And… yes! I am back with another iPhone App Review.
So recently I just got back from a 9 day china trip and all that happy eating carelessly has made itself known in the form of an additional, and UNWELCOMED, 3kg.
So there, when I heard that Health Promotion Board has came up with a diet tracker that allows users to check the calorie and fat content of almost 400 foods, including most of Singaporean dishes.
Erm… yup, that’s how the “intro screen” looks like. Surely more can be done? The rest of the pages are the same (see below). Well, at least there is consistency!
So the app asks me to answer some questions about my level of activities and bio-data, and then lets me know what’s my ideal calorie intake per day.
Now do note, if you are a freak about the details like sugar, sodium, cholesterol and so on and forth, this is not for you.
But if you are looking for a casual gauge, then I think what they have will do well enough.
On the above, I tried to see how much energy and fat I consumed in a day. Er, I had ham sandwich with salad and tomatoes…. but as you can see, I could only select bread (is that energy amt for multi grain or wholemeal or white bread?)
Some screens below to show you the user interface.
All in all, I think that there are a wide variety of people who would use this app and all of them would have different needs… and I think when developing an app like that, it has to be very clear whom it’s targeting… and meet that group’s needs adequately.
Just for example:
1) The diet freak
These are people who would go right down to details like carbohydrates, sugar, cholestrol, etc. These are people who read food labels and make informed food intake decisions that way. This app is definitely not developed for them.
They get interested for the app concept but they’ll likely get turned off by the lack of details. They are also likely to be making their own healthy meals… and this app does not take that into consideration.
2) The casual weight watcher
This is made up of most of Singaporean girls who indulge every once in a while but are otherwise happy with their weight and do casually watch what they eat. They are the type that eat 1/2 a bowl of rice and leave the other half to their BFs to gobble down.
These people would likely find the app interesting, use it a few times and then forget about it cos they are really flippant about their food intake. And they might not even know what else is important to know about the food they eat and what kcal and fat means to their body. Maybe this app should address that.
Personally, I only used this app once and didn’t use it again. I make my own meals and I find this app quite lacking in terms of accommodating for my needs. To each his own.
What about you? Have you used this app before?