If you do not have a Peloton machine, you may not be happy for a while because of the company logistics issues. But whether you have a bike or treadmill in your home, you can still benefit from the latest feature in the Peloton app. That is, if you own an iPhone or iPad.
Peloton’s deployment of new software features for users of its fitness classes on demand and owners of its workout machines continue to worry me, but the features themselves are actually good. Example: a beta scheduling feature introduced today in the Peloton iOS app. Schedules is a tool you have been asking for for a long time, with which you can set up two calendar calendars, live or on demand. For on-demand workouts, you will see a new schedule button below the class description (where the Stacks button is at the interface of the Peloton website) and you can select a day and time. You will receive a notification when your class is about to start. See below for screenshots of what the process entails.
This is amazing! So helpful! People who use Peloton are usually a little hardcore to create an optimal workout, and this feature makes it easier for them to plan weeks of classes. It’s a type A’s dream. But it is also useful for those who need a little encouragement – to allow themselves to take a class and invite a friend to participate, eliminate some of the excuses to to practice.
The social feature is not the same as Peloton’s first software beta attempt, another social feature called Sessions that allowed you and a friend to take classes at exactly the same time. Instead, it’s more of a link-sharing exercise – you’re sending a link to a friend to class using the iOS share page, which you could already do. But the invitation also includes the day and time you plan to take the class, and your friends can add it to their own schedules. (Sessions has received good feedback in beta, but has since been shut down. A Peloton spokesman told me he could not confirm an official release date for a Sessions launch.)
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This brings me back to the way Peloton is introducing new features. It’s great to listen to subscriber feedback, and I know from my Reddit dives that Peloton members really want a scheduling tool. But like the recent addition of Stacks, a feature that allows you to create a workout playlist, but only on the Peloton website or on a Peloton machine, the Schedules tool is so limited. It seems like it’s an easy feature to expand widely, and it’s one that people have been complaining about, so it’s a shame to only like iOS (even just for now). And the fact that you can make stacks and schedules separately, but you can not set up a schedule of stacks, is bizarre! One platform platform calendar tool would be ideal.
I have not tested schedules yet, but if it is easier than bookmarking individual classes and struggling to remember what I wanted to take this week, I would suggest that I be wholeheartedly on board with this addition.
The beta feature is part of an app update that appears in the App Store today and is open to all Peloton subscribers.