There are few things in life I value more then my sleep. It’s my best friend, my only love, the jelly to my peanut butter. I love to sleep. I do it a lot, and our interactions will surely suffer if I did not receive a decent amount of sleep the night before.

This was me a only a few days ago. I’m a new man now. Better, faster, stronger, and better looking if you can believe it. A problem that I had was that I usually am up pretty late reading, writing, playing video games and what not and usually need to wake up pretty early. This is an issue. It got to the point where I fought anybody who looked at me wrong. I was wearing pants around my head and shoes on my feet. I forgot English for a bit. My Madden skills took a steep dive. Then one afternoon, after a small temper tantrum, I was browsing the app store for alarm clocks and I came across this little gem. It’s a mere $0.99 but I fib not when I say I would pay $50 for it. In order to truly understand the greatness of this app, we have to take a little journey. A journey into science… Science land.

Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock works using the iPhone’s accelerometer to analyze your movement through the night. It detects your sleep cycles (hence the name SLEEP CYCLE Alarm Clock) throughout the night and after a couple nights fully determines what your sleep cycles are. You may be asking yourself “What is a sleep cycle Mr. Rithjin?” Well lets take a deeper trip into Science Land… Shall we? The average healthy human goes through a few sleep cycles through the night categorized into four different stages. Helpguide.org categorizes these four stages as such:

Stage 1 (Drowsiness) – Stage 1 lasts just five or ten minutes. Eyes move slowly under the eyelids, muscle activity slows down, and you are easily awakened.
Stage 2 (Light Sleep) – Eye movements stop, heart rate slows, and body temperature decreases.
Stages 3 & 4 (Deep Sleep) – You’re difficult to awaken, and if you are awakened, you do not adjust immediately and often feel groggy and disoriented for several minutes. Deep sleep allows the brain to go on a little vacation needed to restore the energy we expend during our waking hours. Blood flow decreases to the brain in this stage, and redirects itself towards the muscles, restoring physical energy. Research also shows that immune functions increase during deep sleep.
REM sleep (Dream Sleep) – At about 70 to 90 minutes into your sleep cycle, you enter REM sleep. You usually have three to five REM episodes per night. This stage is associated with processing emotions, retaining memories and relieving stress. Breathing is rapid, irregular and shallow, the heart rate increases, blood pressure rises.

So now that you understand these stages, you must also understand that there is a period when it is natural for the body to awake, and there are periods when if awoken, vital parts of your sleep cycle will be missed and you will turn into a flesh eating zombie. It’s science. What the Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock does differently for you is actually determine the most opportune time to wake you based on your body movements. You set your wake up time on the alarm clock and sleep cycle will pay careful attention to your body movements in the 30 minutes up to that specific time, and determine when is best to wake you up with a tune that gently caresses your ear drums and whispers “time to wake up Pooh Bear” in the voice of an angel. Then it feeds you breakfast.

No that’s my mom… But in all seriousness, this app works. I don’t know, I keep running through it in my head and thinking “well what if it in that 30 minute span there is no good time to wake me up?” or “what if this is voodoo science?” Friends, put these questions out of your mind, because it doesn’t matter. The app works. I NEVER wake up the first time my alarm goes off. For the first week I used this alarm clock, I rose the very second the alarm went off feeling like I had just slept for an entire day. It’s unbelievable. Maybe it’s just something in my mind, but if it is, then I’m just fine with that because it works.

Oh and one last thing… This app is not a substitution for a good night’s rest. It is helpful on nights that you don’t get quite as much sleep as you wanted, but it’s definitely not going to trick your body into thinking you got a solid eight when you only got four hours of sleep. I have tested it, and it will not make up for a lack of sleep. But it’s not advertised to do so, so I’m fine with that.

I could go on and talk about the menus in this app (which are actually very nice) but that stuff doesn’t matter. Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock is $0.99 and you would be insane to not go and buy this app right now. It just works. Period. It does exactly what it advertises which is absolutely amazing. Again, in all seriousness, my days are much more enjoyable when I’m not worrying when I get to go home and pass out.

