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RunKeeper adds that iPhone 5s special sauce to its running app
If you thought that Nike+ Moves was the only fitness app to quickly latch on to Apple's new M7 co-processor, think again. RunKeeper has announced that the latest update to its iOS app will now automatically track periods of activity lasting longer than 15 minutes and will also track your cadence -- letting you analyze that statistic with the same level of obsessive detail as you do your pace and elevation. If you own an iPhone that isn't a 5s, the company is throwing a bone your way too, letting you prove how grueling your morning run is by sharing route details to other users over AirDrop -- as if those incredible calf muscles weren't evidence enough.
Samsung Galaxy Gear apps include Path, Pocket, RunKeeper and more
Samsung's Galaxy Gear smartwatch will launch with 70 native apps, and it turns out that there's quite a few heavy-hitters in that bunch. Path is available to share photos taken from the Gear's wriststrap; Pocket users, meanwhile, can have Gear read saved articles out loud. And fitness apps will definitely be in vogue -- RunKeeper, MyFitnessPal, Phigolf and others have embraced Samsung's vision. There are too many other apps to list them all, although we've noticed big-name titles like Snapchat in the mix. If you're planning to pick up Samsung's wristwear in the next few weeks, there won't be any shortage of things to do with it. Follow all of our IFA 2013 coverage by heading to our event hub!
RunKeeper for iOS now motivates you with real-world training programs
It's easy to find running apps that offer goals -- it's harder to find one that inspires you to run in the first place. RunKeeper wants to be that motivator, and it just overhauled the training section of its iOS app to match. The refresh takes broad, skill-based programs from sites like Greatist and breaks them down into more realistic daily objectives, such as running a little bit further or taking a break. There's also a steady stream of tips for staying healthy between sessions. RunKeeper hasn't said when Android-bound athletes will get the new training routines, but their iPhone-owning counterparts can grab the update at the source link.
Daily Update for June 25, 2013
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
RunKeeper gets a new teammate: MyFitnessPal
RunKeeper announced an impressive new addition to the team today -- MyFitnessPal, a service with more than 40 million users who track their weight, count calories and obsess over their exercise. RunKeeper has about 20 million users who log their fitness activities on the web or using the RunKeeper iOS apps. Integration between the two services will have some very positive effects. Users can now log fitness activity on RunKeeper, then see their daily calories allotment on MyFitnessPal update automatically based on how much exercise has been tracked. Calories that are logged in MyFitnessPal will be visible in a user's RunKeeper activity feed. Entering weight information into either one of the apps -- either by typing it in or through integration with Withings scales or other connected devices -- will cause it to appear in both. A full press release from the two companies is included below: Show full PR text RunKeeper and MyFitnessPal Team Up to Improve Health and Wellness Worldwide Integration of Two Leading Fitness Apps Expands the Open Fitness Platform, Helping Millions of Users Reach Their Goals Boston, MA -- RunKeeper and MyFitnessPal, two leading apps in the fitness and wellness space, are partnering to help their collective users more seamlessly track their health information and reach their goals. With the integration, RunKeeper's 20MM and MyFitnessPal's 40MM users will be able to: ● Quickly and easily connect the two services ● Log their fitness activity on RunKeeper and see their daily calorie allotment on MyFitnessPal automatically update based on tracked exercise ● See their number of calories logged in MyFitnessPal in their RunKeeper activity feed ● Enter weight information and access it across both apps The integration also arms users of both apps with powerful tools and information to set benchmarks, break through plateaus, and reach their ultimate wellness goals. "At RunKeeper, we're passionate about helping people lead healthier lives. MyFitnessPal was one of the most requested integrations from our users -- we're now able to offer both of our user bases a more holistic way to reach their health and wellness goals," said Jason Jacobs, CEO, RunKeeper. "We see this integration and partnership as a sign of where the industry as a