Google Fit app review: a free and excellent fitness tracker

If there's one piece of technology that has really exploded in popularity in recent years, it has to be fitness trackers. As recent as 3 years ago wearing devices around your wrist, clipped to your clothing was a niche market. At the same time, using phone app to track your runs or rides were common for enthusiasts and competitors, but the average person didn't care all that much. Since then however, it's difficult to be in a public place, a shopping centre, office, or busy pedestrian street without spotting many a lot of these devices on people's wrists.

Activity trackers likes Fitbits were among the most popular holiday gifts for the last couple of years. Whether it's dedicated devices or specific apps, it's become incredibly common, extremely easy and debatably useful for people track their steps, weight, distance travelled, energy burned and overall physical activity in pursuit of better health and well being. There are so many options with a wide range of features, form factors and price points, but if you're just starting out and testing the waters, Google Fit may be what you're looking for.

Google Fit is an activity tracker created and managed by Google, in the same vain as Gmail, Google Photos, and Google Calendar. Like all other Google Apps, Google Fit is at its core, web-based which means all information is stored and sorted on Google’s services and therefore accessible across all internet connected devices. Google Fit’s ability to automatically track steps, distance and all other typical use-case information, requires your phone to run Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) if the phone itself is going to be the primary tracker. The Android OS version shouldn’t be a worry as over 90% of all Android devices run at least 4.0 - if you have an Android device younger than 5 years, you should be good.

What Google Fit does

Google Fit is an app which tracks all of the basic markers of physical activity - steps, distance, active time and energy burned. It also allows you enter goals for each on a daily or weekly basis, and enter your weight measurements. The ring is usually the first graphic you see which fills as you build your activity each day with different colours differentiating between different information. The app is able to intelligently distinguish between walking and running, so if you forget to identifying a run, it will still log your steps, energy and the rest as your pace picks up. It's needy, but fun, to go back and find out that it identified those times you quickly scurried across the road or ran around the yard with the dog for a few minutes. Of course, for deliberate workouts, you can select your activity from a massive list (A-Z, Aerobics to Zumba) and the app will smartly configure energy burning, steps and active time for you. You can also enter an activity afterwards - in case you forgot or didn’t have your phone, or any tracking device on you at the time of your workout.

Google Fit then sorts all of this information and presents it to you in real time and with next to no effort. Simple rings and bars show progress, icons are clear and the overall interface make scrolling through past activities, entering new data, changing settings or viewing progress trends easy and fast. The app is designed incredibly cleanly and refrains from bombarding you with menus, options and other elements that could create a cluttered and distracting user experience. Everything you could want to see is incredibly easy to find.

Google Fit is free and available everywhere

The best things about Google Fit are it's price and availability. As alluded to before, like most Google services it is entirely free and accessible anywhere. Download the app to your Android phone, spend 5 seconds activating it and you're good to go. There's no need to turn it on or off when you want to use it, once you're setup it just just keeps working. I am pretty deliberate with tracking my activity, it's fun for me, so I'm always looking at the app on my phone, or on my laptop (fit.google.com) to see how things are going. My wife doesn't care so much, but does like to see from time to time. She remembers her phone does this maybe once a week and very simply she can get a solid idea of how active she's been over the last few days, weeks or months. Of course, this depends on your phone being on you, unless you have a tracker or smart watch.

The availability is where I find the most piece of mind. Apple Health requires an Apple device, there is now Web version, so if you one day move to Android or Windows phone and your history is locked within Apple's walls. As said before, Google Fit being available via a browser adds a greater layer of openness for the long term. It's so handy to be able to look at my activity on my phone, tablet and laptop, and it pulls from most other notable fitness trackers to combine everything in one place is incredible. The value increases exponentially as I'll still be able to do so when I upgrade all of those devices. IT should be noted however that synschornisation isn’t perfect - at least not in real-time. Below is a photo of the web-site screen, my tablet and phone and as you can see the information is close, but not exactly the same. Past results all seem to be consolidated, for example the logs are all identical as of 2 days ago and earlier, but real-time and the day before seem to be be slightly conflicting.

While the slight glitch in across-device consistency isn’t perfect, this flexibility is the greater plus. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle is forever, so if you're in the camp that finds value in activity tracking, being locked into whatever device you're using in a given moment, and the possibility of losing everything if and when you change to something else is a big deal. You may use a step counter now, then take up running next year and therefore want a different device made by a specific running brand like Polar, change phone makers 2 years later, and who knows what else in the decades to follow. It pains me that the biggest line, Fitbit is refusing to partner with Google (or Apple) on this. Fitbits are great, but on a  personal level I don't like services that are built to lock me in.

