A few questions:
1. Have you considered adding a demo video? Although your screen shots are well done, I'd love to see the app in action.
2. Can you do more than track reps & sets? I find that most fitness apps are not flexible enough for Simple Fit or interval type training.
3. Can you talk about the app development process? How was the original idea formulated, validated, etc? Did you outsource the development? Any other interesting insights?
2) I primarily built it for myself, and I mostly do weight training at a gym. So there are a few features that may be helpful for interval training (superset support automatically advances forwards and backwards when you add a new set, rest timer buzzes when its time to get going again), but I'm not sure how helpful v1 would be for you. I want build on this to make it useful to as many people as possible. I'm not very familiar with Simple Fit, so if you have any ideas on how a voice controlled logger would ideally meet your needs, please let me know.
3) Sure. The idea came about pretty simply -- I tried out every possible workout app because I don't like carrying a pen and paper around with me. I found every one to have the same weakness -- they require you to take out your phone/ipod after every set to input data. I was already using a headset with a microphone to listen to my music while I exercised, so I figured why not put it to use? I didn't validate the idea at all. I figured that worst case scenario, I would build an app that allowed me to track my own workouts and manage my progress how I wanted it to be done. I did the development myself over the course of several long months. One of the features that I find most useful is that saying "skip track" will automatically skip to the next track in itunes. Because the iphone/ipod dont have hardware skip buttons, this is really helpful because I used to have to take out my ipod, unlock it, go to the music app, and tap skip. There are a few features like this and I don't think I would have been able to come up with them unless I was building it for myself and constantly testing it and finding its weaknesses.
As a matter of practicality, though, is it 100% voice controlled? Do I have to count out my reps? Because with any significant amount of weight, I'm not too articulate.
You say "Bench Press." The app confirms with a beep.
You want to add the some weight to the bar and tell the app how much weight you are going to use. So you say "135 pounds". The app confirms with a beep.
You do your set, and you were able to squeeze out 9 reps. You say "9 reps." The app confirms with a beep.
Repeat.
It is 100% voice-controlled. I try to log my workout without taking my iPod out of my pocket the entire time I'm at the gym. At the end of the workout, I'll review all the sets because occasionally the voice recognition will get a few numbers wrong (ie, it might mistake 5 for 50).
My current solution is to take one picture of the machine's output display per workout, then I (hopefully) add them to a Workout album.
What I'd like to do is have an app which scans these photos and pulls the numbers out to log them and draw graphs automagically.