whole is headed, towards true interoperability and data sharing so users have the best experience and achieve the greatest results." "Our vision from day one was to make personal health tracking as intuitive and painless as possible," said Mike Lee, co-founder of MyFitnessPal. "We are thrilled to partner with RunKeeper to create a seamless experience for our joint members. RunKeeper's strong workout tracking system provides a perfect complement to MyFitnessPal's personalized nutrition and fitness solution, and we think the integration will make logging and tracking that much easier." Technology companies interested in working with RunKeeper on custom integrations should contact api@runkeeper.com. Developers who wish to integrate with the MyFitnessPal API should contact the company at http://www.myfitnesspal.com/api. About RunKeeper Since 2008, RunKeeper has been turning your phone into a personal trainer in your pocket, using the built-in location technology to track workouts and keep you motivated. With more than 20 million users worldwide, RunKeeper's mission is to harness the power of technology to help people lead more active lives. RunKeeper also integrates with more than 100 health apps and devices, including Jawbone UP, Withings, Fitbit, Lose it!, Aetna, Pebble, and Virgin Healthmiles. Visit us on Facebook and on Twitter @RunKeeper. About MyFitnessPal MyFitnessPal makes good health attainable and sustainable for everyone. Powered by more than 40 million people, MyFitnessPal is the leading free resource to take charge of daily health. Partnering with top brands-including Withings, RunKeeper, Runtastic, Jawbone UP, and Fitbit-and featuring a database over 3 million foods, MyFitnessPal provides real-time nutrition and fitness tracking, insights and community support. MyFitnessPal's free and easy to use technology works seamlessly across Android, iOS, Blackberry, Kindle and Windows apps, in addition to the web. MyFitnessPal is headquartered in San Francisco, Calif. For more information, visit http://www.myfitnesspal.com/.
RunKeeper for iOS gets new social feed and leaderboard
The fitness app RunKeeper already lets you check stats on your smartwatch, but what is activity tracking without a public shaming social component? Starting today, the iOS version of the app includes a new feed for viewing your friends' logged workouts along with your own, complete with the ability to comment on and "like" activities à la Facebook. Version 3.5 also adds a leaderboard, which ranks how you stack up against your pals. Hardly earth-shattering features, but the competitive bent might motivate you to push through an extra mile or two. Grab the update via the source link below.
RunKeeper gets social
In a nice respite from all of the iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks news, RunKeeper (free) has announced a new update to version 3.5 with a social feed in the app. What does this mean to RunKeeper users? Version 3.5 now lets you view your activities, milestones and those of your RunKeeper buddies right in the phone. The latest update also brings context to your fitness quest -- the app now provides a ranking of a particular activity compared to all others you have logged. That means that you can find out immediately that today's run was the best pace or highest elevation gain you've accomplished, or that your feeling that you were a bit sluggish today was indeed correct. The update is available in the App Store now. Note that some of the features are available to RunKeeper Elite subscribers only. %Gallery-190990%
PebbleKit SDK update enables two-way communication for Pebble apps
Pebble released an SDK update today which lets developers create apps that support two-way communication via Bluetooth. While the new software (called PebbleKit) was hinted at before, it represents a major step forward for the platform by allowing third-party developers to send / receive information between the smartwatch and a smartphone. This opens the door to weather, stock, traffic and remote control apps -- among others. Also launching today is the Pebble Sports API which is already being used by two recently announced apps: RunKeeper and FreeCaddie. Since the Pebble SDK was first introduced last April, it's been downloaded 8,000 times and developers have built 5,000 watch faces and games (such as Droptype, RadarClock and Nyan Watch) which have been installed 300,000 times -- not too shabby, if you ask us. Finally, after raising $10 million through Kickstarter last year, the company's just received $15 million in Series A funding from Charles River Ventures. Let the good times roll, right? PR after the break.