I’ll be honest…I’ve tried a few pedometer apps for the iPhone, so when iTreadmill came across my home screen I was skeptical. iTreadmill claims to be one of the more accurate pedometer apps on the market and from the results I was pleasantly surprised. iTreadmill boasts a wide variety of extra features and doodads that really make this app shine above the rest.

The Good
Upon opening iTreadmill, I was greeted by the phrase, “Exercise Anywhere. Anytime.” Granted, I’m not a huge fan of aerobics, walking, or anything involving moving. I’m not a generally lazy person, but 116 degree heat really deters the desire to test this app, but I did manage to find a very good testing ground: my daily walk to the office.

Every day, I park my car at Lot 3 and walk to my dayjob. This trek requires me to walk around a YMCA, across a park, and slightly up the street to my destination. I started off by clicking the big play button in the middle of the screen. I was instantly greeted with a clicking metronome of sorts, also known as the pacer. You can use the wheel on the right side of the screen to set exactly how fast you want to go. For the purposes of my initial test I turned it off. Neat feature #1

I continued on my morning walk until I reached a roadblock in my commute (quite literally). I took a quick look down at my device to notice that the app had auto-paused when I stopped walking. Yet another neat feature. As I was placing my iPhone back in my pocket, it slipped slightly in my hand and I feared that I had accidentally pushed the play button as ruined my test. Turns out KaDa Technologies already solved my issue before it happened; proximity sensor functionality. It just keeps getting better!

After counting my steps the entire way, I found that iTreadmill was only inaccurate by about 10 steps. Far better than any other pedometer app that I have tried. I used it the rest of the day as I fulfilled my various tech jobs around the building and I was quite impressed. I read through the user manual on the website and found a calibration button in the top right corner above the pacer wheel. After calibrating, I saw a slight difference in accuracy, but not enough to notice.

After saving all of your walks or runs, the history screen shows you all of the recorded times, calories burned, and distance traveled in one convenient place. After using it for several days I am convinced that this is one of the best pedometer apps on the market and could probably hold its own in competition with traditional standalone units.

My favorite part about this app is the sounds. Straight out of an 8-bit video game, every sound associated with this app makes me want to pretend that I’ve stepped into the Mushroom Kingdom. Of course, if you prefer a more silent routine there are option to turn the sounds off.

The Not-So-Good
This app would be wonderful if a few things were tweaked in the future versions:

First, the app is slightly cluttered. I think that the same functionality could be implemented in a much more appealing package. I know it’s vain but I think that would boost its usability a touch more.

Second, I would love widescreen view. If you have one of those spiffy hip-mounted holsters for the iPhone or iPod touch, it could be a bit of a hassle to pull the unit out just to see your status.

Third, if this app had more organization in the history I would be a very happy man. There were a couple times where I wish that I could save multiple instance under one workout or work day instead of seeing my cumulative score.

My Verdict
This is a solid pedometer. It tracks, it pauses, and it plays funny noises that amuse me. Its not the prettiest app in the App Store, but it works and that’s what matters. I would have no reservation plopping down $3 for what this app does, especially if you have been searching for an app such as this one. Go buy this app, test it for yourself, and get out and do something (you know its good for you).

Pros
- Easy to use
- Auto-pause
- Proximity sensor use
- Freaking awesome sounds!

Cons
- Interface could use a facelift
- Needs more “History” functionality
- Widescreen support would be nice

There is nothing quite as annoying as walking into a gym with a spiral notebook and a pen. I’ve tried it multiple times, and although competing against your old best lift is motivating, taking the time to write down stats is not. It especially becomes a pain to have to find a place for the notebook when you just want to play a pick up game of basketball or to have a quick racquetball tourney. I recently found Gym Buddy in the app store and decided to give it a shot.

