A few weeks ago, MobiHealthNews published a slideshow of 27 mobile health tools for tracking food, a majority of which were apps. The slideshow included many new and old apps that aimed to keep users healthy with nutrition tracking. Now, the Apple App Store has released its own list of app that spans both health and fitness categories. The list looks specifically at the "best new apps" on the market.
Of course diet apps exist on the list, but so do fitness apps, emotional wellness apps and even one smoking app. Apple highlights some apps that have tried to put a new spin on health and fitness tracking by approaching the app a different way, for instance Carrot, a snarky app that will insult the user. More than one app is geared specifically towards women and a good portion of the apps take advantage of Apple's M7 motion coprocessor.
The list below includes all of the apps listed in Apple App Store's Best New Apps category.
Carrot Fit uses a snarky female-voiced artificial intelligence (AI) who will cheer the user on when he or she loses weight, but berate him or her for weight gains. Users enter their weight manually and the app tracks it on a graph, and also calculates the user’s BMI and allows the user to enter weight loss goals. Carrot will remind users to enter their weight, and will “pass judgment” once they do.
The creator -- a one-man team who is behind this app and two others -- Brian Mueller, chose to make his character snarky after looking at other behavior change apps already on the market. He added that people really responded to the negative remarks that Carrot provides.
The app aims to help users quit smoking by showing them how much money they've saved since quitting, how much tar and how many cigarettes they have avoided, and what regenerative steps their body has made since they stopped.
SmokeFree hopes to answer questions like 'How long does nicotine stay in your body?' and 'How many tobacco-free days it will take for your body to recuperate and no longer be at risk of the dangers of smoking?'
Users can then share their success over Twitter or Facebook.
Kinetic GPS doesn't track an athlete's overall fitness or diet choices, but instead helps the user navigate their run with a compass and timer. The app tracks time, distance, speed, pace, altitude (Google assisted), calories burned, heading, compass, live mapping. Users can configure the app any way they want and the app also comes with running training plans to train for a 5k, 10k, and half-marathon. Training plans were developed by a former London Marathon winner.
For city runners, the app offers an auto pause features so that runners that hit red lights still get accurate results by the end of their workout. The app also integrates with RunKeeper, Wahoo Fitness and ANT+ rate monitor.
With all the news that Glow has made recently, from raising money to announcing over 1,000 women have conceived with the app already, it's hard to imagine the app is still considered new. The app, which launched in August, allows women to track their fertility cycle. From there, a machine learning algorithm takes data from all the women who are using the app and provides women with suggestions and tips to improve their lifestyle and chance of pregnancy.
Most recently, the company announced additional features on the app, which will open the app up to not only those who want to track fertility to get pregnant, but also those who want to track fertility so that they don't.
Paul McKenna - 7 Days Thin, Sleep, Confidence, Phobias - Free
Although the app description says this is a free app, apparently if users like it, they should buy the full system. McKenna is a self proclaimed hypnotist who believes his app can alter the user's thoughts, habits and patterns related to weight loss, confidence and sleep.
"Over seven life-changing days, I will serve as an interactive virtual hypnotherapist, guide and mentor, with customized coaching to serve your needs," he writes in the app description.
McKenna says he can make the user thin, help the user sleep better, give the user confidence, and get rid of the user's phobia as long as the phobia is fear of small spaces, being alone, dentists, dogs, driving, flying, heights, needles, public speaking, spiders or water.
NFL Play 60, developed by the American Heart Association and the National Football League is a game for runners. To play, users must run, jump, and turn while holding the device and the character in the game does the same. By playing, the user can collect coins, which can be used to buy NFL team gear. As the user progresses, they can unlock fun characters, jump over obstacles, and get American Heart Association hearts that make the player invincible.
Macros is short for macronutrients. According to Fitocracy, when most people embark on a diet, they only count calories, not macros, which means they end up feeling hungry, lacking energy, and being irritable. Targeting macros helps users avoid this.
