this is how you use Fitness Plus in the Netherlands and Belgium

Fitness + has already taken off in English-speaking countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. It has not yet been said when it will start in the Netherlands and Belgium, but luckily you can already try it. You need a US iTunes account with enough credit to pay for the first month. You will also need to change your App Store account. It’s not complicated if you want to put in the effort. You can read everything that is involved in this guide. With January and good intentions on the way, now is the time to start!

Required for Apple Fitness + in the Netherlands

To use Fitness + in the Netherlands you need the following:

If you want to use Apple TV, you must also be signed in with US iTunes account, otherwise it won’t work. You can also send content from your iDevice to your TV screen with AirPlay.

Instead of a US account, you can also use an account in one of the other supported countries, namely Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, or the UK. Your payment method must therefore be adapted to this country.

How do I get App Store credit? We bought credit from livecards.nl for $ 10, but it was a pretty hit and miss choice. Make sure you are working with a reliable party, as there are a lot of bogus suppliers out there as well. Unfortunately, well-known addresses such as Startselect only offer Dutch iTunes cards. You must have a gift card valid in one of the countries mentioned, for example the US App Store.

But the trial month is free, right?
That’s right, but to be eligible for the free trial month, you’ll need to sign up for a tracking subscription. Make sure to keep an eye on your subscription expiration so you can cancel in time at the end of the trial month. Apple will send you a reminder about this as well. You can also cancel immediately after the trial month ends, but that can also cancel your trial month. We haven’t been able to test this yet, so if you want to cancel now, you do so at your own risk.

Log in and get started with Fitness +

Once you’ve taken care of everything, you’ll need to change your App Store account. This is done as follows:

1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.
2. Tap your account photo at the top.
3. Press on Media and purchasing.
4. Press on Sign out.
5. Log in with your US account (this is the second option, Not ‘your name’).
6. Do you have an iPad? Then download the Fitness app from the App Store. On an iPhone, open the Fitness app, which already exists by default.
7. An additional tab will now appear at the bottom of the app, called Aptitude.

Do you have a mistake? We have also suffered from it a few times. Restart the app or your device until you can connect to the server.

We didn’t have to adjust regions, language settings, or addresses to make it all work. The US Apple ID is of course at a US address and has a US iTunes gift card or payment method associated with it, but if you’ve already set it up correctly for your account, you don’t need to do anything. You also don’t need to adjust any settings on your Apple Watch.

Exercise with Fitness +

Fitness + offers you different options. At the top of the screen, you can see the different sports that you can choose from. All content is of course in English, but this is precisely the reason why Apple has yet to officially release it in the Netherlands and Belgium. Select a sport or scroll down to view workouts for beginners. You can also filter by duration and trainer name.

Exercise with an Apple Watch

Do you wear an Apple Watch? Then it will automatically start recording a workout when starting a fitness video. It worked perfectly for us with a cycling training, but we haven’t been able to test it with all the variations yet.

You can see your current heart rate on the screen of iPhone or iPad. If there is an interval where you need to exercise an extra 30 seconds, for example, you’ll see a timer on all of your screens, so on iPhone, iPad, Apple TV and / or Apple Watch.

Several Fitness + users, is this possible?

We only have one US iTunes account, which is not part of a family. This allowed the two of them to each do their own training, without being disturbed by each other. This is because you actually use two Apple IDs: the US Apple ID to purchase the subscription and your personal Apple ID for your personal information and progress. When using Fitness +, you can see which person is active on the account photo.

If you want to use Fitness + on a shared iPad, you’ve got a problem. You’d better use your own device each.

Fitness + supports family sharing, so if you already have a US iTunes account with the whole family, you can use it with 6 people. But you probably don’t need this guide.

Cons of using Fitness + “ unofficially ”

There are two downsides to using Fitness + before its official launch:

• Everything is in English, but that won’t be a problem for a few people.
• You should always switch to your US iTunes account if you want to exercise.

You can still stay signed in to your US account, but any purchases you make will go through your US credit. Services that you’ve already subscribed to, like Apple Music and Apple Arcade, will suddenly stop working. You will therefore have to change your App Store account each time. What always works is making iCloud backups through your own account.