Almost all the people in the gym use their phone’s timer or stopwatch for performing Plank exercises. Maybe it is because it is easily accessible and no need to download it.

But is it the ideal app?

Two problems which we found were:

1. Seeing the elapsed time for stopwatch is difficult when we are at the end of Plank exercise.
2. Time anxiety with respect to the Timer – when will the time finish! We keep checking the phone’s screen for the remaining time.

We thought why not innovate a little and address the above simple problems.

How about a timer which speaks time at specified intervals until the time is finished? No need to look at the screen. Just hear the reverse count and use it as a motivation to hold the Plank more precisely.

How about a stopwatch which speaks time at specified intervals? Just close the eyes, concentrate on the core muscles and hear the elapsed time. Sounds interesting, doesn’t it?

Here is what we came with: Plank Stopwatch Timer app which does the above.

Stopwatch which speaks elapsed time at a time interval which can be programmed.

Timer which speaks remaining time at a specified time interval.

This is the first version available for iPhone as well as Android.

Download PlankST here

Do let us know how do you find the idea. Would you use the app for your next Plank workout? Any feature requests? You can email us or let us know in the comments below.

Meditation is the art of letting go. Relaxation. So, how can you bind it in time?

People who have been meditating would agree with me that most of times they decide to meditate for 10 minutes and they end up with a beautiful 20 minutes of mindful experience.

If you have have set a timer for 10 minutes, it would go off and would disturb your meditation. The solution we came up with is a timer which notifies you in a subtle way using haptic feedback that the time you set has been completed but continues to keep time.

So when you wake up after 20 minutes or may be 30 minutes, you can open the app and save the meditation session.

Also, since the app is integrated with the Health app, the meditation time is saved as mindful minutes in the Health app. Tracking and history made easy.

There are many guided meditation apps out there for beginners as well others. But once you get good at meditating, you will notice you can just “let go, relax” and enter a blissful meditation state easily; be it office, home or a peaceful and lively sea shore or refreshing country side mountains filled with melodies of birds, breeze, water and animals. You start enjoying natural silence and prefer it over music or sounds.

Sometimes you even do not want to set a timer and just want to flow with the flow. Or maybe you attend a meditation session by a spiritual master such as Sri Sri. We have got you covered so that you can easily keep track of your meditation session. How? Just enter the approximate minutes you meditated and save it. That’s it.

It happens that we decide “I will meditate regularly for atleast 10 minutes” and first three days go good, we miss the day 4, start again on day 5 and skip two more days. And give up eventually. How can this be tackled. I think the best way is to go with “One day at a time”. How does the app helps you with this regards. The Stats screen.

The Stats screen shows you the streak of days and the history for last 8 days for mediation. And “The Flower” is a symbolic representation of your aura. More on this below. Experts say that as you meditate “regularly” you start seeing the benefits of meditation. Regular practice is needed. So, we came up with “The Flower” which would motivate you to keep meditating regularly.

The Flower:

With every daily meditation goal you achieve, a petal is added to the flower. 8 days of continuous meditation and you have a full bloomed flower and a positive aura. A day off and a petal drops off! The challenge is to maintain a full flower with 8 petals.

The meditation goal can be set in settings. We recommend starting with 10 minutes and later increasing it as per your preference.

One more thing. Since the app runs natively on Apple Watch, you can turn on the flight mode of iPhone during meditation. I personally do not like a phone call or message bothering me and I think you too 

Complication are really a big thing on Apple Watch. Lot of small but helpful informations on watch face. Meditate app provides complications which show the daily mindful minutes.

The Meditate (Watch) app has been released just now and is available worldwide on the App Store. Check it here.

We would love to hear your thoughts/feedback on this. Thanks!

We were on a task of developing an app with a vision to “help people eat more healthy”

While most calorie based food tracking apps do help to achieve goals such as weight loss, etc, there are many people who find them complex and so they give up on food tracking. 

We came up with few personas. Are you one of them?

Romeo
31 M
Banker, overweight
• wants to develop a healthy eating habit and a healthy lifestyle
• has used many calorie based diet tracking apps

Q: Why did you stop using calorie based food tracking apps?
A: “They are complex. I did it for first week..entered 4 meals a day, but later I did not have time and found it to be very time consuming”

 

Jenna
27 F
Software professional, active
• fitness enthusiast, knows what is healthy/unhealthy
• now and then, binges! Falls prey to cravings and regrets at the end of an unhealthy day..(probably a very unhealthy day)

Q: Jenna, do you track food?
A: “I used to, but found that I don’t need any more. It is too much detail and logging everyday!”

Q: Do you remember how many unhealthy day regrets you had last month?
A: “Umm..no..I dont’t..but I had a very unhealthy day last Sunday!”

 

Grace
45 F
Maths teacher, obese
• eats unhealthy now and then
• wants to develop a healthy eating lifestyle for a healthy future

Q: Why do you eat unhealthy?
A: “I don’t know. It just happens”

Q: Why don’t you use a calorie based food tracking app?
A: “Do you want me to keep on entering what I eat for each meal? 5-10 minutes just entering food that I ate!”

Q: Why don’t you try EatHealthy Tracker? Few seconds to log your day. With entry reminder notification and Force Touch, you can do it in a second.
A: “One second for logging?!”

 

We wanted  something which is simple and which will make people aware of their eating choices and push them towards eating more healthy.

This happens to everyone: If you have an unhealthy day, you regret and later you forget..just like Jenna above. What do you say?

So we came up with something as simple as this:

“At the end of the day, before sleeping, I will consciously recall my eating choices in the day and give a rating to the day: healthy vs unhealthy”

The conscious decision somehow pinches oneself, even if there is an ounce of regret for any unhealthy choice. And a delight if it was a healthy day.

This is what we came up with:

The first design:

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And the first version 1.0 launch today:

Hope you will find the app useful.

Check the app out here: EatHealthy Tracker

And do let us know what do you think