Soon, Fitocracy Macros will add the option to search for and add foods from a nutritional database, and count fiber, water, and alcohol. The app will also soon have a feature to sync with Fitocracy to back-up data.
Weilos is a picture taking app aimed at helping users document weight loss through selfies. From there users can post them in the Weilos social network, but only if the users choose to make pictures public. Besides selfies, users can post pictures of food, of themselves working out, or of other health and diet-related updates. The community also supports status updates, such as weight loss goals reached.
The app is Weilos' second weight loss venture. The first was an online peer-to-peer coaching program that cost $19, $39 or $59 per month depending on the coach.
GO - Meal and Fitness Tracker - $1.99
The idea behind GO, which was developed by dietitians, is that creating a visual food log is a more powerful and understandable way for users to track their nutrition habits. The app plots each entry on a timeline in daily, weekly or monthly formats. Users can zoom in and out to look at trends in their data, which GO believes will be a better agent of change in a user's eating habits.
The app also offers a "How to Succeed” coaching section that provides practical guidance on what behaviors to look for on the timeline and how to make healthy adjustments.
This app, targeted at the female Nike user base, offers 100 workouts from "Nike Master Trainers" and athletes like Maria Sharapova.
Users can choose individual workouts, or select a targeted, structured four-week program which will either help users get lean, toned or strong. The app also lets users stream music from their smartphone's music library. The app is available in English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Russian, Chinese and Japanese.
Online health advice website Sharecare’s app, AskMD, offers users a symptom checker that allows them to choose which symptoms they are feeling and then see which potential health issues they might have. The app then walks the user through a ‘consultation’ in which the app will ask the user a series of questions to identify more specifically what the symptom feels like, when it started, and if there are any other symptoms accompanying it. After the ‘consultation’, the user can enter in any information about medications that they are taking. When users have finished entering information, AskMD generates a list of potential problems the user might have ordered by the commonality of the potential problems.
AskMD also has voice recognition software integrated in the app and powered by Nuance. All commands from the home screen can be initiated by voice.
This app, developed by Rock Health alum Skimble, stars wife to Ice-T, Coco Austin. Austin helps users lose weight with unorthodox exercises, such as twerking in heels. Users can also perform muscle-building gym routines and quick, at-home core sessions.
When the user initially downloads the application, they get nine workouts and over 20 exercises. Within the app, users must pay to unlock more workouts.
Up until January, Fitbit's app was only really useful if the user had one of Fitbit's wearable activity trackers. As of last month, though, Fitbit added passive activity tracking to the app, which takes advantage of Apple's M7 motion co-processor.
If users have a Fitbit device, the app helps users to accurately track all-day activity including steps taken, distance traveled, calories burned, and active minutes. Users can also set goals, view progress, and track your trends with charts and graphs. Besides activity, the app helps users log food, water, weight, and sleep.
This is Six to Start's second fitness app. The first was gamified running app Zombies, Run! While the app currently costs $3.99, it will eventually cost $4.99. The Walk is designed to take three months to play through the story, a length designed to be long enough for users to establish a habit of walking more. The app uses the smartphone to passively track all day movement and incorporate that into the story, according to the company.
Six to Start also used the NHS funding on the technical side, developing an energy-efficient background motion-tracking system to monitor players' daily walking in addition to the device making use of the M7 motion co-processor in the iPhone 5s.
Noom Weight, which recently closed a $7 million round, coaches users to lose weight through diet and exercise. The app's virtual coach assigns the user educational articles and challenges associated with his or her daily schedule. Noom recently announced an update to the company’s iOS app so that it would integrate with Apple’s M7 motion co-processor to track steps automatically.
Users can also find groups of people who are similar to them and share their successes within Noom's community.
Sickweather wants users to avoid getting illnesses and uses a patent-pending process to track and map reports of illness from social media to do so. Users can receive alerts whenever they enter a known sick zone where others have recently reported being sick. Users can also choose from several illnesses, including Flu, Norovirus, Pink Eye and Whooping Cough.
