TUAW Responds: iPhone Pedometer
One of our readers wrote in asking whether the iPhone could possibly replace the Nike sports kit and work as a pedometer with its onboard accelerometer.
Short answer? It already does. The (jailbreak) iPhone pedometer project is open source and available on Google code. The iPhone's three onboard accelerometer sensors allow you to capture force vectors and figure out when the force changes direction as you take a step.
None of the iPhone-specific solutions that I've tried from Installer.app seem to work as well as my wiimote does on my treadmill with Wii Fit. I'd imagine that the iPhone will catch up quickly once the AppStore takes off.
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One of our readers wrote in asking whether the iPhone could possibly replace the Nike sports kit and work as a pedometer with its onboard...
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Hi, enjoyed reading everyone's thoughts. I just wanted to make you all aware that my company has built an applicaton that will be launched soon through the app store that uses the GPS built-in to the 3G iPhone to enable runners to track all of their run stats (distance, pace, speed, etc) and store all of their historical data in a central web dashboard along with the corresponding route on a map. You can see a screen shot and sign up to be notified when we go live at www.runkeeper.com. You can also email us with questions/feedback at info@runkeeper.com
July 14 2008 at 10:59 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyWhat if I'm too lazy to walk? :-)
July 01 2008 at 1:42 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyWiiFit jogging
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiiIP8BOFKg
With WiiFit disc in your Wii, there is a jogging activity.
You hold the WiiMote in your hand or in your pants/short pocket and jog in place. The WiiMote senses your up/down motion as you're jogging in place and the character/Mii on the screen jogs around an imaginary island. The faster you jog in place, the faster the Mii jogs on the screen.
I'm assuming the poster has the wiimote on him while jogging on his treadmill...pretty cool idea, wish I had a treadmill.
You know the bit where you run in place for WiiFit? And either hold the remote or throw it into your pocket? Just hop on the treadmill instead. I find it a lot more fun to use the treadmill than to just run in place.
June 26 2008 at 1:19 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyTell me more about this WiiFit/WiiMote/treadmill trick!
June 26 2008 at 12:57 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyYeah! I wanna know what that's all about too!
June 26 2008 at 1:03 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI just want my Nike+ sport kit to work with the new iPhone so I don't have to have my nano hanging around and syncing all my workout music to it.
PLEASE, Apple? pwetty pweese?
I'm just hoping for a big announcement from Nike stating that Nike+ will be ported to the iPhone. Then I can get rid of another iPod device (nano), and only have one device to rule them all!
June 26 2008 at 12:44 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyYah, let us know when something like this available in the App Store world, not the script-kiddie jailbreak world.
June 26 2008 at 12:06 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyYou realize that without the jailbreaking "script kiddies" writing native apps, it's entirely likely that Apple would've never seen that there was demand for a native SDK in the first place and your beloved App Store wouldn't exist, right?
June 26 2008 at 1:07 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyHow rude.
Think you better look up what script-kiddie means. You cant write software from scratch using a script you dangleberry.
What has people who jailbreak got to do with writing excellent homebrew software, a lot of which will end up on AppStore, probably for free.
Go away. Your high-horse should be able to take you far, far away. Fast.
The iPhone 3G shouldn't need the accelerometer. It could use GPS to track you and get an exact measurement of how far you've gone.
That is, if it can track GPS while locked.
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