Workout advantages that work well in any situation

The Jaybird Freedom is designed to be used during strenuous physical activity. That’s why they’re sweat-proof, a claim Jaybird backs with a lifetime warranty. That’s also why they feature unique, removable silicon cushions to prevent in-ear shifting. With three sizes of ear buds, three sizes of silicon cushions, and even a pair of over-ear loops, you’re bound to be able to come up with a combination that suits your ear shape.

For me, the largest buds and in-ear cushions were what worked, and they worked very well. Once secured in my ears, the Freedoms weren’t going anywhere, either on the treadmill or bundled up and out for a brisk winter run with the dog. I’m very picky about the fit of in-ear headsets, and the Jaybird manages to satisfy my needs in terms of security and comfort, in a package that also doesn’t make you look like a total weirdo.

Both the stability and the water resistance are awesome features in and out of the gym, and alone already make the Freedom one of the better choices among stereo Bluetooth headsets in general.

Good sound for music

The other component the Jaybird Freedom has that isn’t necessarily true of the competition is very good sound for music playback. There’s a surprising amount of basebass for a Bluetooth headset, but with rich sound overall, without venturing into muddy territory as some sport-oriented headphones can tend to do in pursuit of more pulse-pounding sound delivery.
 

Not so great call quality

Audio when using the headset for calls with an iPhone wasn’t great, particularly on the receiving end. I suspect that’s because of the mic’s location (it’s on the right pod very close to your ear — and far from your mouth). Even though it couldn’t compete with wired headsets in this regard, or with the Motorola S9-HD (which I choose for comparison over the S10-HD, which has sound quality issues in general), which I’ve used while riding a bike and still been perfectly understood, it isn’t bad enough that the Freedom is unusable for making calls. Since the Freedom is more about providing a wireless, water-resistant solution for taking to the gym, sub-par call quality doesn’t greatly bother me.

Good battery life and connectivity

The Jaybird Freedom may not beat the competition when it comes to call quality, but it does over decent battery life (at around six hours per charge) and better-than-average Bluetooth connectivity. When used outdoors, Bluetooth can be tricky with a handset stowed in a pocket and ear phones worn on the head; indoors it has lots to bounce off of, making connections easier. In wide open spaces, it might have trouble connecting, especially if there’s a big chunk of human meat in the way.

Luckily, I found that with the Freedom I could keep my iPhone in my front pocket and still have it connect pretty much constantly to the headset. The same couldn’t be said for the S9-HD, since its Bluetooth transmitter is in the neckband of the device, behind your head. The Jaybird is better designed for general use, but if you ever do run into trouble, say in a gym in a large open space, using a right arm-mounted iPhone strap when working pretty much guarantees a solid connection. They also work great with an iPad mounted to fitness equipment with the Scosche fitRAIL I reviewed earlier.

Controls take some getting used to

The controls on the Jaybird Freedom aren’t intuitive for iPhone users; the call answer button does indeed start and pause playback, but double tapping it won’t skip tracks. That’s handled by a long press of the volume up button instead. Holding volume down likewise goes back a track. Volume up/down works on the headset, independent of the iPhone, which is actually a plus in my book.

You can use Siri with the Freedom, the same way you would on most other headsets, by holding down the play/pause/answer call button for a few seconds. It works well enough, although the sub-par mic quality I mentioned above affects Siri’s ability to accurately understand requests.

Overall, I’d say the Jaybird Freedom is arguably the best Bluetooth headset available right now, especially for an MSRP of $99. The one really annoying thing about them is that Jaybird uses a proprietary USB cable to charge the device, since the port on the right earbud it plugs into has to be small to ensure everything fits in the space available. Considering how much I enjoy the headphones themselves, that just means I’ll have to be extra careful not to lose that particular component, but you can bet I’ll buy a replacement if I do.

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The fitRAIL is billed as an “exercise mount” for both the original iPad and the iPad 2. It’s a sturdy, collapsible aluminum and steel gadget that manages to be both portable and secure when holding your iPad, and it’s an elegant solution to a problem I’ve been trying to solve since getting my first iPad.

Your screen, your stuff

The fitRAIL is basically a harness for your iPad that folds out so as to clamp down perfectly on the display consoles of most upright cardio equipment — ellipticals, treadmills, climbers and the like. It folds down to a small size and comes with a pouch for convenient carrying, and features sticky (albeit easy to remove) pads to keep your iPad securely in place, along with a hook attached to a neoprene strap to make sure it won’t pitch forward. The stretchiness of the neoprene strap and double grooves in the base make the fitRAIL easily compatible with any generation iPad.