There's no iOS app yet

The unfortunate and frankly, un-Google aspect is that there currently is not iOS app. The Google Fit app is exclusive to Android, just like Apple’s version, HealthKit is exclusive to iOS. This means that iPhone users can use Google Fit to keep their records, but the phone’s sensors can’t feed into Google Fit directly. That being said, Google has allowed access to developers for anyone who chooses to use their APIs, which means that most of the well known fitness apps, Nike, Strava, Adidas, Withings, Runtastic, RunKeeper, and MapMyFitness can all synch to Google Fit. So, if you use Strava to track your bike rides, Nike+ to track your runs, plus want a place to log your weight each week, Google Fit can be your one-stop-shop. It is bothersome that Google Fit is not available on iOS. Google Apps are usually written for Apple devices (Gmail, Drive, Google Maps, Google Play Music and Google Photos are all on iOS), as Google’s model is built on allowing everyone to use their services, so Google Fit may be coming. Long story short, if you have an Android device, you’re all set, if not, you’ll need a fitness tracker otherwise you’ll be entering things manually.

Overall

Google Fit is a free application for logging and tracking your physical activity and workouts. There’s no iOS app yet, but you can still access the app via the website which is a very big advantage. This, plus the fact that it can link to almost all other fitness tracking devices (i.e., Withings, Runtastic, Strava, Nike+, RunKeeper, etc) means that your activity will stay with you regardless of what watch, phone, wristband, tablet or laptop you find yourself using as the years go on. And, given that maintaining an active and healthy lifestyle isn’t a temporary endeavour, the ability to keep tracking your workouts, if you find so beneficial, regardless of what watch, phone or wristband you’re using is incredible.

The link to the website is fit.google.com and you can find the

Android app here

The Nexus 4 Review - The Best Budget Phone for 2014

Budget smartphones have been getting a lot of attention these days. In general, it can be argued that the market for flagships has stagnated. There’s an overall lack of enthusiasm with new top-of-the-line phones upon unveiling within the tech world. It seems that over the last year or so, it’s become more difficult and therefore less likely, for manufacturers to bring brand new, innovative features that really impress people. Whether it’s the newest iterations from Apple, Samsung, HTC, Google, or any other major player, the improvements over previous models are smaller and incremental rather than truly revolutionary. Thinner, lighter, faster, sharper display, better camera, etc.

It's a pretty popular Google search

This may be why more attention is on wearables, smart homes, integration across devices, and the afformentioned value-for-money smartphone. This is also why, if you subscribe to any of the top tech news or review sources, you’ll find plenty of great advice on the “best smartphone if you’re on a budget”. Here are some pieces that inspired this article.

1. Android Central - Best Android phones under $250
2. Techradar - Best cheap smartphones
3. Phonearena - 15 best low-cost smartphones

If you’ve been looking into buying a new phone as well, but aren’t interested in shelling out the better half of $1000, you’ve probably read a lot about many different phones, but odds are, most of the spotlight has been on the Moto G. It’s not the cheapest, or the best, but the consensus is that it strikes the perfect balance between today’s smartphone consumer demands, and an affordable price tag. The problem is, there’s one phone that has almost no attention at all in terms of budget smart phones and it should. It’s cheaper than the Moto G, has a better screen, more premium feeling design language, same amount of ram and generally, the same overall power under the hood. This phone, the real best budget phone, is the Nexus 4.

Over 2 years old and received the OTA

This is not to say that the Moto G doesn’t deserve all of the praise it’s received this year. It’s a great phone. Building upon last year’s model, it’s the affordable smartphone that hits all the right points for those that want a solid phone that can handle all of today’s typical needs - apps, photos, games, media and mobile browsing, but without the top-tier features and latest specs that come with the high price tags of flagships. It’s capable of 4G has a sharp display, is well designed with a decent camera and runs fairly smooth. The “runs fairly smooth” part has always been the big compromise with budget phones. Spending less than $500 on a phone usually meant stuttery software with plenty of bugs that really wasn’t capable of much and therefore not really fun to use. The Moto G is really one of the first affordable smartphones to turn those traits on their heads. Motorola designed a low-spec device, making it wallet-friendly, but focusing on simplicity rather than features, ensuring Android runs as smooth as possible.