RunKeeper for Android and iOS now talks to Pebble smartwatches
Although more than a few runners track their progress through apps like RunKeeper, it's doubtful that many of them like reaching for their smartphones just to check their pace. Thanks to an updated RunKeeper app, they'll only have to look at the Pebble smartwatch on their wrist. Both Android and iOS users can now glance at the Bluetooth timepiece for vital stats, such as pacing, or start and stop their runs. Only a handful of us will have the needed combination of app and wristwear to justify the update at the source links, but don't despair if you're not part of the Pebble flock. RunKeeper's staff say they "look forward" to supporting wearable technology as a whole, which should let many more athletes keep their eyes on the path ahead, and their hands out of their pockets.
RunKeeper for iPad: The next revolution in running
RunKeeper (free) is a favorite of all of the marathon runners and Tour de France cyclists here at TUAW. The app is now available in a new, convenient larger size, as the developers have released RunKeeper for iPad (free). Jason Jacobs of RunKeeper told TUAW that "many RunKeeper users found the iPhone screen to be too small to get all of their important real-time fitness information in one convenient place." The new app, which only runs on the 9.7-inch iPad with Retina display, has a much larger map display and new functionality that "couldn't be added to the original iPhone app." The following video from RunKeeper shows the new capabilities in detail, including measuring and tracking your weight or assembling a healthy meal. The new app is available immediately for download in the App Store. (As if it wasn't obvious already, this is an April Fool's joke by the folks at RunKeeper. Please don't actually take your iPad running.) Gotcha!
RunKeeper 3.0 for Android gets a Holo-native UI, puts us front and center
It must be the season for Android-native makeovers within our apps. RunKeeper has just pushed out a 3.0 update to its exercise tracker that brings the interface in line with Google's Holo concepts from Android 4.0 and beyond. There's more to see once acclimated to the look and feel, however. The 3.0 revamp now has a dedicated tab to show all of an athlete's progress in one area, such as goals and recent history. It also displays both intervals and pacing in mid-activity while making easy to set a reminder for the next run while cooling down. Runners wanting to modernize just need to hit Google Play to give RunKeeper a makeover that could very well improve their health in the process.
Daily Update for October 22, 2012
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
RunKeeper 2.8 adds leaderboard, personal goals, and scheduled workouts
The popular and free RunKeeper app was revised to version 2.8 today, adding a host of new features to keep runners, joggers, walkers and fitness freaks in general happy and competitive. RunKeeper 2.8 now features a way to find Facebook friends and people in your Contacts list who are using the app, and also invite friends to join RunKeeper without leaving the app. The new leaderboard gives you a constantly updated ranking list of where you stand among your friends in terms of your activity, and even lets you nudge couch potato buddies to get moving (see below). They're sure to appreciate the thought... There's now a "Me" tab in the app to give you an idea of your personal bests and how you're progressing against personal goals, as seen in the image at the top of this post. Finally, RunKeeper now adds the ability to schedule your workouts. As soon as you're done with one run, you can schedule another one to keep up your momentum. RunKeeper's free training plans will add automatic alerts to your iPhone to further motivate you.
RunKeeper and GymPact want you to get paid for tracking your fitness
Staying motivated to achieve your fitness goals is always difficult. But would you be motivated if someone actually decided to pay you for sticking to those fitness goals? That's the idea behind GymPact, which today announced a partnership with RunKeeper to link the latter company's fitness tracking app to its pay-for-workouts motivational service. The idea behind GymPact is simple. You make a "pact" each week basically setting a monetary amount you'll pay if you don't make your exercise goals. For example, your pact may be to pay $25 if you don't work out five days this week for at least 30 minutes. If you've made or exceeded your goal at the end of the week, you get paid by the money of those who didn't meet their goals. If you decide to sit around and watch TV every night instead of working out, you are out $25. How does RunKeeper come into this? There's now a way to link your RunKeeper account with GymPact. If you already use the RunKeeper (free) app to track your physical activity, then you can click on the new RunKeeper button in the free GymPact app to link the two accounts. RunKeeper activities that count towards your GymPact include any runs, walks or bike rides that are tracked by RunKeeper's GPS and include a minimum of 1/2 mile distance and 30 minutes of activity with a pace above 2 miles per hour. GymPact is a unique way of staying motivated to keep active, and the integration with the very popular RunKeeper app makes a lot of sense.
