New Review: Podfitness
Wednesday December 13, 2006
In the spirit of the holiday season and the fact that you may still be wracking your brain trying to figure out what to get someone for the holidays, I have an idea for you...a subscription to Podfitness. This only works if the person wants a) customized workouts, b) workouts they can download to their iPod and c) workouts mixed with their own music.
Podfitness is an interesting concept, allowing you to choose a trainer or activity and get a customized workout based on your goals, fitness level and equipment. The interesting part is that the workout is mixed with your own music, which is kind of awesome. There are a few drawbacks, so make sure you check out my review to get the details and find out if this is the right choice either for you or your loved one.
Comments
I recently signed up with Podfitness via an ad I saw in Bicycle mag…a free month. So I tried it for a couple weeks, but found my computer had to be cleared of its cookies each time I tried to visit the site. That was strange. I mainly signed up for the Yoga instructor who works with Jennifer Aniston. She was not on the trainers list. I emailed Podfitness and they stated they were working to put her on as a trainer. That took a while…but it is still not working correctly. I had a couple other issues, and decided to cut my losses and cancel with a couple weeks to spare on my 30 day FREE trial. Well, they immediatly billed me for $19.95. I contacted them and they did reverse the charges. I think this concept is a good idea, but they have a few bugs to work out if you ask me. Wish they offered video workouts you could download to the computer or Ipods that display videos. That would be great. I give them 3 out of 5 stars.
Thanks so much for sharing your experience with Podfitness. I had some problems logging into the site as well at first, but that seemed to clear up over time. I did speak with Alan, the VP, and he’s aware of some problems users are having and is working on new updates as we speak. Hopefully, some of these problems will be solved soon. You’re right that they do need to make some tweaks to make the site more user friendly.
Thanks for your thorough review. I signed up for the 10 day free trial. You say in your review that you can use almost any mp3 player. How? I have 2 non-iPods and I can’t figure out how to get the workout file onto either one of them.
Just a note to everyone: It would be nice if it wasn’t so gym focused. I created a workout for “running” and it’s all about making adjustments to the treadmill settings. That doesn’t really help me on outdoor runs. ; )
Hi, Jen. You make a great point – the cardio workouts are on gym machines. If you’re having trouble using your MP3 players, definitely contact customer service at Podfitness – they should be able to answer your questions.
Well I tried the 10 day trial as well but canceled due to technological difficulties. Every time I tried to get my workout to “mix”, my computer would send me error messages. It simply wouldnt work. Also, I signed up mainly because podfitness had advertised that Jeff Galloway was one of the trainers and I could get workouts for 10K, marathon, etc. Well, I couldnt. He wasn’t even listed once I got into the website after registration. I am sure podfitness will soon get Jeff Galloway and they are “in the process” but its still reeks of false advertising to me. I love the concept of podfitness. This is my third attempt over the last 6 months trying to get it to work. The program is simply too buggy though.
Sorry to hear about your troubles, Sarah. I work for Podfitness, and just wanted to share a couple of quick things that might be helpful.
Because Podfitness is accessed online, problems like you describe when mixing workouts are often caused by firewalls and antivirus software that block access to our mixer.
To fix this, just adjust the settings of your firewall/antivirus program to allow internet access for Podfitness and iTunes. Users can always contact our tech support for help in doing this.
As for Jeff Galloway, we’ve tried to make it clear that his content is coming soon, so sorry for the confusion there. Sometimes the marketing gets ahead of things a little
.
Hope that information is helpful.
What a dumb product..it has pod in the title and they are not compatible with Mac. They have said it is coming soon for months..what liars.
Russ,
I need your help. I’ve been fighting with the “Mixer” since the upgrade. My virus and firewall are shut down and it still doesn’t work. I have talked to Dave & Jase many, many times and, as nice as they are, they have been no help at all. Every time I call, I have to repeat every step that we have gone through. I would think that a “note page” would be kept for every paying member. The charges to my account have been suspended. However, I would rather be paying and getting the service. I try to have someone higher up in the ranks to contact me but it has never happend. WHY???????
I’m just starting in on my trial period too and so far I like what I see. As with everyone else, I’ve got a like a billion suggestions for improvement places but I think this will be a useful tool for me. I’m already a very motivated person when it comes to lifting weights but I ***hate*** cardio and thus think having someone “talk me” though my cardio will make it less painful.
I signed up for the free trial, and while there was a small learning curve i was able to mix my workouts without any trouble. I’m not a gym person, but the encouragement definitely made this worthwhile. I thin i will use this for months, if not years to come.
Hi all
I am xrumer, where is my topic?!
It is simple a testing
Its nice to know I’m not just a picky software tester by trade who is having problems with the site. Its totally unreasonable to expect customers who are paying 20.00 a month to clear cookies so you can develop software as you get money from subscriptions. It works horribly with IE7 and Mozilla. I get cryptic unhandled exceptions tossed in my face, the trainer names are cut off, missing images for work outs, female voices when I choose a male trainer, a treadmill workout that doesn’t go over 2.5 miles an hour after I’ve dialed the intesity to 8, come on folks, get with the program. If I had told you how much of my software tesing salary was spent testing your site for free, You would owe me a good year’s subscription. I emailed Leigh C. directly after she did a podcast promoting the site taht she offered her voice for telling her what a rip off. I appreciate being forwarded to this important “VP” but its no excuse not to have a site up and working for your customers BEFORE you market it and draw people in with a challenge waving 50K in front of their face. Who, the end of your Spokesperson search challenge, would even want to speak for such a crappy site?