It hooks over the top of the machine’s console (and seems to work with every variety I could find), and then hangs there, buttressed by rubber bumpers in the back to keep it from bouncing around too harshly. That way, you can watch or read whatever you want as you work out (so long as you downloaded it before to your iPad or you have internet access at your gym) instead of being beholden to whatever your gym chooses to play on its televisions.

Not just a gym rat

The fitRAIL also works remarkably well outside of the confines of the gym, which is good news in case you’re not often the type to stick with your New Year’s resolutions. It can be configured to work as a display stand, or as an angled prop for typing, in which capacity it easily outperforms other devices with similar purposes, like Apple’s own Smart Cover. You can also hook it over a door for hands-free viewing in a pinch.

Smart design that avoids too tight a niche

My office is virtually a graveyard of iPad stands. Too many of these were single purpose devices that quickly outlived their usefulness when something that not only acted as a stand, but did something else, too came along (the PadPivot comes to mind). The fitRAIL is a stand, yes, but it also offers a very specific function that satisfies the demands of many like myself who’ve been looking for a simple, easy-to-install way to mount an iPad to cardio equipment. It’s smart design that avoids being too precious, and that’s why it’s got a permanent place in my gadget bag.

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Fit and form factor

The Jawbone UP is actually quite an attractive piece of hardware. It’s a simple, unadorned band (black in my case) with a slightly rubberized finish [Ed: as per the Jawbone UP forums, the material used for the Jawbone UP's skin is actually a thermoplastic elastomer, which means even those with a latex allergy should be able to wear the UP] that helps keep it from moving around on the wrist (so long as it’s sized right), while also not feeling sticky or messing too much with arm hair, a plus for lycanthropic beasts like myself. All control of the device is handled through a simple button capping one end, while the other has a sheath hiding the mini stereo connector, which handles the double-duties of charging the UP and reporting back to your iPhone.

A word of warning: The UP fits comfortably and securely for most activities, but I found out the hard way that since it doesn’t have a clasp or other locking mechanism, it will fly off your wrist, if, say, you’re hurling a dodgeball as hard as you can across a gym. This is inconvenient if you play beer league sports, where the activity tracking features would obviously be appreciated, but keep the UP on your non-dominant arm, if you’re too concerned about flinging a $100 piece of kit at high velocity into a wall or leave it on the bench. In the future, hopefully Jawbone thinks about some kind of locking mechanism to make sure the UP can withstand even vigorous activity.

The UP iOS app

The app that gathers and presents data collected by the UP wristband is a bit of a mixed bag. It looks great, with visually attractive graphs and charts to show you how many steps you’ve taken, how your sleep patterns are turning out, and whether or not you’re meeting your food goals. Having to plug your UP into the iPhone via its stereo headphone jack actually isn’t that annoying, and since omitting wireless connectivity saves battery life, I actually think it’s a worthwhile trade-off. But there are some quirks that make it occasionally unpleasant to use.

Turning your device from profile to landscape, for instance, automatically activates a timeline tracking view of your activity that can be difficult to interpret, and won’t deactivate until you tilt it back. It activates by accident too often, and sometimes doesn’t turn off when you right your device again.

The UP’s social aspects are a high point, however. In the app, you can search by name for friends that are using UP, and add them to your “team.” Watching your teammates’ daily progress is actually one of the best parts of UP, and the most entertaining. Still, there should be a way to scan your contacts or check your social networks for people to add, since searching manually is both exhausting and extremely hit-or-miss.

Challenges are another nice element of the UP app. You can browse challenges and choose to participate, including things like daily walking goals, sleep targets for a month, and more. It’s a nice way to add some additional motivation to your activity goals, and it can score you rewards through Jawbone’s partners.

The UP experience

Just like the app is so-so, the experience of living with and using the UP wristband has both major flaws and big advantages. First, it’s not terribly accurate; since it resides on your wrist, it tends to mistake a lot of arm movements for steps, which resulted in some pretty inflated step counts for me.

Second, it requires just enough user input that it can be hard to remember what you need to do. Taking pictures of my meals, for instance, was something I remembered only once a day, at best. And switching from day to night mode, and from day to activity mode was also a chore that resulted in a few missed opportunities to gather data. These things might become habit over time, however, and indeed, by the time a week was up, I was already remembering to do them more frequently.

I’m not sure how accurate UP’s sleep measurements were, but they were in line with what I estimated in terms of length of sleep, and they mirrored how I felt in terms of their quality ratings. Accuracy is a complaint I see often in forums and discussions related to the UP, but for the average user, this issue is overblown; UP may not be 100-percent accurate, but it achieves the goal of making users more aware of their daily activity levels, sleeping and eating habits, and provides a lot of impetus to improve all three.