Gym Buddy, in a nutshell, is essentially a pen and paper replacement for the iPhone of iPod Touch. It lets you enter in individual exercises into a list and then distribute the exercises into a complete workout. There is a nice sized list of exercises already imported, but most people will need to spend a small amount of time importing their own list. Once you have your list done, and you’ve created your own workout, its off to the gym.

The program is quite simple to use once you get to the gym. Since most people use their iPhones for music anyway (by the way, music keeps playing while Gym Buddy is open), finding a place to store the device between sets becomes a non-issue. Once you get to the weights all there is to do is enter the weight lifted and the amount of reps completed, and then you are on to the next set or the next exercise in the workout. When you complete a set, the program tells you the one rep max for the workout and spins around a bit if you beat your previous one rep max. There are a few features that the program adds to make your workout a bit more streamlined, such as a timer for you to use between sets… you know, to prevent yourself from becoming lazy, and the previous lift box that lets you see how you are doing compared to previous lifts.

After the workout is completed, Gym Buddy provides all sorts of analysis on the workouts. The feature I use the most is the graph, which graphs my one rep max progression through each workout. There is also a ranker, which gives tells you your lifting ranks by exercise. It’s great to see what you need to beat on your next gym trip, although I guess it could also be discouraging to see that you may never beat your one rep max from that day you drank two pots of coffee. Gym Buddy even lets you enter your workouts into a spreadsheet format for some nice non-iPhone analysis. As of now, the spreadsheet only works in Excel (lame), but in an e-mail, the developer assured me that a Numbers template would come out soon. I’m hoping sooner than later.

The important thing to know about Gym Buddy is that someone who already knows how to properly exercise and already has some sort of exercise plan in mind should use it. Unlike some of the other workout apps, this one doesn’t show you how to perform exercises and it doesn’t give you any workout tips. It is only meant to replace the pen and paper, which for someone like me who just wants to track data, is perfect. I don’t want a bloated app that reminds me how to do a squat, I just want to squat.

Gym Buddy does what it does quite well, but there are still a few tweaks that I would like to see in the next version. First off, I would like to see a better tracking system for exercises that don’t necessarily depend on weight, such as pull-ups and pushups. Instead of making me enter in weight and reps to calculate a 1-rep max, I would rather just enter in how many pull-ups I completed so I can try to beat that amount the next time. There is nothing stopping me from just entering the reps and no weight, but I’ve grown quite fond of seeing the screen spin when I beat my last score. Right now I am just putting in my body weight as the weight, but when I’m doing a pushup, I’m not really sure that I’m lifting an entire 190 pounds. I would also like to see some of the buttons become a bit easier to click on. Nothing major, but occasionally after a lift I have to push some of the buttons a few times to get the button pushed. Also, as previously stated, I would also like to see some Numbers support. I know, I know, it’s coming… I’m just not patient.

I’ve been using Gym Buddy for a few weeks now and I can easily say that it is one of my top 5 most used apps. My workouts have gotten better and I can finally see real workout progress. I would recommend this app to anyone that has any gym experience and already has a workout in mind that they want to track (it’s a gym tracker after all, not a personal trainer). The app looks nice, works well, and is updated often…, which to me is the most that I can expect from any app out there.

To successfully achieve nutrition and weight goals it is generally necessary to pay close attention to the foods you are putting into your body and how often you make yourself move. So for everyone who may be bored to death by the idea of actually recording their calories and exercise, Lose It offers an elegant, if not a tad geeky, tool to make it less tedious.

Upon launch you enter your vitals such as age, current weight and gender and set goals. Lose It then calculates a daily calorie budget based on this information; the hard work of diet and exercise then ensues. Within Lose It you keep a daily food journal, recording your meals from its built in food database, brand name foods and some included chain restaurant menu items. The app also has the ability for you to create custom food items and record their corresponding nutritional information if what you eat is not already in the program. You can subtract calories from your daily total by performing and recording exercise.