Withings' new cloud can tell you how fat you are anywhere in the world
Fitness gadgets are a big part of this year's CES and everyone's racing to get hooks into a cloud platform. Withings is pulling the dust sheets off its own health and wellness cloud that'll aggregate the data from your web-connected scales and blood pressure monitor to your eternal public humiliation. It'll also pull in data from Zeo's range of branded sleep gear and your RunKeeper data -- but it's not clear if you can edit out the evidence about how much you ate over the holidays.
RunKeeper gets a major upgrade
RunKeeper, the free fitness tracking app, just received a major upgrade that was announced this morning. The app has been gaining a lot of attention since mid-summer, when the company launched a Health Graph API that developers have been using to integrate RunKeeper capabilities into third-party apps and devices. That's not keeping the RunKeeper team from keeping an eye on the core mobile app, and the upgrade shows that RunKeeper is listening to the desires of the user community. So what are the changes? Auto Pause takes care of one common problem with apps that record your running, cycling and walking. When you stop running to tie a shoe, talk to a neighbor, wait for a traffic light to change, or take a picture of the snake that just crossed your path, you need to remember to pause the app's timer. If you don't, you'll find that your average speed for a run, ride or walk drops drastically. Auto Pause pauses tracking when you stop moving, then starts up the timer again when you begin running again. If you use a third-party heart rate monitor with RunKeeper, the app now has Heart Rate Zone visuals and audio cues to let you know when you're in your optimal heart rate zone. The app has had audio coaching around target paces for a while, telling you if you're ahead or behind your pace. Now you can do the same thing with your heart rate, knowing when you're in the zone, need to work yourself a bit harder, or need to slow down a bit. Finally, the RunKeeper team has included updates to their GPS algorithms that improve tracking performance and stability. Altogether, the team says that the performance of the app has improved as well.
Nike+ not working? Nike says sorry, and is working on the problem
If you're a Nike+ user and you've been experiencing issues with the service lately, you're not alone. According to TechCrunch, enough users have been having problems with Nike+ over the past few months that Nike has sent an email to users apologizing for the service's troubles and promising a fix. Jayme Martin, VP and GM of Nike Running, confessed to users that "Just like you, we hold ourselves to incredibly high standards, and right now Nike+ isn't living up to them." Immediate fixes outlined in Martin's letter: "As of today we have increased login speed and eliminated a majority of login failures. We have improved your ability to sync devices, log runs and post information to Facebook. We are also working on a new version of the Nike+ GPS app that will be released shortly. It will introduce some great new features and address some of the recent bugs." Martin also says that Nike is "working on a brand new platform for Nike+ that includes better coaching, maps and challenges. It will be much faster, more social, and easier to use, providing more information and analysis of your runs." Meanwhile, if you've been experiencing problems with Nike+ yourself, multiple alternatives to the service exist which offer functionality that meets or exceeds that of Nike+. I've been an avid RunKeeper user for a couple years, and I can definitely recommend that platform to any iOS user looking to track their fitness regime. If your electronic workout partner is an iPod nano, however, Nike+ is still the only game in town.