Final thoughts

The UP isn’t perfect, but for $100, it sure does get a lot of things right. I personally didn’t run into problems with battery life, or with the unit dying on me after a certain amount of time, but those are both issues that seem like early hiccups to be rectified through returns and hardware revisions. As an unobtrusive, motivational device that provides better feedback about your daily lifestyle choices than just sitting around reflecting on your own ever could, the UP is genius. It could get much better, too, so I can’t wait to see where Jawbone takes this next.

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Version 1.2 of the iPod nano software brings improved fitness features (which are better able to detect and track walking or running work outs), as well as the new single icon scrolling interface, which replaces the 4×4 icon grid. You can switch back to small icons or turn off home screen items altogether from the Settings menu.

Last but not least, you’ll get access to all the new iPod nano clock face options. There are 18 to choose from, so you shouldn’t get bored too quickly. I recommend the partial skeleton face with the exposed animated “movement” and second sub-dial.

The update adds a bit of individual personality for users and some very useful features, so it’s a nice free bonus arising from Tuesday’s festivities for existing iPod nano owners. Go ahead and grab it now by plugging your iPod into your computer and opening iTunes. If you don’t get prompted automatically, just hit the “Check for Updates” button in the iPod’s info screen.

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Zombies, Run! is a game in that you have virtual goals to accomplish, which will help you further the cause of your virtual persona. But it’s a training app in that to accomplish those goals, you have to get out and run; doing so will let you collect items like supplies, medicine and ammo, which you can then put to use back home at your “base.” The app is designed for all levels of fitness, so you should be able to play whether you’re just getting started with an exercise routine or gearing up for a marathon.

The app provides you with “missions,” which take around 20 to 30 minutes to complete, and which feature radio messages and pre-recorded voice communications that provide feedback on what you’re doing as you run. Don’t worry if you prefer running to music, either; your own custom playlists integrate just fine with the mission audio. In Season 1 (the first content pack), you’ll have 30 unique missions to accomplish, and more seasons (with additional mission packs) are planned as future updates.

Zombies, Run! looks simply but smartly designed, without overly elaborate graphics (you won’t be looking at your screen while you’re playing, after all) and a flexible mission system that works with routes and paces determined by runners, not by the game. It also doesn’t need any special equipment, just an iPhone, and works equally well on the treadmill or on the park path. The app keeps track of your distance, time and calories burned, and you can hear notification of those stats throughout your workout.

This is a clever spin on a category of apps that already pretty much represent a perfect match for the iPhone’s capability set, and adds in a gamification element. Location doesn’t seem to play as integral a role as in something like Shadow Cities or Please Stay Calm, but it could play a more significant role in the final shipping product. The concept of home bases that you can stock with things collected on your run is a good idea for extending the app’s appeal beyond just an exercise session, too.

Having already blown away its funding goal of $12,500 with a week left to go, Zombies, Run! has expanded planned availability to Android for later in 2012, and says it will go after top-tier voice talent for in-game mission recordings. Can’t wait to check this one out when it arrives next February, but for now the video trailer will have to do:

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Calorie Tracker – LIVESTRONG.COM ($2.99)

Last year I evaluated calorie counter apps for the iPad and decided Livestrong was simply the best. After a year of usage, I still think so. The program has an extensive database of every food imaginable. No matter how exotic or ethnic, it’s in there. No guessing how many calories your meal had: Livestrong knows.

Not only does the app track the calories eaten, but also has a database of exercises to take off the pounds. The app calculates the intake and expenditure of calories so you can accurately predict your weight loss.

The best feature for me was the seamless syncing of data across devices. iPhone, iPad, and website all synchronized so I simply had no excuse not to record what I ate. For me personally, simply recording what I ate made a huge difference.

Meal Snap (and previously the Camera app) ($2.99)

Before Meal Snap, I would take pictures of everything I ate. That made me accountable, keeping a visual record of what I’d eat throughout the day. The camera was also handy for those times where doing extensive calorie analysis was awkward or inappropriate; take a picture and figure out the calories later.

Once Meal Snap came along, my pictures had a whole new meaning. Not only did I know what I ate visually, but Meal Snap would guess the calories. Talk about being lazy. Snap a picture and you’re done. Later in the day when I would have time, I entered the data into the Livestrong app or website to record what I ate.

Some of the interpretations of the meals are funny, and reveal that actual human beings, likely with a cultural bias are viewing the pictures. I learned about some interesting Indian dishes along the way that had absolutely nothing to do with the actual pictures I snapped.