From within the preference pane, entitled ‘More’, you can change the nutrients you wish to track, such as sodium, fiber and protein; Lose It totals these daily and weekly for you. Here you can also enter entire recipes as well as custom exercises. Other niceties include weight entry and graphical progress.

I did find myself entering most of my foods and their nutritional information into the ‘custom foods’ database only because the nutritional information for the included database is not able to be altered. Or maybe I just eat weird stuff. In either case this was the only aspect of using Lose It that I found to be difficult or lacking.

Having tried a vast array of iPhone diet and nutrition apps, I can highly recommend Lose It for anyone serious about their nutritional goals. It’s hardly a risk at the current price.

AmbiScience from Tesla Software is a combined ambient music player and brain wave synchronization app for your iPhone or iPod Touch.. What is brain wave synchronization you ask? It is the practice of entraining brainwave frequency to fall into step with periodic stimuli corresponding to an intended brain state, e.g. sleep. AmbiScience uses isochronic beats, evenly spaced tone bursts, to achieve these effects. Hearing these beats does not require headphones–a purported improvement over software that utilizes binaural beats. Indeed the tones are audible with the phone docked on my nightstand, where this program plays each and every night since it was released.

AmbiScience BP includes 11 high quality sound tracks including personal favorites like Desert Sunrise, The Power Plant and Tesla’s Lab. The sound effects are smooth and rich without audible looping; no crickets chirping or crackling fires here! The impressive musical effects are reason alone to use AmbiScience. Upon launching the application you choose the desired sound effect using a scroll wheel and pressing the ‘play’ key. Entrainment effects can be added on a separate screen accessed by pressing the large button at the top of the main screen. There is also an optional timer which fades the sound effects at the set time. It continues to play after your device is asleep but cannot play in the background, an unfortunate limitation placed upon the developers by Apple.

The program has a nice user interface. My one quibble is that the volume slider can be difficult to use; the button is small and not uniformly responsive. Also AmbiScience takes up and impressive 80 MB on your device, which can be quite a commitment depending on your storage capacity. It is best installed onto your computer and synchronized over to your device as over the air downloading is very slow.

So does it work? My answer is–who knows? This may be pseudoscience at its worst but plenty of people attest to brain wave entrainment’s efficacy. All I can say for sure is that the sound effects are awesome and background sounds do have useful ‘noise canceling’ effects which can help us sleep and concentrate. There is a lite version of AmbiScience BP available to try for free. But you can probably find $0.99 hiding in the cushions of your couch and when you do, spend it on this great app.

Among the many iPhone applications available to assist users with health and fitness, there is a specific subset designed for the purpose of tracking the foods and calories we consume. iWatchr is one of these applications, specifically intended for users of the Weight Watchers® method. While this weight loss program has evolved over time, its mainstay has always been the calculating of food ‘points’ based on caloric, fat and fiber values and journaling these items daily.

iWatchr includes four primary functions:
1. A food point calculator, in US and European measurements
2. A food journal for logging daily input, with history
3. A ‘favorites’ section for easy recording of oft-repeated items into the food journal
4. An activity or bonus point calculator

For its intended audience, iWatchr works quite well. It allows for accurate food point calculations and recording in an easy to use, if somewhat utilitarian and inelegant manner. For example, there is currently no way to log points from the food calculator page directly into the food log, the way you can from the bonus calculator page.

iWatchr also has an optional icon badge which shows the number of points consumed; alternatively the choice to show the number of points remaining for the day would be a nice addition. It also has the ability to calculate and record point fractions or whole numbers. Each of these customizations can be added under iPhone settings on the springboard.

Other suggested and (hopefully) forthcoming improvements would be the ability to record other aspects of the Weight Watchers® program such as daily water, fruit and vegetable servings and an area to record the user’s weight and BMI. iWatchr is actively updated by its developer and I would expect improvements in the future.

