Stay fit with the Google vs. Apple rivalry

Rivalry – a word often associated with duels, fights and has no remote connection to “staying fit”; in this case however could make you more fit. As wide spread urbanization is evident with increasing job schedules and busy timelines, our body is becoming lethargic and prone to diseases never seen before. Thus, there is a spurt of general awareness about keeping oneself fit and running.

Technology in inherent in modern life and exists in every sphere – fitness is no exception. Thus, the demands for fitness gadgets and such apps on smartphones are on the rise. The fact that Google and Apple are the two titans of the smartphone race along with forays in other gadgets, it is no surprise that both are up with corresponding tools to help developers and customers in this fitness race.

Google Fit vs. Apple Health Kit

Apple’s health kit is basically a SDK (Software Development Kit) which is already available to the developers on iOS8. Along with a dedicated dashboard to track your fitness data, the SDK comes with access to the health data for developers as well as user permissions. Thus, your fitness data could be handed over to a fitness app that relays it back to your doctor for a real-time monitoring of your conditions. Google’s Fit is basically the same package just built for Android and integrated with Google’s services. The SDK for developers is available by a developer preview version of Google’s upcoming Android L this fall.

Taking Sides

As with choices, people are bound to take sides. While Android leads in market share worldwide, Apple reaps in the most profits – which tells you a lot about customer behavior in respective platforms. Thus choosing one over other will boil down to the fact that which one you prefer or which eco-system you are tied onto. Further, both have lines up numerous companies to support these SDK and develop augmenting hardware and software. While Apple has paired up with many clinics to analyze and send personal recommendations to your information collected, Google has partnered with Hardware manufacturing units (as it is primarily a software vendor), which form the likes of Motorola, Asus, Adidas, Intel, Nike, Runtastic and RunKeeper.

The Future of Staying Fit

As we embrace technology more, it creates wonderful opportunity to help with your daily lives. With improving medical diagnostics, electronic device miniaturization and improved sensors, tracking your blood glucose levels or your pulse rate is becoming ever easy. This is probably a start in perhaps a long run of more sophisticated and advanced fitness regime coupled with equally advanced hardware and software to help you in those. Thus your gadget – smartphone/tablet/ultra-book might be your savior one day.

The future looks bright for technology augmented fitness gadgets. Moreover,Apple and Google both realize this and have promptly released their Health-based SDKs to developers and will soon release features for consumers on their various OS/devices. With an ever-increasing demand in fitness gadgets and more adoption of such technology, the future is surely spicing up as the giants lock horns to bring new tools enabling developers tap the potential.