Fitness+ absolutely is encroaching on that subscription workout space, but a physical bike/treadmill and a watch are not competitors. If someone wants a stationary bike they're not going to be shopping for a smart watch.
I would be scared if I ran Peloton. Their entire MO is the ecosystem; you buy the bike, with the integrated tablet, and use their fitness program. Outside of the top 1% who could drop three grand on the Peloton system without blinking, Apple's whole "$500 dirt cheap bike + $300 brand new iPad (that you may already have) + $30/month Apple One Premier" system (that you may already subscribe to) is killer.
Yeah, you can BYOB to Peloton, but Fitness+ (especially as a part of Apple One now) is dirt cheap. At that point, Peloton (and competing products) basically just has to hope that the workout quality in Fitness+ sucks, which isn't likely (this is Apple we're talking about, they rarely half-ass things).
The main drive of Peloton if you aren't buying their bike is the instructors and high quality classes - I struggle to imagine many people would care more about watch integration than class quality, and I don't think Apple will be able to win out on the latter anytime soon.
I would not bet money on Apple losing on class quality, let alone variety.
Also Apple is offering yearly pricing that works out to $6.67/mo...and then there is the bundle which if you are in the ecosystem already essentially makes it a free service...
This is key. How many people would subscribe to Prime TV if they didn’t already have a Prime membership. My guess is not many. Luckily for Netflix people consume enough that it’s not really a killer. But with fitness you probably only need a single provider. That said, I’ve lost confidence in apple’s ability to execute, but this seems like a race they could easily dominate if done right.
You'll be able to go on Amazon and buy [Bike/Treadmill/etc] with "Fitness+ Compatible" that streams wirelessly to your watch/phone.
Then Peleton offers no value add. They're just a treadmill maker charging 250% of their competitors.
This really isn't new at all (Zwift, Trainerroad, Sufferfest, Aaptiv, etc). Hell even today all that Peloton offers over competitors is nice treadmills and a closed/proprietary protocol for integration (unlike those other examples). I do expect that Apple will likely package and market it very thoughtfully for mass-market, which is significant. One could argue that Peloton is also all about its mass-market appeal, which is exactly why we're talking about Peloton and not the enthusiast-oriented brands like Wahoo.
Peloton did also just release a new bike that does work with Apple's GymKit too, so, I don't think it's just the metrics.