Overall, iWatchr is a useful application for recording basic aspects of the points program. With a more elegant UI and a few more features it could be a home run. As it stands, it is one of the more complete point tracking and food journaling apps available for the iPhone.

Well here it is, the week after Thanksgiving and I’m feeling a little larger than I was a week ago. Guess it’s time for a diet. Weightbot is a great way keep track of your weight over time or to work toward a target weight.

The main interface for this app is the daily weight input. The design is nice and easy to use. Just touch the weight display to bring up the slider to select your weight. You can shake the phone to erase the weight for a day. If you’re the private type about your weight, this app has the option of turning on a passcode to keep the data private.

To view your history of your entries in nice graphs all you need to do is turn the phone horizontal. The app will display history graphs in week, month, or year formats. Double tap the screen to switch between them. If you’ve set up a goal weight, that will be shown on the graphs as well as a trend line.

New to this latest version is a secure backup system. Create an account with your email and a password and the app will automatically backup your data to guard against data loss.

I don’t think I’ve focused enough on the fantastic design this app has. It’s filled with all those nice touches that just make it feel like right. Truly a case study in unique app design on the iPhone.

Here’s a short video that will give you an idea of the interface. But take a look at the screen shots below in full size for a better representation.

Weightbot is one of the best and most beautifully designed applications yet for the iPhone. It’s fun, functional, and right now it’s got a fantastic price.

Phone Aid is a reference application that gives you quick real information on what to do in case of a first aid emergency. It includes 5 different scenarios that include both picture instructions and audio instructions. The idea being that if you come across an emergency, you can start up this app, set it aside and follow the instructions in real-time from the audio.

In addition there is a great text reference for lesser emergencies — like bee stings, etc.

Here’s a demonstration video from the developer that gives you a good demonstration of what the app is like.

Phone Aid while not all encompassing is a great reference that I hope I will never have to use. Great safety app!

MyMate helps you keep track of your lady. It’s kind of an all in one relationship maintenance application. This app includes screens to help you keep track of your or your significant others cycle, sizes, and important dates.

What would really make this application useful, would the be ability to get reminders. Reminders of the dates coming up — either via email or the iPhone calendar. Unfortunately without using an external service, the SDK does not yet offer this. Hopefully soon.

If you are someone who would like to keep all of this information in one place, MyMate is for you.

Developer: Edovia Inc.
Price: $1.99
Version Reviewed: 1.1

Note 8/14: Note that there is a new version of this software out that reports that it has increased reliability. We’ll try to get access to that and revise this review if we can.

Steps says it’s a personal pedometer. But it’s really not worth a download.

Boy, I’m glad I didn’t by this app. I saw it on a friend’s iPhone and convinced them to let me give it a try. What I found out was that Steps is really not good for anything.

There are many things wrong with this application.

First — it can’t count steps. Something you think a pedometer would need to do, right? I tried using the app while the phone was on in every possible direction to try to get it to pick up the steps properly via the accelerometer. Top pointing down, on each side. In my front pocket, on my belt. I took 20 steps in each configuration. It just didn’t work right.

Steps would generally read 50-100% extra steps over what I actually took. Though sometimes it would only read 2 or three steps, well under the 20 I actually took.

So, does it work as a pedometer? No, strike one!

Second — it reports average speed and distance. Let’s assume for a second that the step counting worked, which I think we covered that it doesn’t, but if it did, then reporting distance/speed is just a guess. Without the app either using the GPS or knowing the length of your step, it’s just a guess. It just won’t add up right unless you have the perfect stride length. Strike two!

Third — it doesn’t work when the device is sleeping. So, you must keep your device on to use it. Handy! Good thing the iPhone has stellar battery life. Sorry, extra sarcastic today.

So there you go, three strikes. Steps is out.

The one good thing to say is that this app looks very nice. Meh.

So, don’t waste $2 on this or any iPhone OS pedometer — just go buy a real one for $2 at any sports store. It will actually work.