Source: Apple.
On December 15, Apple is expanding Fitness+ to 28 new markets, including Chile, Hong Kong, India, Japan, the Netherlands, Singapore, and Taiwan, which will more than double the number of places with access to the service. The company is also dubbing fitness classes into Spanish, German, and Japanese, with the first two languages coming December 15, and Japanese dubbing coming early next year. K-Pop is being added as a new music genre to the service, too.
The dubbing of fitness classes into Spanish, German, and Japanese sounds like it’s using the same tech found in the Apple Watch’s Workout Buddy feature, which uses a generated voice based on existing instructors’ voices:
To help make Fitness+ even more welcoming to users around the world, the service is introducing digitally dubbed versions of workouts and meditations in Spanish and German, with Japanese dubbing to follow early next year alongside the availability of the service in Japan. The dubbed workouts and meditations feature a generated voice based on the actual voice of each of the 28 Fitness+ trainers.
I’ve been using Workout Buddy ever since watchOS 26 launched, and at least in English, the voices work well.
Last month, Mark Gurman wrote in his newsletter that Fitness+ was under review and might be folded into a broader health service. It may have been the case that the service was under review, but with the expansion into 49 total countries and the addition of new features, it appears that Apple has concluded Fitness is worth keeping as a standalone subscription.