Bodymedia FIT Armband ($249 plus $6.95-$12.95 monthly)

Bodymedia is truly the future of technology that makes us healthier individuals. This is a monitor you wear 23 hours a day, taking it off only to recharge or when you come in contact with water.

The device monitors movement, heart rate and sweat to determine how many calories you’ve burned. I hate to throw buzzwords around, but this really is the “gamification” of weight loss. At the end of the day you can track how much you’ve walked, how much moderate and vigorous exercise you performed, and even how much you slept. The device communicates with your iPhone via Bluetooth, or via physical docking for recharging and advanced data computations. At the end of the day, you can see if you met your calorie burning goals.

What I really liked about this device, despite its high price, is that with the iPhone you get your calorie burning in real-time. And while many fitness machines will give you a count of “calories burned,” that doesn’t account for your personal metabolism. I was amazed at how off those can be. They also don’t account for potential cheating like leaning on the railing or skipping steps. The Bodymedia simply doesn’t let you cheat.

To embark on a quality workout, you can ask the Bodymedia to track your exercise by calories burned, not by time. So instead of saying “I’m going on the treadmill for 30 minutes” you can instead say “I’m going to burn 300 calories on the treadmill.”

The app has a rudimentary food diary, but it was severely lacking and pales in comparison to the Livestrong Calorie Tracker, but you can use the apps in concert with one another.

Each day I used the Bodymedia, I’d try somehow to break the previous day’s goal with one of the metrics: more sleep, more calories burned, more steps, etc. It was like a video game, but instead of points earned, it was calories burned. Win win!

When people ask me how I lost my weight, I can tell them I owe nearly 100 percent of it to my iPhone. It kept me completely accountable for my calorie intake and expenditure, and it can for you as well.

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Thursday, Apple filed a patent application for “personalized fitness services” on a handheld device, focusing on exercise in a gym setting. Features would include how-to videos for equipment, as well as the ability to check on classes and possibly schedule training sessions.

Social networking would also play a role in the app, with possible features including finding a “workout buddy,” as well as leaderboards. Users could also be challenged to “beat” workouts by others through notifications. Performance would also be measured, and results delivered as post-workout critiques, which would be part of the “motivating” aspect of the app. If simple self-improvement was insufficient, the patent application also includes the idea of rewards outside the app in the form of coupons or gifts.

While this sounds like an interesting idea, the obvious drawback is that necessary equipment would include a compatible gym to get the most out of the app. Considering that to date Apple has published just ten apps for the iPhone and iPod touch, a fitness app requiring a special gym seems an odd choice for the 11th.

However, as can be seen in the diagram, Nike is mentioned, a fitness company that Apple has had a product partnership with since 2006. That relationship lends credence to this patent application being more than just a vague idea. Would you be interested in such an app, even if it meant finding and belonging to a gym that supported it?

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The app represents somewhat of a departure for DailyBurn, the company behind its creation. DailyBurn, which was acquired by IAC  in 2010, is a social network that focuses on fitness and diet tracking, with an emphasis on community involvement and granular detail. Meal Snap, however, represents a slightly different approach, and one which DailyBurn CEO Andy Smith thinks will be easier to swallow for customers the company’s other products may have had more trouble reaching.

Smith says Meal Snap is part of an effort to create “fun, engaging products that help with behavioral change,” and DailyBurn has found, in taking the pulse of users, that’s the way to go in the future when it comes to health-focused apps. Health tracking is hard to maintain longterm with a high level of detail. Meal Snap is only one of a lot of different apps in the pipeline from DailyBurn based around the idea that simple, fun, focused apps are what customers are looking for, according to Smith.

Meal Snap, which sells for $2.99, doesn’t really tie-in much to DailyBurn’s own iPhone app or the site itself, but that’s sort of the point. It simply offers the ability to take a photo of food, add a caption (optional) and let the system find out how many calories it contains. The app also automatically keeps a daily log of your tracked meals, but there’s no sign-up process, and no real settings to fiddle with, although you can sign in to Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare to share your snapped meals with those social networks. The photo logging element taps in to the recent success of apps like Instagram and Foodspotting, while still providing health information at the same time.

Meal Snap succeeds because it has few barriers to usage, and does one thing very well. Social networking features are a nice bonus, but they aren’t central to the app and no login is required at any point if that’s what a user prefers. Everything happens from one central screen, and meal identification can happen in the background after you exit the app. Smith thinks “apps that do one thing, and do them very well” best represent the direction we’re headed with mobile software, and after a few days using an app as simple, impressive and intuitive as Meal Snap, I’m inclined to agree.

