Most of you will already know that I am a big fan of the Jawbone Up. There are a few issues with it - a web interface would be good, actually having UK products in the food catalogue would be nice, in fact some improvements to the food logging in general are needed, lack of location tracking to help map your routes, and lastly the ability to update stuff offline would be good. Really these are minor quibbles given that in the 3.5 months I have had the band I have lost almost 10kg when in the previous year I had struggled to drop 6kg and most of it had been readded before I got the band. So why am I once again waxing lyrical about this device? Well Jawbone have recently improved their app to allow integration with a bunch of other services! So of course I am now going through and adding as many of them as I can benefit from. The list of Apps currently available for the Android are:
- RunKeeper I will come clean here - I haven't used this one. I tried RunKeeper a long time ago and found it to be a horrible user experience. As such I have resisted installing this app. A little narrow minded I admit but we are all subject to prejudices I suppose. It is a shame as I am now using MapMyFitness and MyFitnessPal for these things and I think there is generally better app support for RunKeeper. Maybe one day I will overcome this prejudice and try it out but for now I will be making do with the next two apps. Not Tried (with UP).
- MyFitnessPal This is not as nice a UI as CarePass, it doesn't have the simplicity, however for food logging it is second to none. The tracking of daily intakes has really changed the way I eat. No longer am I simply obsessing with calories, it has showed me that my calorie intake is fine but I really need to watch the Sodium, Protein and Sugar levels. There are a few things that I would like to see: IFTTT, Notch and MapMyFitness integration would all be great. Sleep integration and better support of activity time from UP data and better information about Food going the other way. However for now, this is great and the food database is truly fantastic (although I look forward to testing it when I get back to the UK). The web UI is also much appreciated. Loving it!
- MapMyFitness I have to be honest here - I have very little understanding of how this is or is not integrating with UP. Occasionally it seems to log an activity on the UP log but that's about it. The GPS tracking feature is nice and I am now using the app mostly for it's own sake however I do also use it to calibrate my Jawbone UP. I hope to see better integration between this and the UP over time. Liking it.
- IFTTT If this, then that is a great little site. The idea is to provide simple UI for programmatic features to allow you to do a wide range of things and for those of you too lazy to write your own (like myself). So far I have only used it for a few features to export the data into a spreadsheet so that I can track sleep usage over time and a similar thing for step counting. I also set up a prompter to post to Facebook if I don't do an 'activity' for three days encouraging others to nag me although I have been very careful to prevent it triggering so far! Loving it!
- Withings I haven't been able to use this one as it requires the Withings scales and I can't currently afford to splash out on a new set of scales. However I have heard good things about their scales and the additional information they are able to provide so I may well look to getting this in future. Not Tried.
- Wello I gotta admit that this one holds little interest for me - It is a system that allows you to connect online with personal trainers to help improve your workout sessions. The fact that it required paying for means that I won't be trying it. Not tried.
- Notch I LOVE THIS!!! Seriously, all you need to do is enable it and boom, instant Infographics that you can share with your friends. I am a little gutted that there is no G+ sharing and of course more templates would be great (even some way of creating your own would kick ass!). My favorite infographic has to be The Usual as it clearly shows my activity levels through the day and would love to see the same for my sleep patterns so I could try to improve my sleep habits. Loving it!
- Sleepio This is a paid for service that seems to provide very little information that I couldn't get for free from the internet... in fact Lifehacker seems to spend a lot of time providing similar information on how to improve sleep quality. Not using.
- Lose It! What a great idea for an app... what do you mean you have to pay? It's free isn't it? So the app is free and integration with the Nike Fuelband is free but Jawbone users have to pay? F*$k that for a game of soldiers. Not using.
- CarePass from Aetna I have to admit that at first I was madly in love with this, the layout, the web interface, the additional functionality were just what I had hoped Jawbone would eventually do for up... and then I added the Lose It! App and it seems like doing that totally fucked with all my integration. Suddenly nothing from my UP would get synced. Where previously I had my food synced, sleep, activity... then nothing. I tried everything I could to get my data to start syncing again but nothing. This would be the point where I try to reach the team behind it... but 2hrs of trawling the website and going in circles left me back at square one. If you guys don't want to help your users, that's fine, we just won't use your product. This one is now uninstalled.
Diego and I headed to the NASA Ames Visitor's Center today and IT WAS AWESOME! It is only a tiny place, one big circus tent full of all sorts of things including a piece of moon rock! The best bit of the trip though was the theatre. They seem to run a mix of videos and live talks. One live talk was from the man that had welcomed us on arrival who was clearly keen and happy in his job. He gave a great talk that covered everything from the ISS & the Solar system right out to the galaxy and the Universe.
I finally managed to watch the Curious Case of Benjamin Button this evening, it is a beautiful film and nothing like the way I had expected. If you haven't seen this film then watch it, watch it now, and once you've watched it, watch It's a Wonderful Life if you haven't seen that. I also finished Hakugei: The Legend of Moby Dick which felt a lot different to the way I had remembered when I watched the first few episodes all those years ago at ADV Films. It is excellent, it just wasn't how I remembered.
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