The Week #87 jamesvandyne.com

@jamesvandyne Also found myself doing the math for Apple Premium Plus One Extra Super in the past weeks. Still can’t justify, but I’m already paying for the 2TB for years. One day I’ll cave in.

@maique @jamesvandyne I wish there was a tier that included News+, but not Fitness+ for a bit cheaper. I’ve debated getting an Apple Watch but not sure I want to anymore so Fitness seems pointless without one.

@pimoore Indeed. I have no need for the fitness service, and News isn’t even available here. Makes it harder to find a reason to subscribe.

@pimoore My thought on this is Fitness+ is a nice throw in for everything else I get for the Premier plan. News+ falls in the same category.

@skoobz My question is does Fitness+ have any use without an Apple Watch?

@pimoore It’s definitely optimized for it, if anything.

@pimoore @skoobz yeah, this is the bummer part -- you need the Apple Watch to use it. :(

@rom @skoobz If I could use an Apple Watch completely independently without ever needing a phone, this would be a much more appealing scenario. I would ditch a phone entirely without hesitation, and be all in on Apple Fitness.

I don’t want to supplement my phone, I want to be rid of it entirely if I could do everything from my wrist instead.

@JMaxB Yeah, I’m no longer holding my breath.

@pimoore @skoobz well, good luck with that. I highly doubt that that will happen - unless the Apple Watch can be tethered to a portable battery to last the entire day with all those phone functions. :)

@pimoore I wanted to do cellular watch + ipad...but you have to pair/activate with a phone instead of ipad.

@toddgrotenhuis Well that’s just stupid, and is Apple’s way of making sure you buy both, obviously.

@rom @skoobz Honestly I don’t even need or want phone functions on a watch, I rarely make calls on my iPhone as it is. I just want the other communication apps like Messages, which is where I live outside of Micro.blog of course.

@pimoore I use Apple Fitness+ without an Apple Watch nearly every day. Works fine. You just don’t see your real-time metrics on screen.

@agilelisa Interesting, that would not be feasible if I was lifting weights to have my phone on me, but I wouldn’t anyway. Maybe I’ll poke around at what’s available without a watch.

@agilelisa @pimoore I think you might need the watch to activate Fitness+? My daughter uses it frequently without a watch, but the app only showed up when she briefly paired with an old watch we had lying around

@mroutley @agilelisa Well, shit. 😆

@mroutley @pimoore Wow, that's so strange! (that you need an Apple watch at least once to get Fitness+ to work) But it could be true as I used to wear an Awatch and I know I did Apple Fitness from this iPad then. I wear a Fitbit Sense currently because I participate in a COVID study and they gave it to me!