ype of Fitness Apps # 1. Workout Apps
Workout apps are for people who want assistance in sports training or strength exercises. Workout scheduler apps, personal workout apps, and fitness tracking apps are the types that come under the workout apps umbrella. These apps deliver content in many different forms, such as videos, GIFs, audio tracks, 3D models, text descriptions, and much more. Many workout apps leverage sensor data, such as GPS, heart rate, etc.
Image Source: Dribble
# 2. Diet and Nutrition tracking Apps
Diet and nutrition apps cost less than workout apps, and are very simple to develop unless you are planning to incorporate video lectures or recipes. The user can leverage these apps to stay in-tune with their diet and nutrition plan. These apps can co-exist with workout apps. They complement workout apps by helping users with their diet plans.
Source: Pinterest
# 3. Activity Tracking Apps
Activity tracking apps are quite different from traditional workout apps. They track daily physical activity, such as steps, sleep quality, calories burned, and many other activities. These apps come in handy to users that want to keep track of their mental and physical health.
#4. Yoga and Meditation Apps
Many times people relate yoga and meditation apps with spirituality, which isn’t untrue. However spirituality is not solely what these apps are about. In fact, these apps are focused on physical health and mindfulness. Mostly, these apps contain video speeches, images, and GIFs to make it easy for users to learn yoga and meditation.
Current Market Scenario
Marketwatch estimates that the global Fitness app market revenue will grow to $1.68 billion, with a forecasted CAGR of almost 12% during the period 2020-2024.
The analysis considers sales from different segments, including lifestyle monitoring, health monitoring, and other health and fitness-related apps. The study also found that in 2019, the lifestyle monitoring app segment had the highest share in the market. The high market share was due to the popularity of workout apps and diet and nutrition apps.
How to develop a Fitness App – the process Create an App Monetization Plan
Not all fitness apps are directly focused on earning money via an advertisement or subscription. Apps like Nike run are merely for branding and to sell merchandise. Some other fitness apps are designed to support fitness tracking devices (i.e. Fitbit). Be it whatever the purpose, the ROI parameters should be taken care of while developing a fitness app MVP (minimum viable product). This will help you verify the feasibility of your app idea in the early stages.
Hire Experienced Developers
The quality of the fitness app depends on the people (developers) behind the development process. I recommend that you at least hire UI/UX designers that have created health or fitness apps in the past. However, procuring an in-house development team for your fitness app development will be a costly affair that will consume a lot of your time.
Hence, it is a smart choice to hire a software development agency partner that has experience in developing fitness apps. Outsourcing the development process to a reliable partner will help you put more focus on other essential aspects of the fitness app launch. You can create your app marketing strategy and strengthen your monetization plan whilst your development partner creates your fitness app.
The Development Process
Whether you’re developing your fitness app in-house or outsourcing the development process, you must have your product detailed requirement document in place. Once, you’ve created the document, you can share it with your development team/partner, and they’ll start developing.
I recommend you to choose the Agile development methodology if you think your requirement document may require some tweaks in the future. The agile methodology makes use of several sprints in which the app is developed. The following are the typical development phases for fitness app development:
The inception/initiation phase is where you collaborate with the development team and define the scope of work, project roadmap, and plan sufficient resources with a set budget.