My favourite Fitness app – VirtuaGym www virtuagym.com

Fitness apps are becoming the obsession of the moment. The prominence of the likes of Fitbit (http://www.fitbit.com), the Apple’s Health App (https://www.apple.com/ios/ios8/health/) and the new Google Fit app (see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/10897506/Google-Fit-for-Android-to-take-on-Apple-HealthKit.html) add to the ubiquityof apps in this developing market.

I never thought I would be able to exercise and  I did not believe that an app would be able to solve my exercise fears until I discovered Virtuagym (www.virtuagym.com) which is available on iPhone (http://itunes.apple.com/nl/app/virtuagym/id514316985) and android phones (http://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=digifit.virtuagym.client.android). 

What I like about VirtuaGym

VirtuaGym is a simple app providing exercises for the home, home gym or actual gym. Its main selling point is a virtual person caller 'Brad Fit', who demonstrates the exercises for you and does them with you in real time.  Now I know this might sound stupid, but it actually works well for someone like me.  I am a complete novice to exercise, and therefore I tend to rush into exercises too fast and get tired very easily and very quickly. The app slows me down.  It makes me think about each stage of the exercise and most importantly does all the counting and timing for me.

It has a very simple fitness test you can do which involves recording your height, weight etc. and asks you to do jumping jacks for two minutes, and then do as many lunges, press-ups and sit-ups as you can in addition to recording your pulse. This is not ideal for the beginner, as I could not have done 2 minutes of jumping jacks to save my life when I first started using the app. 

I started on a predefined workout called the Morning Workout (Novice) which gives you a lot of stretching exercises which when you do them slowly build up your core strength.  After doing these regularly for a month, I ventured further into doing more exercises and exploring other levels.

The app allows for a range of customisation. for example, when you get into some of the more advanced stages you are required to run twice a week. Now, I do not run. Even my kids have not managed to get me to run yet so and app is up against a lot of resistance. I cycle, on a road bike, instead. I can reconfigure my workouts so that I can cycle instead of running.   I can and have also designed my own workout regime which I do every day when I am not cycling.

Since I started using the app I have developed core strength and slowly building up stamina as well. In fact I would not have got the bike if it had not been for my abilities developing fast whilst using the app.

What I don’t like about the app

No app is perfect, and much as I love VirtuaGym, there are some irritations, which are with the design. Firstly, Brad Fit can provide, as default, motivational speech. Now this might sound good, but this is a computerised voice with no emotion saying things such as “heads will turn” which might well be the case, but as a bloke in his fifties, this is possibly not because I am great looking with a ripped body, but rather because I am drooling or some such other reason. Also If I am to get motivational speech from a man I want an army sergeant shouting at me and ordering me to continue. In preference I would actually rather like a female voice, telling me how hot I look as this might help the ego a little. 

You can customise, but the customisation is very limited and predefined workout elements are not available for you to customise in your own workout. To obtain better customisation, you are encouraged to sign up to a monthly Pro package. I tend to object to anything I have to pay for monthly, as I will tend to lose interest and continue paying, so I avoid this at all costs which is sad as I would gladly pay a few quid for a pro version of the app providing more customisation and bespoke reports etc. on a one of basis.  I am sure there are many others who would do the same.

The reports are a final issue for me. I would like to see how many exercises I did today, this week, this moth and how many calories I burned etc. The app only provides a running total, which misses the point somehow. I know for example that I have done 1,684 minutes of exercise and burned 15,425 calories since I started using the app.  I have not lost weight but it is redistributed somewhat.  On the website, which uses Flash to animate the characters, there is more information, but I like many other people access the information through the app and rarely go to the site. As I am an android user, the flash elements of the site are lost to me from my mobile devices.

Overall opinion

I have only scratched the surface on what this app can do. I have not mentioned the achievement badges you get and the other elements of the app and community that come with using the app. I have on the other hand, tried many other apps and not found any to compare. I now feel I should exercise and actually enjoy the burn and the sweat. I have only used the app for a few months but I know I will continue to do so for many more. I also suspect that as Google and Apple reveal more about their health apps they will be using some of the best bits form this app.

The app is free to download and use but there is an in app purchase of the Pro mode if you feel you want to sign up to this instead of a gym. Personally, I will stick to the free mode until a one off payment for Pro becomes available and then I will assess whether the value is worth the price of the upgrade.

So overall, I love the app and would want to promote it to others as I think it is excellent. Of course, if you are a seasoned athlete, this app is possibly not for you. However, for everyone else it is ideal.

Getting Touchy about touchscreens: Why I still have a standard Windows computer

We live in the mobile generation, a time period characterised by wireless connectivity. I admit most of my time I spend on either my tablet or my smartphone, but I still have an old, Windows XP netbook which I would loath to give up.

For all the whizz that smartphones and tablets are, and they are brilliant at many things, there are some things I think they really fail at. The most noteworthy of these is the ability to do what I am doing now, which is typing.  I agree that there are apps that can allow you to dictate something and it will be translated into some semblance of text, but traditionally data input is done through the keyboard.

When I type the keys are depressed and the text I am typing appears almost instantly on the screen, as if by magic.  I also have an inbuilt spell checker which tells me where things do not make sense.  When I do to correct something I use my mouse to pinpoint the exact location of the thing that needs changing and  then I highlight it or type over it, or whatever action is required.

Have you tried this on a smartphone or tablet?

Well if you have you will know the keyboard  often makes me mistype things and I end up with words joined by a 'V' which means the spell checker is lost for a solution.  Also trying to get to a word at the beginning of a line is almost impossible. If a word is identified as incorrect the touchscreen seems to never quite get the exact location of my finger's contact correct.  Even using a capacitive stylus, which helps a little, still means that where I am thinking I am pressing is not where the screen tells the device I am pressing.  A mouse on the other hand goes where I want it to.

Highlighting things in Android is cumbersome to say the least, in fact often it is better to delete the whole thing than try to highlight things as this can be so hit and miss and takes so much time to get correct.  Again a design flaw is that the screen often misinterprets where I put my finger of stylus.

I have also used a Bluetooth 3 Keyboard on my tablet, but it appears that the speed that I type is a little too much for the tablet so I get a severe lag and often whole words are missed making it a little like using some of the dication softwares, which require regular corrections.

It is interesting to me that this piece has taken less than 5 minutes to write on my netbook but I wonder how long it would take on the tablet.  I also must admit I love my mobile devices and have used them often to write things on.  I am a great fan of Google Keep and Evernote where many ideas are stored for later use.  Both allow me to write a lot which is great, and both have the facility for voice messages, but I tend to stick to manual input.

The question on my mind is will this be addressed soon?  If mobile technologies are to succeed in the real world to facilitate health and social care as well as business, a basic requirement is that a touch screen is accurate. My old Palm device had a great programme to calibrate the screen to your touch, in which you pressed on X's on the screen and the device would calibrate itself, why isn't this available to smartphones and tablets?

It seems a basic requirement that is a fundamental for all Android, Windows (not tested) and Apple devices.