Apple Fitness+ future under review, should you prepare for a cancellation?

Is Apple Fitness+ going to stick around, or is the health service simply not profitable enough to continue offering? Apple insider Mark Gurman, in his newsletter Power On, says that Apple Fitness+ is unlikely to be shut down, but it may actually face some internal pressure in the near future.

Apple Fitness+ likely here to stay

While Fitness+ isn’t exactly a cash cow for Apple, the service has enough users that its cancellation would result in a lot of negative press coverage and online backlash. As Gurman argues, Apple can’t shut down Fitness+ because the bad publicity would be more damaging to the company than the resources being drained by the service itself.

Fitness+ under pressure to improve

However, it’s not all rainbows and sunshine for Apple Fitness+. Sumbul Desai — Head of Apple Health — is adding Apple Fitness+ to her portfolio, and will now be reporting to Eddy Cue, the Services Chief at Apple.

Gurman believes that this new arrangement might mean that Fitness+ will be under pressure to improve its results. The service may be marketed a lot more heavily now. Or, what I think is more likely, Fitness+ will start picking up a lot more helpful features, organically driving sales.

Should you prepare for a cancellation?

As Gurman says, it’s very unlikely that Apple is going to cancel Fitness+. The monetary benefit would be insignificant, and will probably be immediately offset by the negative publicity surrounding the event.

Fitness+ isn’t to everyone’s liking. The quirks that some users love are disliked by others, for example. What Apple can do is start offering a variety of approaches to its programs across Fitness+, to draw in as many people as possible.

However, if the service starts getting better and attracting more fitness enthusiasts, we might also see an increase in its $10 monthly subscription fee. According to Gurman, the service isn’t producing any real financial gains for Apple, and I fear that may be reflected by a price hike in the future.

If that does happen, Apple will have to walk a very fine line between the new services it is offering, and how much it’s charging all the new people signing up.