I recently signed up for this service, and so far it does not work. My iTunes and iPod are both connected and loaded with mp3s and playlists, but the podfitness client never “sees” these files or any playlists. As soon as I click the “mix” button I get an error message saying I have to select a playlist, which never loads. Thus, I cannot mix a workout. This issue is not documented on support pages, nor is it clearly explained on support pages how podfitness reads files off of either iTunes or the iPod. It would be a lot easier if there were a basic upload client that let us upload mp3s than some mystery interface with itunes that doesn’t seem to have any configuration options. I have tried reinstalling the client a couple of times, reading their support pages, and then finally e-mailing support@podfitness.com, and an “escalate to chat” feature. After 4 days, no one has responded to my e-mail. The last time I tried the chat, it was displaying a “no one’s available” message. Prior to that, no one would answer my chat window for hours. I appreciate the heads’ up about how they will probably have the nerve to charge my credit card so I can block the charge. I would also appreciate some more e-mail addresses of people who work at this company so I can get the support I need.
Judith, I’ve never had that problem but I continue to have problems where all of my workouts are called Day 1 despite having used the system for 3 weeks. I also get no trainer voices, only the assistant trainer voice. This site has a LONG way to go until its worth 20.00 a month that its charging.
Logging on to the podfitness web site is horrible. I’d really like this product to work…but it is awfully buggy. Suggestion to Podfitness – hire a QA team!
I have to agree. When mixing my workouts it will get stuck indefinitely at 33% and then stop. The system thinks when I go back in that I have finished a workout and moves on the next one. There is no way of going back into your workout “history” and re-doing a workout. These things seem like no brainers, but the interface is not the most user friendly. Great Concept though.
I just signed up for Podfitness this week. I love the concept, but like most everyone here, I’m having problems mixing. The trainer’s voices are not combining with my selected playlist on the first try. I have to try any where from 2 to 7 times to make the voices merge with my music. When I questioned it via the live chat and a support e-mail, they were kind of flippant in their answers, mentioning things like my Norton may be blocking it, I checked that, no it isn’t, or I need to repeat the starting of the Pod Mixer. Also, both reps acted like they’ve never seen issues with this before, but now I see quite a few folks are having issues. Before I would recommend this to my friends, Podfitness has to perform more smoothly. Get the bugs fixed, or at least manageable.
Sorry you are all having these problems .. We do appreciate any feedback you can give us to make the experience more enjoyable. You can send comments and suggestions to csfeedback@podfitness.com also you can contact us @ 1-888-4PODFIT Monday-Friday 7am to 10pm(MST) and Saturday 10am to 2pm(MST)or you can always e-mail us at support@podfitness.com
I love Podfitness! I’ve had a few issues here and there but e-mailed customer support and solved the problem. I had some itunes purchased music in my playlist that couldn’t be mixed, but I figured out how to solve that. I also had some McAffee anti-virus issues. I wasn’t even using it anymore and it was screwing up my mixes! The support guy helped me get it off my computer and now everything’s working great. Once you’ve learned how to use the program it’s awesome. I’m currently doing some Jeanette Jenkins treadmill and it’s really fun to hear her tell me what to do while listening to my own music. I’ve also been told that they are going to launch a new web interface that’s supposed to be a lot better. I can’t wait!
I signed up for a trial and have been very pleased. I’ve experienced some minor technical problems but have found the tech support chat to be very helpful. Any exercises or equipment I am not sure of, I’ve found examples else where on the internet. I love that the sessions mix with my music. I like the “improve your workout feature” but wish it came up after each workout. I hope there are some improvements such as previewing the workout. Or the ability to shuffle around the music so I could better match intensity to songs. But overall I’m thrilled!
I signed up for a free trial. i love this product. It keeps me motivated and wanting to workout. i havent had any of the problems reported here. I think its amazing!!
What a rip off! Podfitness billed my account and then wouldn’t cancel it. The “training” sessions are terrible for anyone that knows a thing about fitness. Stay away!!
I share you pains unfortunately. I rcently bought a new ipod nano and a new laptop with vista x64 bit, which podfitness support said might be the problem. I also tried deleting Norton altogether and add itunes and podfitness to my “allow” list but still keep getting the error message: “podmixer has stopped working”. I know this program did work when i was using it on my boyfriends computer (win xp), but then the only problem is that syncing my ipod to that computer erased all my music but kept the podfitness workout session. UUGGHH! So i decided to keep my music and trash the workout for now. i sure Podfitness gets an I.T. group to work on this asap! losing a lot of business for a great idea. I hope when they fix it all that they contact all there previous users with upgrades, so we can use the program. better yet hire some kid hackers or computer geeks and i bet they would have this up and running in a week!