Runner's 13-mile trip is a tribute to Steve Jobs
In the days since the resignation of Steve Jobs as CEO of Apple, Inc., we've seen an amazing outpouring of love for the man and his legacy. But none of those tributes has had quite the impact of marathon runner Joseph Tame accomplished with an iPhone (actually two), the Runkeeper app and service, and his own two legs. Tame ran a half-marathon around the heart of Tokyo with a specific route in mind -- one that approximated the shape of the Apple logo. The run took Tame about two hours, and the end result was the Runkeeper GPS plot seen above. In case you're wondering, the bite out of the Apple is the Imperial Palace. TUAW has featured Tame's exploits before: he's also the creator of a rig that allows him to carry four iPhones, an Android handset, and an iPad while running so that he can live stream his marathon runs. Tame told New Launches that the iPhone "really has changed my life here in Tokyo. It means I can go anywhere without getting lost, I have all my data with me at all times, I'm potentially in touch with thousands of friends and family members around the world at all times, and I have access to any information I might need to do what I need to do." Joseph Tame definitely knows how to say "Thank You, Steve Jobs" in style.
RunKeeper Pro goes free, RunKeeper Free goes bye-bye
A member of the TUAW team recently received an email from RunKeeper saying that RunKeeper Free will no longer be supported. At first glance that might seem like fairly bad news, but it now appears that RunKeeper Pro has been re-branded as just plain "RunKeeper." Contrary to earlier reports that the iOS app would be free only through January, RunKeeper's price has stayed at $0 since December 30. RunKeeper arrived on the App Store in January 2009 at a price of US$9.99. The app always maintained a great deal of popularity even at its higher-than-average price, mostly because it's packed with well-thought-out features. RunKeeper is a cornerstone of my own fitness regime when I go for my daily bike rides, and between that app and Lose It!, I've managed to drop 16 pounds since January. So popular was RunKeeper that it wound up as one of the top-grossing apps of 2010, so it's curious to see the app now permanently fixed at free. RunKeeper does offer RunKeeper Elite, a subscription-based service to expand the app and website's functionality, so it's possible the developers are counting on bringing in revenue solely through subscriptions from now on. We've reached out to RunKeeper for its comments on the app's current status, but we haven't heard back yet; if RunKeeper does give us additional info, we'll either update this post or write a followup. Meanwhile, the takeaway from all this is iOS users interested in improving their fitness now have a powerful, free tool at their disposal... and those of you still rocking RunKeeper Free on your iPhones now have no reason not to upgrade. Update: We received clarification from RunKeeper, and it turns out our initial supposition wasn't far off. RunKeeper was planning on having its Pro app free for January only, but after receiving more than a million app downloads in four days following the start of the promotion, the company decided to keep the app free and focus on building its community of users on the RunKeeper site. The app itself now serves as a gateway to the RunKeeper ecosystem rather than its main source of revenue; instead, RunKeeper now hopes to bring in revenue via subscription services like RunKeeper Elite and the RunKeeper store. That's definitely an interesting approach, and possibly one that could net RunKeeper a lot more revenue in the long run than app sales alone. Wherever RunKeeper gets its money from, I hope it stays around for a long time.
Marathon man preps for second live stream, with multiple iPhones, iPad
Readers may recall our report last year on runner and TUAW reader Joseph Tame, who streamed the Tokyo marathon from a head-mounted iPhone. This year's marathon will be held on February 27, and Joseph has found additional ways to make the 42km run even more difficult. Check out the get-up that he's planning to wear for the race (pictured). He has four rotatable iPhones and an Android handset, plus an iPad to monitor the marathon's Twitter hashtag (#tm2011). He'll be streaming video from multiple cameras using either Skype or FaceTime, and he'll have assistance from friends in an off-site studio who will mix the incoming video streams and rebroadcast them via Ustream. He'll be transmitting location and heart rate data, plus temperature and CO2 levels, too. Naturally, he's dubbed the whole contraption the iRun, though I can't help but think that it sort of resembles a Glo-Worm/Optimus Prime love-child. Awesome, by any name. I've gotten to know Joseph over the past couple of years, and this sort of fun geekery is surprisingly normal for him. Recently he has been dabbling in GPS art as well, using Runkeeper to draw the face of Hello Kitty over Tokyo's Shinjuku district, covering 45km in the process. Check out his video demo explaining his iRun below, and stay tuned to his website for more updates as the day of the big race approaches.