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With the new year now a few weeks old, it’s time to stop and remember those resolutions you made at the dawn of 2010. New Year’s Resolutions are perhaps best known for the likelihood that they will fall by the wayside. If you’re serious, however, one of the best tools for making sure you achieve your new year’s resolutions is your iPhone.

With the vast array of applications available for the iPhone it might be hard to pick the right ones if you want to get in better shape, save money or get a date this year, so we’re going to pick out some of the best for you . First up we’re going to start with applications that will help you get in better shape.

The most popular new year’s resolution of all time, likely due to the expanding waistline that over one month of feast and drink bestows upon us, getting in better shape can be a frustrating challenge. Thankfully there are plenty of good iPhone applications available to help you keep this resolution. Just be warned, none of these apps will actually burn calories for you, they’ll just help you get the feedback and build the routines you’ll need to make that happen.

Note: All links point to the iTunes store.

Lose It!
Price: Free
Rating: 3.5 stars
This free applications has sat near the top of Apple’s Healthcare & Fitness category for a long time. Attractive and easy to use, Lose It! is basically a calorie counter. Tell it a bit about yourself, how much weight you want to lose and it will give you a daily calorie allowance. You can then track what you eat and how you exercise, all with simple charts to see how you’re doing. The newest version also includes the ability to sync your information with a website and even tweet your progress.

iFitness
Price: $1.99
Rating: 4.5 stars
If you want to start building some muscle mass, then iFitness is a great companion app. The application allows you how to track a large number of different weight-lifting exercises. It includes photos, videos and written instructions for how to properly do each exercise and lets you set up custom workouts.

Weightbot
Price: $1.99
Rating: 4 stars
If you want to eschew the bother of tracking every calorie and just want to keep an eye on your weight, then Weightbot is for you. The interface is gorgeous and it’s extremely easy to use. You can chart your progress over time and immediately get your BMI when you enter your weight.

Nike+
Price: Free (for 3GS owners) + $29 for sensor
Rating: N/A
Apple and Nike’s partnership to track your jogging finally arrived on the iPhone with the 3GS. If you have a 3GS, all you’ll need to do is jump into the settings to activate the Nike+ app, and then go out and buy the $29 sensor for your shoe. The app let’s you synchronize your progress to Nike’s website, choose a playlist while jogging, including the famous power song to get your over that hump, and gives you feedback when you’ve reached a milestone. Unfortunately if you have an older iPhone, you’re out of luck.

RunKeeper
Price: $9.99 (free version also available)
Rating: 5 stars
If you don’t have an iPhone 3GS, or just don’t want to use the Nike+ system, RunKeeper Pro is a great alternative, although we should note it doesn’t work on the iPhone 2G. Using your iPhone’s GPS to track your runs, RunKeeper let’s you track your progress, view your routes and control your music directly from the app. Information can also be backed up and viewed on the RunKeeper website. If the $9.99 price for the Pro version of RunKeeper is a bit too rich for your blood, there’s also a free ad-supported version with the same basic functionality.

iCan
Price: 99 cents
Rating: 3.5 stars
Not specifically related to getting in better shape, but a good app for any resolution, iCan is basically a goal tracker with an inspirational bent. Simply enter in any goal and you’ll immediately get an inspirational quote. If at any point you find yourself lagging, simply press a button for more inspirational text. An attractive and simple way to keep track of your resolutions so you don’t forget them and remember what you’ve achieved.

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The reason, of course, is the recently introduced video capture capability the nano now sports. Yes, it allows the iPod to compete with devices like the Flip pocket camcorder, but it also raises privacy concerns in environments where video and image recording devices traditionally haven’t been permitted.

Life Time has already put a restriction on the books banning the nano from its 84 facilities, spread across 19 states. Others are considering a similar move, or argue that the device is already covered by their existing regulations. The YMCA, for instance, already restricts photo and video gadgets to lockers, and argues that this applies to the new nano, too.

Of course, the problem with any such ban is enforcement. Are gym staff really going to stop each patron each time they visit to make sure that nano they’re wearing on their arm isn’t a current-generation model, especially when the average person probably couldn’t spot the difference unless the device is removed from its case?

As someone who already visits a gym daily with an iPhone in an armband case, I doubt new anti-nano regulations will end up having much of an effect on the average fitness center attendee. But in order to protect yourself, it is a good idea to be aware that less scrupulous individuals might be using the new iPods for nefarious purposes, and keep an eye out accordingly when you’re working out or in the locker room.

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