There is no downside to leaving the plans on TrainingPeaks, and possibly the only way to deliver plans to athletes. So I’d expect the plans to stay on TP at least until the app supports sending workouts to head units and likely Zwift too.
Putting my lawyer hat on 
that FAQ can be true if you can only subscribe on FasCat website and yet buy ala carte plans on TP.
The text of the FAQ seems to be quite straightforward. On the other hand their training plans are still on sale… If them keeping individual training plans on sale is on purpose, it is a weird way to communicate their new corporate strategy. 
This, right? TP basic still lets you move a workout t today’s date so not the end of the world. Plus you can still get your workouts on your Wahoo. For indoor rides you could use Zwift or maybe a cheap player like TrainerDay. Am I missing something?
Everything you said is correct, but the issue is that your TP calendar will now be out of synch with your Optimize one. I can’t remember where I read it, but as I understand it, you can’t move workouts around in Optimize (yet). I’m not sure if you can ask Support to do that for you or if you have to leave them out of synch.
Is the app in beta?
I don’t think so since it’s they only way you can officially use their product now.
Right. I’ve been playing with JOIN for a few months and it’s really, really solid. The reason I made an impulse buy on Optimize at the Black Friday price was primarily for access to all the training plans at all the levels (Basic = 6-8 hrs/week, Intermediate = 10-12 hrs/week, that sort of thing) along with chat access to coaches via the app for guidance on a big picture plan and some help making adjustments along the way. I definitely plan on using the included 30 days of free coaching to kick it all of, as well. So basically, none of the services I’m using are particularly dependent on the Optimize app itself. I plan on looking at the OTS score and its associated bits with some interest, but that’s about it. I plan to get my money’s worth through the plans and the support.
As far as the app itself, @Pbase makes a great point: if you’re using the app exactly as intended (OTS score telling you whether or not to make adjustments to your planned workout), the app has no way of syncing up with or knowing about any changes you might make. If this app came down the pipeline to me at work, I’d tell them they could sell it all they want, but I’m not putting any of my people on the hook for delivering it. A data service without good data integration is a dicey thing, and good data integration is not an easy or quick thing.
I think the app is worth it for the plans and the coaching support, but their biggest priority really, really needs to be sorting out their marketing communications. It’s quicker and easier than fixing the lack of integration, and will buy them the time they need to fix it.
Have you tried the coaching access thing in Optimize yet? I’m really curious how well it works. I’m not talking about a paid coach, but rather the “free one” that comes with subscribing to Optimize. Asking questions on their forums or Facebook page often go unanswered or get vague answers like “check the FAQ”. Do you get quick access to the coaches/fast answers? For example, can you go in Tuesday morning and say, “I’m feeling pretty wiped out even after a rest day, can you modify my workout today for something less intense?” I recognize that’s asking for a lot, but I’m not clear if the access to coaches thing means “immediately” or “in 48 hours” or something in between.
Thanks again for sharing your experiences as you go!
Haven’t reached out yet because I didn’t want to bother anyone over the holiday weekend, but I will Monday. My guess (aka expectation for the service I paid money for) is that plan modifications would be out of scope for non-1:1 coached users and the chat will get you general guidance on plan selection and modification, and related questions.
Stupid question: what is JOIN?
It’d be great to have some feedback from you in a few months. Given the tumultuous rollout and the added expense, I’ll stick with TR for now. But I’d like to keep my eyes open.
How do you find the experience so far? Have you received any guidance on how to actually use OTS in practice? On one of the latest podcasts (I binged yesterday on a 3-hour MTB ride with my kids in tow) Frank spoke of OTS rides, which I assume is the successor to his prescribed TSS rides (= achieve a target TSS any way you see fit). But e. g. none of the headunits will actually show OTS, just TSS.
Also, how was your experience picking a training plan?
This is a dangerous thing to say without first-hand experience, but from what I have heard so far the app and subscription service seem undercooked. I hope Frank and his crew figure out to minimize the teething pains, and transition their business soon.
The plan subscription is straight out of the playbook from MyProCoach or 8020. Access to all the plans, write into 8020 or MyProCoach when you want to swap plans around etc - all through TrainingPeaks. Both of those coaching/training plan brands still sell plans in the TP plan store.
Framing this as an ‘app launch’ is where they’ve gone wrong, IMO. From what I can see, you don’t need an active subscription to get an OTS score provided you have your data flowing in from Garmin/Whoop/TP or wherever. The subscription is required to be able to choose a plan and add it to your calendar but as mentioned above, having it on your calendar in the app doesn’t do much as you can’t do the workout in app or push the workout to any other device from there either. Net result is that if you already have a Fascat plan (which I imagine would be the case for most of their customers) then you can run with your existing Fascat plan on TP and use the free OTS score on the app. You wouldn’t get access to the ‘coaching support’ but Frank’s answer to everything seems to be a variation of “suck it up and do the work”, so I’m not sure what value that would have for someone following a cookie cutter plan.
Someone mentioned that you can use the Optimize app without subscribing. I downloaded it and this morning it has picked up my HRV, OTS (I assume…it’s zero, but I didn’t workout yesterday), and Load scores (through Garmin Connect), but the Sleep score shows up as yesterday, so today it’s blank on the top left of the screen. Is that normal? It seems like the overall Optimization Score will be wrong as a result because the sleep is lagging. Am I misunderstanding?
Its hard to believe this has been released with an ios app only. Theres no android version available.
Android version has been out for at least week. I just downloaded it yesterday and even without subscribing, I was able to pull in my Garmin data. Granted, it’s a small sample size so nothing to work off of, but seems to be working.
Since you’re in the same situation as me, would you take a quick look at my sleep question?
Periodically, it gets the HRV but not the sleep score. Early in the app, it got sleep but not HRV. Frank said that it has been fixed whenever the next version comes out. FWIW.
My app was able to pull down my sleep data, but again, it was my first night using it so not sure if I got lucky or if it’s working straight up.
Thanks. I’m trying to figure out if that score is todays score showing up as yesterday or if that is yesterdays score and it didn’t pull anything today.
