all important drivers of greenlight decisions, and having Jon on Apple TV+ ticked those boxes. It's not that viewership numbers are entirely unimportant, but Apple's streaming decisions, in particular, do not follow industry norms. And considering the budgets for its scripted shows, especially in the sci-fi genre, the budget for a talk show like The Problem had to be more like a rounding error in what Apple spends on productions. What would NOT sit well with Apple, especially in an election year, is controversy. I'm sure it doesn't want its products boycotted and "cancelled" by either red or blue America. It doesn't want a Bud Light redux on its hands. It probably also doesn't want China, its #1 market in the world, targeted for criticism in a show that it pays to produce, or to have AI taken to task when it's racing to establish its own foothold in this area. So it seems most plausible that Apple and Jon couldn't agree on the future of the show. I mean, c'mon--is there any question as to which direction his return to the Daily Show will be leaning... heavily?stompy said:
This. Underperforming shows get cancelled. Apple prefers to move on rather than discuss failures.entropys said:Perhaps the show didn’t meet its viewing targets?
It isn’t as though Stewart would admit that, and Apple will say nothing. It is most likely the wrong kind of platform for such a show. At least at this time.
For all its warm n' fuzzy marketing, Apple stands on business at the end of the day. It plays ball to the degree it must with Xi in China, human rights be damned. And it recently issued a "move or get fired" ultimatum to its workers in San Diego regarding plans to transfer their dept to Austin, TX. Perhaps no big deal if you're a guy... but Apple women lose bodily autonomy and reproductive freedom in that move. Kind of a huge deal. Doesn't matter to Apple... move or lose your job.
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What's the value of Apple's Vision Pro spatial computing?
Worth remembering:9secondkox2 said:I’m excited Apple has put the effort in, but I do wish they didn’t launch until they got the tech distilled into something much more livable.
The Macbook Air, despite the wow factor of Steve's envelope demo, was initially slammed as a rich person's "toy" -- too expensive, too slow, too limited in storage and battery life to be taken seriously as a "real" laptop. The tech caught up to the promise in later years and by then, Apple owned the market for ultralight laptops.
The Apple Watch, when originally introduced, couldn't do much of anything beyond telling time on its own--for any real functionality, it had to be tethered to your iPhone, which had to be with you. Which begged the question: if I have my iPhone in my pocket, why do I need this watch? The "killer use case," lol, was that you wouldn't need to take your phone out of your pocket to check emails, messages, etc, if you were in a meeting. But the tech caught up to the promise, Apple Watch is now a completely independent device and it's killer use case--health tracking--wasn't even a thing at the time it was released.
The lesson learned: the tech always catches up to initial deficiencies. What's important is to get it out there so you can define and own the market for that device. I have no doubt that Vision Pro will one day--and probably A LOT sooner than we think--be a pair of fairly ordinary looking glasses. I mean, c'mon--did you think we were close to seeing a pair of wireless headphones as tiny as Airpods until they burst on the scene?
ALSO; with regard to Daniel's typically superb column, I had to pull out this quote:
They really feel like it should cost half as much, be half as big, and do a lot of things Apple never said it would. This is evergreen Apple criticism.
Truer words have never been written!
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Fake LastPass password manager app unearthed on Apple's App Store
Without knowing any further details other that what's reported here, this calls into serious question what Apple's review process involves. There is nothing tricky or slyly deceptive going on here that would make it hard to spot--this an egregious, couldn't-be-more-blatant attempt to steal passwords via the almost primitive method of faking a well-known app by changing a letter in its name. And if Apple can't catch THIS in review, what else is getting by them?
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Phil Schiller warns third-party app stores are a risk to iPhone users
For which ZERO data exists to support this. ZERO. But hey, I'll humor your stupidity, so let's play this out: wouldn't the "vast majority of users who had no idea" be shocked and furious when they found out that they were "walled in" by Apple with no way to get out? Wouldn't they reject ever making an iPhone purchase again? Wouldn't they be spreading the word to all their clueless friends who also had "no idea" and were about to make an iPhone purchase? And wouldn't all those friends be rushing to Android to avoid the prison into which Apple was duping them into stumbling unaware? Yeah, except absolutely NONE of that is happening. Apple, with its "too expensive" prices and walled garden into which it is duping the world's population continues to earn around 85% of ALL global smartphone profits, leaving every other handset maker scrambling to grasp whatever tiny share of the crumbs that are left. And, amazingly according to you, this is all based on people not realizing what they're buying... for the past 16 YEARS and counting. Wow, word of Apple's nefarious deeds must travel VERY slowly. But you just keep screaming into the void.avon b7 said:
They do not do that, simply because the vast majority of users have no idea of the restrictions Apple imposes.charlesn said:
The user DOES decide at the point of purchase. Don't like the walled garden? Great! Don't buy into it! There's an entire world of Android phones, with far more variety than Apple offers, from which you can choose. People who buy Apple products CHOOSE the walled garden. And what you're saying is that they have no right to make that choice.avon b7 said:The whole point is choice.
It can swing both ways but the user must decide, not Apple (or not only Apple at least).