This is why I’ve spent the last few months eagerly awaiting the Moto G’s 2014 release. I’ve been a proud Nexus 4 owner since launch back in 2012, and since it’s been over 2 years, my instincts has told me it’s time to get something new. So like any smart shopper, tech enthusiast, or big nerd would do, I started comparing specs, and came to a very surprising realisation. Upgrading from the Nexus 4 to the 2014 Moto G wouldn’t be a very logical move. Despite the 2 year age difference, I found out that these two phones are incredibly similar in capability. Even further, many aspects of the Nexus 4 are objectively higher-end than those of the Moto G. As strange as it may seem, given that the Nexus 4 was never a best-in-class phone, even when it was brand new, the reality is that it is quite easy to argue that the Nexus 4 is better than the Moto G.

The design of the Nexus 4 remains as one of the most unique designs any smartphone has every had. The glass back was nothing new at the time,the iPhone 4 was the first major release to do that. Glass backs have also been done since, most notably by the Sony Xperia Z series. However, the reflective, checkered pattern beneath the glass back gave the Nexus 4 a distinct visual marker without being too gaudy. In the right light the phone sparkled, otherwise, it was a very understated black glass panel with silver “nexus” branding. I have a dBrand skin on mine, so it’s a moot point in terms of visuals, but there’s still a rigidity to the phone which may mean more in terms of design and build quality.

+dbrand skins are the best

In a time where “lighter and thinner” seems to be the mark of innovation, the Nexus 4 has a solid feel and heft that, may have been light at its launch, but now, makes the phone feel unusually strong - even if only, artificially. It feels like an expensive, well designed device, despite being offered at an affordable price point. A dBrand skin solved the concern regarding slippery fracture prone backing, creating in my opinion the only nexus phone that has hit the “premium” mark in terms of fit and finish.

As far as software is concerned, Android 5.0 Lollipop is running fantastically on my phone. The phone is faster, the animations run smooth, and I honestly haven’t had an issue with lag. Really, there’s not much point into going over the software too much. There are plenty of Android Lollipop overviews out there. All that’s important here, is that, at least on my Nexus 4, it runs great and has definitely made the phone better.

100% stock. with Google Now Launcher

Despite my praise for the Nexus 4, the fact remains that I was pretty close to upgrading it and the main reason for this was the camera. It’s no secret that Nexus phones don’t have great camera’s and this phone is one of the reasons that reputation exists. The camera upon launch was pretty good, but it’s definitely nothing in comparison to modern flagships. It’s not a bad camera, but it’s not a camera you’re going to trust either. Every time I take a photo, I large part of me is prepared to be unsatisfied by it. This for me has always been the biggest cost-cutting measure which allowed these phones to be priced so competitively.

The camera's not the best

The other reason I was looking to replace my phone was the release of Android 5.0. I was mentally prepared for the Nexus 4 to not receive an update sicne it’s been over 2 years. Still, I wanted to see if it would receive the the update, and if so, how it handled it. To my surprise, the OTA game through in about a week after reports that Nexus 5s started receiving theirs and even before Nexus 6’s started shipping here (Australia). As I said before, there’s absolutely no problems with it. Lollipop is runnign fantastically on my unrooted, completely stock Australian Nexus 4.

A little while ago I took a poll to the Google+ Nexus Community asking which phones people would rather buy. As expected, the majority sided with the Moto G. Interestingly however, was the margin. 40% voted for the Nexus 4. Despite being 10% under even, this is still impressive considering the phone is over 2 years old. I doubt this would be much worse than the results would fair if it were the Nexus 5 were up against the Moto G. Further, I think it’s a safe assumption that if it were the even older Galaxy Nexus it may be pretty close to 0%.

40% voting for an out of production, 2 year old phone

Of course, the Moto G, just a few months into it’s life cycle is understandably more current and future-proofed than the Nexus 4 which is over 2 years old. Where the Moto G is likely to be supported for at least another year, I wouldn’t be surprised if 5.0 is the last update the Nexus 4 receives. Battery life is reportedly much better as well, despite the slighlty smaller battery. Design is subjective, I prefer my phone to sit flat on a table, so the curved Moto G would bother me a fair bit. It’s also subjective, but I don’t like the idea of having a phone any larger than the Nexus 4. I am a runner, and the idea of carrying something larger bothers me as well. This is the main reason I wouldn’t get a Nexus 5 - that and the protruding camera. I do like the front facing speakers however. I hope that more manufacturers jump on board with that.

