Five Free Apps for Apple's HealthKit

When Apple unveiled the latest iOS 8 update a few days ago, many were expected to take advantage of its long-awaited feature: the ability for health and fitness products to connect and share information with your iOS device through a new service called HealthKit. Whatever the apps track — the distance walked, the hours slept, or what was eaten — can be stored on the phone, right there in a nicely organized database.

Categories for health data are vast, and HealthKit is still in its early days, so things are a little chaotic in this space. Each compatible app is fighting to be your go-to health dashboard, and, as a result, there are a lot of options to work through and it gets complicated when a third-party is involved.

Here are the five best free apps to get started with.

1. UP
   Previously, Jawbone’s UP app worked only with its line of wearable activity-tracking bands. But, starting very soon, anyone can use it, band or not, and it now fully integrates into the Apple-approved HealthKit stats folder.
   
   UP tracks the three pillars of general fitness: steps, sleep, and food. If the user have the band, the first two of those things are generally taken care of for them. The third requires the user to either enter in the food items they eat manually or to scan a barcode with the app. But this process can be incredibly time-consuming, especially when it comes to entering in portions.
   
   Socially, however, UP is a rewarding app. It allows users to join their friends’ "teams" and offer words of encouragement on their activities (however creepy they may sound). And it subscribes to a philosophy of positive reinforcement, setting goals for the user and offering congratulations when they achieve them. Users can adjust the settings so that it doesn’t ever mention weight loss, if that’s not something they want in their face every day.
2. MyFitnessPal
   MyFitnessPal is the go-to tool for anyone who wants to sign up for a hardcore exercise regime. It allows users to set up a profile with an aim to either lose weight, maintain weight, or gain weight. Then it asks a couple of questions about how active they are at work and their current personal stats.
   
   At the end of the survey, it calculates a total number of calories per day that they are allowed to consume (unfortunately the only way they can keep track of this is by entering their meals, which, is time-consuming). It’ll also tell the user the date that they should reach the first milestone in their goal, and the amount of weight they will have lost by then. This is a satisfying way to cross-reference their progress within the app with the changes in their tangible human body.
   
   Throughout the day, the app also tracks exercise, so the user are allotted some eating elbow room if they are more active throughout the day. Overall, it’s an intuitive, results-based design for anyone looking to transform herself.
3. Human
   Human’s exercise philosophy is based on one simple concept: People should be continuously active for at least 30 minutes every day. So that’s what it tracks: the longest amount of time the user moved around every day. That number is displayed in a circle on the home screen of the app, The completion of the circle depends on the amount of time they have spent moving around. The app also tracks the user's spurts of movement separately, so that they’re displayed in beats whenever they open the app.
   
   Human is great for anybody who’s less focused on weight loss or muscle gain and more concerned with doing the bare minimum required to be a healthy person who lives beyond their 50s. It’s also very satisfying to see the completion of that circle after a quick workout at the gym.
4. Map My Run
   The nice thing about being a runner is that they can do it pretty much anywhere. Map My Run gets that and allows the user to search for, bookmark, and create routes to their liking. It’ll tell the user the run’s distance from their current location, its length, and any notable natural features (like a lake or a hill).
   
   Other interesting features include a gear monitoring function, which allows the user to enter in the brand of shoe they wear on runs so that the app can recommend when it’s time to buy new ones. And if they really want to go all in, they can search for and sign up for sponsored runs. This one’s for the hardcore runners out there.
5. Centered
   Centered is probably the most low-key of all the apps. It simply tracks the user's steps per day and the number of meditation sessions they complete each week. There are no animations, annoying sounds, or social networks. Just some straightforward information about their activity and quiet time. It’s so free of bells and whistles that it’s relaxing to open.