This update has been waiting for approval from Apple’s app review team for nearly four weeks now. Until then, iKeepActive remains voluntarily withdrawn from the Mac App Store, unfortunately even for potential customers on earlier versions of OSX who would not be affected by the issue. Apologies go out to all iKeepActive users who have upgraded to Mountain Lion, who have been suffering from this issue since July.

The application works otherwise, but his small piece of the application is key in bringing everything together seamlessly. In light of this, iKeepActive and iKeepActive Lite has been voluntarily pulled out of the Mac App Store until a proper re-implementation of activities tracking is made, possibly with the new notifications system.

Thanks Apple, for changing your technology yet again, forcing developers to re-think or re-write the way their applications work.

The free copies of iKeepActive (each of $14.99 USD value) will be given away in the form of a Mac App Store promo code, which is sent to the winners via private message on Twitter (winners will be announced publicly prior to this). Therefore, in order to qualify and/or redeem the prize, the following must be met:

• The eligible participant must be following @iKeepActive on their Twitter account (in order to receive a private message containing the promo code).
• In order to redeem the prize you must own an Apple computer with at least Mac OSX 10.6.7 Snow Leopard installed
• In order to redeem the prize on your Mac you must have the Mac App Store application installed, have an iTunes account registered for use with the Mac App Store*, and be of legal age in your country to use the Mac App Store. See http://www.apple.com/legal/itunes/ww/
• The promo code must be used within 30 days; after that it is invalid.

*Note that in order to use your Mac App Store/iTunes account for the first time, Apple may require your credit card information. This is will not charge you for redeeming the free application, but to link your App Store purchases the same way that your iTunes purchases are linked. Be rest assured that iKeepActive has absolutely no access to your credit card information; this is used only by Apple. If you don’t already have an active Mac App Store account, and are uncomfortable giving Apple your credit card information, then you are advised not to participate in this contest.

The contest ends when the 10 qualifying winners are chosen, or when the promo codes expire. The end contest notification will be posted on the same date on iKeepActive.com and on Twitter by @iKeepActive.

Disqualification

Participants’ eligibility for the contest may be disqualified, if there is evidence or suspicion of abuse on the participant’s part. Grounds for disqualification are as follows:

• If you plan to resell the prize, you are in violation of Apple’s App Store terms for promotional codes and accept any consequences thereafter.
• You are below the legal age to use Twitter or an iTunes account.
• Multiple tweets about the contest will be ignored; only one prize per Twitter account.
• Posing/Pretending to be an official representative of the iKeepActive software.
• You are suspected of having used multiple Twitter accounts to participate in the contest.
• Suspicion that your Twitter account was opened for the purpose of entering the contest. This may include the account having been created in the last 24 hours, no legitimate tweets from the account prior to the contest date, or an account which has less than 10 followers.
• The Twitter account used for participation is used primarily for Spam.

– Added a prominently visible Help button on the toolbar which opens up iKeepActive’s full documentation.
– Fixed Import/Export user-defined activities for users who have upgraded to 1.2.0/1.1.0 on OSX Lion.
– Fixed the migration of daily portraits for users who have upgraded to 1.2.0 on OSX Lion (iKeepActive Lite not affected).

Vist the Mac App Store to update as usual:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ikeepactive/id451029696?mt=12

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ikeepactive/id451029696?ls=1&mt=12

My apologies for the inconvenience to existing users who have upgraded to or purchased iKeepActive 1.1.0, there will be a fix as soon as possible. There may also be a one week padding for Apple to approve a new fixed version. All users who have 1.1.0 are urged update to the next available version once iKeepActive is back in the Mac App Store.

Thank you in advance for your patience.

iKeepActive is priced at 33% off until the end of 2011.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ikeepactive/id451029696?mt=12

iKeepActive Lite is priced at 50% off until the end of 2011.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ikeepactive-lite/id483335427?mt=12

Enjoy Foods and Moods for FREE until the end of 2011.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/foods-and-moods/id467891701?mt=12

iCaption is priced at 50% off until the end of 2011.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/icaption/id470458179?mt=12

The first question one might ask is, how accurate is it? Well, the answer is complicated. Some counters claim to be the most accurate on the web but don’t even factor in any information about you, the individual. While most others factor in your weight, there are still many known and possibly unknown contributing factors to how many Calories a certain activity can burn. The fact that these factors aren’t considered neither means that it’s completely inaccurate, nor that the factors don’t matter. It’s just that it would be very inefficient to have an algorithm that works on all people in all situations, for every exercise. And especially since general algorithms often produce satisfactory results, many counters are confident in telling you “this is how much Calories so and so exercise burns”.

While aerobic exercise burns calories based on altering your heart rate and therefore oxygen intake, directly affecting your metabolism, general algorithms for these exercises are often based on this fact. Sounds great, but how many websites are hooked up to a heart rate monitor? Generally the case is walking X amount of miles will burn Y amount of Calories, and generally the one-size-fits-all formula is apparently good enough for people to follow.

Now, anaerobic exercises is where it can get even more complicated. One can take a pure physics approach and construct a formula: “how much energy is required to move an object of X weight by Y distance”, then convert the energy in Kilojoules to Calories. Now many before have pointed out that the human body is not very efficient so we’re actually burning more than a machine would. Not to mention whether or not your muscles are used to doing the exercise; surely you’d be trying harder if you’re rather new to it. Now there is another fact that after the exercise your body still works to rebuild muscle tissue, and as you may have guessed, this requires Calories. It was also discovered that oxygen consumption levels are much higher than normal in the hours after anaerobic exercise is complete. There are many other factors not mentioned above and that is probably why most Calorie counters out there won’t even touch anaerobic exercises.

Now this is not where you’ll be told that iKeepActive’s algorithms are more accurate than all other websites or software out there, and you won’t be told whether or not using software to count Calories is worth your while; that’s your choice. This is when you’re given some freedom.

iKeepActive is not a Calorie counter, it is an integrated workout scheduling system that happens to interactively count Calories. The freedom that iKeepActive gives you is the ability to create your own activities and customize your own algorithms on how much energy is burned per unit of exercise, to suit your needs and your individuality. You are free to determine the base rate per unit, and determine three multipliers which factor in the following respectively: your body weight, external weights or resistance used, and pace of the exercise. Realistically there are still many factors than that, but these three contribute a lot, while still being friendly enough for users to be able modify themselves.

The take on anaerobic exercise is that iKeepActive uses the basic physics formula, since it is true that this amount of energy is required to move this much weight. This is still more than what most counters will do for anaerobic exercise, and the beauty is that if you don’t think it’s accurate, you can make your own formula. Feedback is also welcome, and if your custom formula is proven to be better it may end up in iKeepActive.

And after reading all of the above and still think that Calorie counting using software is all a bunch of hooey, there is always iKeepActive Lite: fitness scheduling software and more, without the Calorie counting. Learn where to get iKeepActive or iKeepActive Lite.

This blog is about updates for iKeepActive. You can find development status, upcoming discounts or anything related to fitness scheduling. For quick format, follow @iKeepActive on twitter.

You may still access content from the original site using the links in the menu bar up top.