Healthy Gaming » iphone

Electronic Arts shows off fitness, iPhone games in its EA Sports line-up

Chris — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 15:06:55 +0000

Electronic Arts showed off its latest sports games today, with a heavy emphasis on new kinds of games that could appeal to wider audiences.

Among the big titles coming soon is EA Sports Active, a fitness title for the Nintendo Wii that resembles the Nintendo Wii Fit title (which topped 10 million unit sales last year). But EA Sports Active isn’t just a knock-off of the popular balance-board game.

The game has a deep fitness program for people who are serious about losing weight and staying trim. They can use its advice and tools to track their activities and design workouts that let them have fun while they exercise. You can do things like simulate rollerblading jumps by tying the Wii controller to your thigh and jumping up and down. You can use a stretch band to exercise your arms and see how precisely you’re following the instructions by looking at your on-screen avatar. The game isn’t as cutesy as Wii Fit, so it may appeal to people who thought the Nintendo game was a tad silly.

Exercise while you learn with iPhone’s Seek ‘n’ Spell GPS game

Chris — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 13:58:49 +0000

Seek ‘n’ Spell puts the iPhone’s GPS to use, so you and your army of friends (real friends see – not Facebook cronies you sad, sad, tragic loser) can go to the swings where the game will overlay the location with letters scattered about the place.

It’s then a mad dash to collect up as many letters as possible and – Countdown style – come up with the longest word possible to win. Educational, informational, sociable and … exerciseationable.

Seek ‘n’ Spell’s just been submitted for Apple’s approval, and should be with us in the next week or two, so get some new laces for your running shoes, fatso. Check out the official site, while you’re lacing ‘em up.

Experts weigh the pros and cons of tech-assisted exercise programs

Chris — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 19:36:03 +0000

From google.com (The Canadian Press):

Calling all couch potatoes: Those television sets, iPhones and yes, even video game consoles may actually provide some of the momentum you need to begin to shed those pounds this year.

But exercise experts and fitness fanatics say while it may be a push in the right direction, working out to an instructional video game or downloading yoga classes on your iPhone won’t transform your pudgy frame to svelte form in a timely fashion.

"The nice thing about the Wii Fit or the iPhone, or any technological thing, is it’s more likely to entice younger people," explains Rod Macdonald, the executive director of Can-Fit Pro, an organization which certifies personal trainers.

"But people aren’t going to be fitness fanatics because of an iPhone."

Last spring, Nintendo Wii introduced Wii Fit with much fanfare and a revolutionary idea: people could put on their stretchy white yoga pants and work out at home in front of their video game console.

Source

Monster Typer: gaming to improve iPhone typing skills

Chris — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 19:27:42 +0000

From appleinsider.com:

We’ve covered some apps that could help you with your iPhone typing before, but if you find that graphs and words-per-minute don’t do it for you, Monster Typer (Free, App Store) may be the thing for you. Instead of training you in a more traditional fashion, Monster Typer tries to slick up the experience by introducing a little gameplay.

The game itself has you attacked by waves of attractively rendered goons and monsters, each one bearing a word on it. If you then type those words using the game’s particularly glossy keyboard, the monster labelled with it will become a thing of the past. As you type and destroy, racking up your score, the pace becomes more frenetic, and you begin to appreciate the touchscreen keyboard as being quite good for what it is.

Source

Speed Brain for the iPhone: Exercise Your Brain!

Chris — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 13:55:40 +0000

From theiphoneblog.com:

The folks at lumosity.com understand the importance of exercising your brain and have a scientifically-proven method for doing so. Fortunately, exercising your brain doesn’t require expensive equipment or hauling around heavy workout apparatus – if you own an iPhone or iPod Touch and can summon the physical strength to tap the glass, you can start exercising your brain now with their app, Speed Brain.

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Speed Brain quickens the mind through a series of matching or mismatched images that the user must then quickly react and identify matching images in quick succession. Accuracy and speed will produce a higher score, which will be saved to monitor your progress and for comparison with your friends who are also using Speed Brain.

Source

PushupFu turns iPhone into fitness gaming network

Chris — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 14:04:18 +0000

From techcrunch.com:

Just in time for those new year resolutions, PushupFu is a new paid-for iPhone/iPod Touch application designed to get you fit, via press-ups. There are now a lot of fitness apps available for the iPhone. Current leader WeightBot lets you weigh yourself daily. Other like iPump let you email your progress to virtual Gym buddies. However, there are none I know of which have turned exercises into a Wii Fit-style game where you can pit yourself against others on the same service – exactly what PushupFu does.

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Using PushupFu is pretty fun. Once the iphone or iPhone Touch is strapped to your arm, PushupFu uses the device’s accelerometer to count your pushups. It will even shout instructions like “Slower!” and bitch at you if you don’t get it right, just like a personal trainer.

Source

9 iPhone Apps to Keep You Fit

Chris — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 18:40:27 +0000

From theappleblog.com (via iphonematters.com):

You may have caught our round-up of iPhone apps for your car from a few weeks ago.

Well, it’s time for another batch, so here’s our our list of 9 fitness-related iPhone [and iPod Touch] apps. Once again, each item on the list links to a full review with feature and pricing information. Enjoy!

Restaurant Nutrition
If you eat a lot of fast food, but you’re morbidly curious and you want to know what you’re putting in your body, then this is the app for you. I like it because it helps me eat reasonably well when I’m on the road.
LIVESTRONG.COM Calorie Tracker
You probably recognize the Livestrong name from Lance Armstrong’s charitable organization that made yellow bracelets omnipresent. Well, now they’ve given us an app that keeps track of your daily calorie intake/burn.

Source

Rumor: Wii Fit v Nike iPhone

Chris — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 19:03:59 +0000

From itvibe.com:

“Unofficial news that Nike has teamed up with Apple to add a new and potentially ground breaking device to the iPhone has hit the headlines today. Unofficial iPhone pictures which have appeared in France show screenshots of a new application which offers a great improvement on the services offered by the popular Nike + iPod kit. While we await official confirmation from Apple the rumour mill is working overtime!”