Hi everybody,

We are very excited to announce that we’ve just released a brand new application, Calorific, to help you track everything you eat and drink throughout the day. We’re also rolling out some very important changes to CardioTrainer with version 2.6 (including permanent accounts!) so read on for more details.

Calorific: Calorie-tracking in two clicks

Our goal in creating Calorific was straight-forward: build an application that lets you track what you eat and drink, but make it really simple. Most of the other calorie-counting services we’ve tried over the last few months have required lots of work to use. There are long lists of food to choose from, precise portion sizes required, and too many clicks to make it an easy process that doesn’t get in the way or become a nuisance.

Calorific is different because you just need to say how healthy the food is (green, yellow, or red) and how big your portion is (small, medium, or large). Calorific recommends that you eat 60% green, 30% yellow and 10% red each day, and you’ll get feedback (from 1 to 5 stars) based on how well you meet these recommended goals. You can also see how well you are eating over the course of the day at a glance, and a history of past days to see how you’re doing throughout the week.

Lots of research shows that the single most important step in taking control of your eating habits is to always be aware of what you’re eating. That way  you are consistently more likely to make healthier decisions. Calorie counting is always approximate, and Calorific isn’t designed to help you keep an exact count of how many calories you eat everyday. Instead, it makes it really easy to always lets you know how well you’re eating, without getting in your way.

This is only the first version of Calorific, and we already have lots of idea for improving it. As always, we are dying to hear how you like it, so please test it out for a few days and then shoot an email to calorific@worksmartlabs.com letting us know what you think.

CardioTrainer v2.6

In other news, we’re also releasing CardioTrainer v2.6 today. This update includes some very important and long-awaited new features:

• Permanent accounts. On the history screen, you’ll now see a button to create a permanent account with CardioTrainer. This will now associate your Google account with your CardioTrainer data so that if you get a new device, or have trouble with your current device, your tracks will be automatically re-downloaded to your phone. Thank you to everyone who has been patient when asking us to merge new access codes or had their tracks wiped from their phone. We know these problems were very frustrating, but with permanent accounts, these troubles should be no more. NOTE: Since this is the first version of this sync feature, all of your tracks will be re-downloaded, but without the detailed workout information. Don’t worry — everything is still safely stored on the WorkSmart Labs web servers, and upcoming versions of the feature will restore the tracks completely. This is just the first step!
• Race Against Yourself bug fixed. A big that thank you to all of the Race Against Yourself users for your patience over the past few weeks. The last version of CardioTrainer (v2.5.1) broke this premium feature (the track wouldn’t save after the workout finished), but the bug is fixed now and there should not be any more trouble when using it.
• Speed notifications. If you would prefer to hear your speed instead of pace during your workouts, you can now set this preference in the Voice Notification settings.
• Stationary biking fixed. The bug that prevented the stationary bike from counting calories has been fixed. This exercise type now calculates the calories burned based on how long you’ve been exercising for.
• More Autostart countdown times. We’ve added times greater than 1 minute to give you more time before your workout starts.
• Small UI changes and fixes.

Please keep that feedback coming and let us know if you have any questions or comments, we’re here to help and listen to how you’re enjoying both applications.

All the best,
The WorkSmart Labs family

After gathering feedback and doing some more testing, we’ve rolled out an update with a few small bug fixes. Here is what is included:

- Devices with smaller displays (including the HTC Wildfire and Sony Ericsson X10 Mini) that were having trouble ending workouts can now scroll to see the save/discard buttons.

- Droid X users should no longer be experiencing crashes during their workouts. This was actually a problem with how the Droid X handled CardioTrainer’s voice notifications, so if you turned it off voice notifications to avoid the crashes, makes sure you turn it back on.

- Problems with how Weight Loss for CardioTrainer handled dates were fixed.

- Small fixes to improve exercise scheduling.

Let us know if you come across any problems after installing the update, and if you don’t see it yet, check out this information in our FAQ about clearing your Market cache so that the update becomes available.

Happy exercising,

The WorkSmart Labs family

We’re really excited to announce that we’ve just released a big new update: CardioTrainer v2.5! There are some really important new features and fixes included with this version, so read below for some more details and make sure to check out the Market to get the update. If you’re using CardioTrainer for the first time, you’ve got a lot to look forward to, and you can check out our About CardioTrainer page for more information.

Weight Loss for CardioTrainer improvements:

In this update, we are particularly excited about the improvements to one of our premium features, Weight Loss for CardioTrainer. We’ve added the two most requested features as well as some extras to make it even easier to stay on track with your weight loss goals, and make the exercise a little more fun.

(1) Edit weight loss plans. Before now, you would have to reset your weight loss plan and lose all of your progress if you wanted to make any changes. Now, you can make these changes on the fly and Weight Loss will automatically update your plan accordingly, no reset necessary

(2) Weight loss graph. Getting a visual overview of your progress is really motivating. With the new weight loss graph, you can see your weight over time at a glance for a sense of how well you’re doing. Losing weight is a full-time commitment, and we think that the graph is an important tool to help you stay focused.

(3) Healthy food calorie counts. After you complete a workout, you’ll now see your calories burned in terms of healthy foods. We’re also hoping that this will help you get a sense of how many calories are in foods you eat regularly, and make healthier food choices throughout the day.

(4) UI update. We’ve also updated the user interface to be more consistent with the rest of the CardioTrainer application.

If you want to try out Weight Loss for CardioTrainer, click on the “Lose Weight” button on the CardioTrainer home screen to start your free 7-day trial. Once the trial is up, you can decide to purchase the feature for $2.99 and keep using it. Check out the screenshots, and click to see full-size:

CardioTrainer improvements:

This update includes a huge new feature for the core CardioTrainer experience — exercise scheduling — along with some other important additions and bug fixes.

(1) Exercise schedule. Right on the home screen, you’ll now see the new schedule interface that lets you plan your weekly exercise routine and get reminders when you have an upcoming workout. It’s been proven that setting up a schedule helps you stay on track with your exercise routine, and now CardioTrainer lets you schedule workouts and reminders. You’ll even see your weekly exercise schedule in the notifications panel every time you get a reminder.

We are very excited about this feature, and really think it’s going to be an essential part of how CardioTrainer helps you stay active throughout the entire week.

(2) Updated “workout complete” dialogue. When you finish your workout, you’ll see a much nicer dialogue box to either save or discard the track, with a quick view of how many calories were burned (you’ll need to have Weight Loss for CardioTrainer installed to see the calorie counts in terms of healthy food).

(3) Elevation in calorie calculations. CardioTrainer now calculates your calorie burn based on elevation changes so that you’ll finally get credit for all of those hills you’re climbing.

(4) Droid X bug fixes. This version also includes a fix for Droid X hang issues. A lot of users have reported that the program would hang after running for some time, and we examined the problem closely and found out that it has to do with a inconsistent bug in how Droid X plays sound files, which causes our Voice Notification to hang. Since this is a core Droid X bug, our best course of action is to restart the program in this case, while safely restoring your workout. This is exactly what we do now, and we are working with Motorola on a more permanent fix.

(5) Other bug fixes and small features. We’ve also fixed some display issues for the HTC Hero and Froyo users, added some new workout icons, and made some other smaller bug fixes.

We would love to hear your feedback, so please leave comments below or send questions to support@worksmartlabs.com.

Best regards,
The WorkSmart Labs family