When people report sickness, map markers are added to Sickweather's map. Red markers mean the update was posted within one day, orange is within two days, yellow is within one week, and blue is two weeks or more.
While downloading the app is free, Chrysallis is a subscription program that costs $9.99 per month or $99 for the entire year to download different "paths" meant to change a user's lifestyle. Each path gives users objectives and goals so that they can live a healthier life. Users track progress, journal their thoughts and see success through earned medals along the way.
Runtime - Simple Run Tracking - Free
Similar to KineticGPS in terms of features, Runtime is a run tracking app designed to track the runner's route, time, speed, pace, and altitude. This app is also optimized for iOS7's motion coprocessor. Users can create custom workouts, use the interval timer to configure high and low intensity alerts with custom alert tones, visualize their workout after the fact with documented maps, and backup their run data in Dropbox.
This is Conrad Stoll's second app in the App Store -- the first is a workout journal app.
Stacked - Your New Personal Trainer - Free
The makers of Stacked believe it is different from any other workout application. The app description explains, workouts are classified into three groups: Basics, FITting In, and Stacked.
While "Basics" is for people who do not workout much,"FITting In" is for the average person, and "Stacked" workouts are for bodybuilders or those that want to be bodybuilders. The app helps users by easing them into the intense workouts with this step system and diet challenges along the way.
First Aid by American Red Cross - Free
The American Red Cross preloaded First Aid with safety information, which users can use anytime without internet connection, interactive quizzes, safety tips that help people in severe weather situations including winter storms, hurricanes and earthquakes, and videos so that users can learn first aid tips.
The app is also fully integrated with 911 so users can call the Emergency Services from the app at any point.
Sport.com has created an app that is meant to help women stay in shape. Within the app there are over 80 pre-installed workouts designed specially for women by professional instructors for different levels: beginners, intermediate and advanced. Users can either choose the right exercise based on body part, add new exercises to a workout, create their own routines, and create an specific program based on their weight, heigh, age and body shape.
Users can also add their favorite songs to work out with and share in the app's social network.
As the name suggests, Datalove spends a lot of time focusing on stats. Users can track how far they run, how much they study or sleep and Datalove will come in and help analyze all the stats.
Cody is a fitness community, exercise journal, and workout tracker.
Users can log their workouts with time, distance, photos, notes, and locations, find new workouts from trainers with video, photo, and text instruction, and visualize their progress by browsing a timeline, stats, and highlights.
Cody also offers a social element. Users can follow their friends and cheer each other on with likes and comments and share workouts to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr and Foursquare.
Runtastic has added another app to its long list. Male and female avatars will guide users through a variety of core exercises step-by-step, including sit-ups, cross-body crunches, oblique crunches, planks, mountain climbers, and hip drops. Depending on their fitness level, users can adjust the difficulty, or chose to be part of the 10 Week Six Pack Plan.
The app also offers pre-defined workouts such as The 7-Minute Workout, Insanity, Shape Up, and Six Pack Junkie.
Calorie Counter & Diet Tracker by MyFitnessPal - Free
Calorie Counter & Diet Tracker allows the user to enter a daily diet history from the over 3 million items listed in the app’s database. The news feed shows which of the user’s connected friends are reaching their goals as well as how close the user is to his or her goals. For users who are tracking exercise along with diet, MyFitnessPal also integrates with a number of activity trackers including Endomondo Sports Tracker, EveryMove, RunKeeper, Runtastic, Rhythm Pulse Monitor, Striiv Smart Play Pedometer and Digifit.
Human's goal is to make people more for at least 30 minutes per day. The app automatically picks up your walks, runs, bike rides and other exercise of one minute and longer as long as the phone is on the user's person. The user is also notified as he or she reach his or her daily 30, 60 or 90 minute marks.
If the user is asking, why 30 minutes? The app description explains, "It's the best form of preventive medicine, it'll help you get or stay healthy in the long run, on average, humans move 40 percent more after six weeks and it's fun and easy to do."
