5 Reasons to Use Pedometer Apps

Pedometer apps have gained tremendously in popularity, simply because they represent a great way to embed more physical activity into our day-to-day life. They make it quite easy for us to quantify our daily movement, since basically all we have to do is download an app on our smart phone, which we always carry around with us.

In case you’ve chosen to be stationary so far, now it’s time to make a change and get moving. Here are 5 reasons you should begin using an app for tracking steps:

1. Apps vs Fitness Gadgets

Why buy a fitness gadget, wear it all the time, and also remember to charge it when you already have with you a perfectly capable gadget to quantify your activity: your smartphone. All you need is a step counting app to quantify your daily activity.

Today’s smart phones and apps no longer rely on the GPS to track your movement but instead use the specially built Motion Processor in your phone. The Motion Processor is like a fitness gadget embedded in your phone which will not drain your battery like the GPS does.

2. Information is Power

Pedometer apps can help you by providing relevant data about your fitness level. Whether we like it or not, many of us have desk jobs that can prevent us from staying in shape. We assume that the walk from the parking lot to the office or to the supermarket is enough exercise, but it may turn out to be wrong.

Thanks to their ability to track your everyday movement, these apps can notify you how many steps you’ve taken or what is the exact distance you’ve covered during a day or a week. This way, by analyzing relevant stats, you’ll be able to get a clear picture of where you stand in terms of your fitness level.

One of the most important parts of taking on new projects is knowing how much you’ve advanced along the way. It’s part of our human nature to want to better ourselves and knowing we’re making progresses will surely bring us the peace of mind that our efforts are paying off.

Pedometer apps are great at monitoring physical activity and general progress, in the sense that they can deliver accurate information in an easy and fun way. Through cleverly-designed, entertaining graphs they allow users to easily visualize key stats for certain periods of time and hence discover where they are in comparison to day one.

3. Better Yourself

Great pedometer apps don’t come down to only counting your steps or the distance you’ve walked. They also come designed with other useful features, like for instance allowing you to set realistic fitness goals for yourself.

If you’ve been leading a predominantly sedentary life, you can’t really expect to run the marathon overnight. You need to work your way up and this is where a steps counting app will stand out, by helping you set achievable goals. You can set daily, weekly or monthly targets and stay motivated to reach them by monitoring your activity.

4. More than Affordable

Like always, the financial aspect is not to be neglected. Many of the pedometer apps available on the market are free with in-app purchases or are more than reasonably priced. Spending $1.99 or $2.99 on such an app is without a doubt worth it if you stop and compare it to a gadget for instance. Many fitness trackers like Fitbit have a retail price of over $100, which makes it dramatically more expensive than a pedometer app.

5. Lots of Apps to Choose from

The health app market is really booming right now, which means you’ll be able to find plenty of alternatives to choose from. All you have to do is test them and see which will suit your needs in terms of features, usability, accuracy in tracking steps or price.

For example, if you’re looking for an app to monitor your daily activity both Moves and ActivityTracker will accomplish the task, but not in the same way. The Moves app uses GPS to track your activity, which means it will significantly affect your battery’s life. On the other hand, ActivityTracker can track the steps taken, distance covered, calories burned or the active time during a day without draining your iPhone battery, because it uses the motion processor instead of GPS.

If you’re looking for a free pedometer app for iPhone, you can download ActivityTracker from the App Store.