This shot has me thinking it's the perfect size. 

The reality is that the Moto G and the Nexus 4 are very comparible devices. This is what was most astonishing and frankly, advocates the most for the quality of the Nexus 4. It was released over 2 years ago and for around half the price of the other 2012 flagships. Today in 2014, a phone arguably equal in power and capability is the almost unanimously regarded as the best value-for-money smartphone there is - despite being more expensive A quick scan of typical online retailers shows the 8 GB Moto G and the 16gb Nexus 4 are pretty similar in price. Although, a phone which has likely been out of production for over a year, being “brand new” may be a bit understandably questionable. So, despite the urge to get a shiny new phone (I bought the Toshiba Chromebook 2 instead), I decided to hold off and ready myself to leave the Nexus line behind and get the Sony Z3 Compact. I want a good camera.

Phone Dressing: dBrand Skin Review

One of the most bizarre traits among people these days is how they dress their phones. Some people use cases, some people don't. Some use screen protectors others don't. Some use both, some use neither and the strangest of all (to me at least) are those that use wallets. Seriously, what is up with phone wallet/cases? How are you comfortable pulling out and opening your wallet, exposing your cash and cards for everyone to see, usually with these items dangling on a flap while you take a photo or check your messages? How are you not concerned that the all of the most important items you have are all bundled together in one package and could very easily be stolen, dropped or lost? I don't understand you.

Either way, regardless of which camp you're in, odds are you feel pretty strongly about where you're standing: You need to have protection around your phone because it could so easily explode if you drop it. Cases are stupid and make the phone gigantic. Just don't drop the thing. Why would you want to cover up such beautiful looking technology?

I'm not different. I'm not a case person. They always just added heft and bulk to a device and I've always thought they took away from the phone's aesthetics.

I've been told it's ironic, but I've always loved skins. To me, they're the perfect balance between keeping original form, but still adding just a small amount of protection. Over the last few years I've owned the following:

Nokia e71
Samsung Galaxy S
Samsung Galaxy SII
Samsung Galaxy Nexus
LG Nexus 4 (Current).

The plastic backing of the Samsung phones were great for durability. Plastic doesn't really scratch, and if it does, who cares. It's plastic! But, I still had a trusty $2 Starry Night skin courtesy of eBay. I loved that it added just a small bit of personality.

With the Nexus 4, the skin became crucial. For those that may not know, it has a (gorilla) glass back. A beautiful sparkly glass back. It feels very strong and sturdy, but it's glass. I loved the look, but hated it's fragility. I hear gorilla glass is strong, and tried to go without it because just how beautiful it was. The problem was, I would be terrified to just place the phone down on surfaces. A dirty park bench, the street while tying my shoes, or the roof of my car if my hands were full of shopping bags all may have well been lava to me. I couldn't handle it.

So I went back to skins. I did some searching for the best quality skins and found dBrand Inc. A Canadian company that makes them in house and frankly, does an incredible job and making well design, quality feeling and perfectly cut skins for mobile phones (smart watches and tablets). Compared to the cheap eBay variety, these look and feel so much better. They are more expensive, but $9 really isn't much considering how obvious the improvement in quality is. Their textured to match the design (leather, metal, carbon fibre, etc) where my Starry Night was just a printed image on a vinyl sticker. This adds in both form and function. The textures just feel higher quality but add to the grip and control of the device in hand.

I've also noticed that they're much easier to place. With previous vinyl skins, my first attempt was the only. There was no way of readjusting. WIth dBrand, not only can I apply and reapply until the placement is perfect, but I've been able to save used skins by peeling them off and sticking them back on to clean backing paper.

Look at the photos above. It's such a simple product, but if you ask me the design is just incredible. I'm currently on the mahogany wood grain. The sheen of the metallic gold really made my phone stand out. Because of the solid glass behind it it felt like cool brushed metal. I love how the light catches the brushed pattern. The red powder is the simplest, yet boldest of the bunch. The colour really pops, so much so that it makes what is really just a red sticker, a lot more than that. If you have a Nexus 4 you may agree with me. The flat back and distinct edges make it perfect for a skin. I've actually held off on upgrading my phone because I'm not sure backings of newer devices will look as clean.

Click on the image of Popular Devices to check out their website.