Health Apps for iPhone

What is New in the Area of Health Apps for iPhone

Well, I have always been a believer that the iPhone offers a very versatile platform for tracking your exercise, your biking, walking, running…etc health related endeavors we all have.  As you know from this blog postings – I tried the Apple Watch and was rather frustrated with its lack of good repeatable measurements.  At the same time the iPhone has been relatively solid performer with a slew of applications – e.g. (in no particular order):

Earlier last week during the holidays, I decided to figure out how I can aggregate all the apps tracking information via the Apple Health application – why?  because I wanted to track all my walking, jogging, biking, hiking exercise as an aggregate.

Apple iPhone Health App

Apple iPhone Aggregation point

Apple iPhone

Next level of detail

So I tried to accomplish that.  Took me a while to figure out what applications actually interface with the Apple Health app.  

Well, turns out all of the apps have gaps in their ability to synch up with the main Health app

So I am using Argus, Bike+(b+), MountainBike-Pro, and Under Armor Record – all of these applications have the ability to measure relatively accurately the distance, steps, calories, miles of walking, hiking, biking,  BUT – there is the big disappointment – they all have gaps in their ability to interface, synch and feed into the iPhone Health app.

Here is the summary of what I have found so far:

Under Armor Record

The Under Armor Dashboard

 

Under Armor’s Record is the application which allows you to capture your Hiking, Walking and Biking exercise – but when I tried to synch up and connect the app with iPhone Health – I was able to, the apps connected – but I was only able to get the walking results into the Health app.

Why?

I could not tell…!

I tried all sort of options – but NO luck with getting the biking info into the aggregation app.

 

Under-Armor-Record

Dashboard for a ride on Under-Armor-Record

Here is the information from the Under Armor Record application – it properly captured the exercise info but no luck getting it into the Health App

The other issue that i found, although I would say that is a smaller issue as it only relates to how calories are counted.

The Under Armor Record captured my biking distance and calories at a much lower level vs what both Argus and MountainBike Pro recorded.

Again – no big deal as it just means one of them is more accurate – who knows.

 

Here are the other two (Argus, MountainBike Pro):

Argus Mountain Bike

Summary of a ride on Argus Mountain Bike

MountainBike Pro

Summary of a ride with MountainBike Pro

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, net-net, Argus injected the information of calories into the Health App, Under Armor Record injected the Walking data, and the actual Cycling info from all three Apps (Argus, MountainBike Pro, Under Armor Record) never made it in…!  Very frustrating.  Next few days I will try Bike+(b+) to see if it will feed into the Health App – it is supposed to….!  I want to find the way to get all my excise data / results into one place….and I will find a way  to do it.

Will report on my progress in the next posting…

Apple – What is Going On

Apple – What is the issue with their new products?

This blog is focused on mountain biking and all things related to that activity.  Nevertheless, from time to time, I tend to post on some adjacent observations and/or topics.  This time it is Apple TV.  Earlier in the Spring, Summer, and Fall of 2015 I wrote several articles about my experiences with Apple Watch – and more specifically how it applied (or did not live up to the expectations) to mountain biking and exercising.

Later today I am going to return to the store another of their products.   My 4th generation Apple TV… Don’t get me wrong – I like Apple products – at home we have 3 MacBook Pro laptops, 2 third generation Apple TVs, 2 iPhone 6/6Plus and 1 iPhone 6-Plus-S phones, 2 iPads, several iPods (from different generations) and….guess what still working iBook G4 laptop and PowerMAC desktop.

Having said that – I think my most recent experience with Apple products has been less than glowing.  You can read my feedback (which I have left also on the Apple Support Web sites) about the Watch.   Now is time to write about the Apple TV 4th Generation.

I have used the previous generation for a couple of years at least on two TVs in my house.  So I replaced one of the two 3rd generation one with this new one and had high expectations that the experience will be great…. Well…..

  • Configuration – was great!  Using the NFC technology – configuring the Apple TV with your iPhone 6 is a breeze!  It picks up all the WLAN configuration, passwords etc. in a blink of the eye and it is DONE!
  • Applications: here is where the disappointments started – not too many to select from!  I purchased a new Samsung 4K TV at Thanksgiving.  I was amazed at the number of applications available there – and NOT on the Apple TV…So first strike against the Apple TV.
  • Remove control and Siri:  Voice enablement is a great idea.  That is the main reason my family decided to splurge and buy the more expensive new Apple 4th generation box  – the result though was disappointing.   Siri just did not work well for us.  My daughter is a whizz with Siri on her iPhone, but on Apple TV it was lacking…More importantly if you had to do a search we had to do that via typing individual letters.   The remote control itself was not great either.  The sliding motion to scroll was annoying…Overall I did not like the remote – same for my family
  • Playback – This was the BIGGEST ISSUE.  As I mentioned earlier – I have used two previous generation Apple TVs with the same networking configuration at home.   This 4th generation box did not perform well — video content was constantly buffering while attempting to watch HBO or SHOWTIME or YouTube…Very Annoying.  I am not sure what the issue is – I really DO NOT like troubleshooting such an expensive product.  The sad part is that the old 3rd generation Apple product did not have this issue…

So, with that experience and annoyance that I have to waste my time returning products – the Apple TV is going away – back to the retailer !    What I am more concerned about is – given my experiences with the Apple Watch and now Apple TV, what is going on with Apple’s new product development cycle…May be a lot, but not in a good direction…

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