How to develop a great fitness app?

It’s 2017! With the flourishing mobile app development, smartphone users can do whatever they want to do without leaving the comfort of their home. Whether it is planning for a long trip or achieving fitness goals, one can do everything using their smartphone. The lack of free time is no long a barrier to achieve fitness goals, as there are many fitness apps that help people achieve their dream of having a fit and healthy body.

 

As there is an increasing demand of fitness apps these days, we have decided to focus on developing a fitness app. In this post, you will know what to do to develop a fitness application.

 

Before getting into detail, let’s see why a fitness application is needed?

 

Mobile app development industry saw a growth of 62% in the usage of health apps in the recent years. The usage of health and fitness related apps grew significantly and it is believed that these apps stay in great demand in future. The question is “what caused such boom?”

 

Mobile devices with health apps such as glucometers, scales, tonometer, etc are replacing traditional health equipment. Moreover, the convenience to carry out everywhere made them popular compared to other devices.  The fitness apps that have evolved in the recent years made collaboration with the social networking sites. Such ability has made these applications go viral, as people can share their reports on social networks and get cheered up by family and friends. Integration of social networking sites with third party apps added a lot to the expansion of health apps.

 

Taking into account the above factors, why not think of creating something cool and useful. You can create a great fitness app and revolutionize the fitness industry.

 

Now, let’s focus on fitness app development!

 

Fitness apps are categorized on the basis of data they store and manage. Some of the popular types of fitness apps are – nutrition and diet apps, workout tracking apps, workout routine apps etc.

 

As the demand of these apps is growing year by year, it is a good idea to start your mobile app development business by creating a unique fitness app. Some of the essential aspects of fitness app are – types of fitness app, cost of developing a fitness app and features of the fitness app. Here is a step-by-step procedure to develop the best fitness app.

 

Step 1 – Choose the type of fitness app

 

As said above, there are different types of fitness apps and you need to choose one based on your skills. You can customize the app by taking complete control of your fitness app. The idea of fitness apps is to provide users with a perfect workout routine and maintain a schedule for diet, exercise and workouts. Basically, there are 3 types of fitness apps which are as below –

 

 

• Workout apps

Workout apps provide users with a set of exercises along with demonstration on how they should be performed. These apps act as personal trainer in your smartphone and you can track everything from your workout schedule to the amount of calories you burned in a day. These workout apps even allow you to choose a personal coach based on the level of training you need.

Setting target and push notifications are the main features of these apps. Users are allowed to create their workout goal and constantly move forward, achieving their fitness goal. Normally, a workout app consists of warm up, set of active exercises and cooling down workouts. Users can perform these exercises in different formats that include – text, graphic, illustrations and videos.

Fitness app development is progressing at a fast pace. We see more and more fitness technologies are appearing. People of these days rely only on network of sensors and NFC tags to track workout activity in the gym. The list of apps in this category is really huge on android as well as iOS.

 

• Diet and nutrition

Diet and nutrition apps help users keep track of their food habits and count the number of calories in their body. Using these reports, they can control their body weight and have a fit body. There is plenty of diet & nutrition apps that help users set personal goals by creating grocery list and even try healthy recipes.

These apps can also be considered as tracking apps that track the food habits of the user. However, these apps have specific functionality and are beneficial if the user want to stick to a perfect diet. Visualization plays a very important role in making these apps successful. The daily stats are comprehensive and help the user push towards their goals. You can also go through the case study of diet & nutrition app to know how it actually helps the user.

When it comes to document food consumption, there are certain ideas that you can use to make the process of entering data much easier. Another best feature of diet and nutrition app is the barcode scanner that logs the food purchase.

 

• Activity tracking

This is another best category that help users track the physical activity such as – steps climbed, steps taken, sleep quality, calories burned, distance travelled.         To implement the activity tracking feature, users don’t even need to connect the app to smartphone sensors. If you want the app to detect and monitor pulse constantly, users can implement Bluetooth connection to enable data flow from fitness tracking device.

 

Some of the devices that can be used to extend the capabilities of fitness app include chest straps, wristbands, armbands, smartwatches etc. The main purpose of these gadgets is to check when you are dozing off and give recommendations about when to take break.

 

Step 2 – Basic features of fitness apps

 

When it comes to develop a fitness app, we recommend incorporating the below features. The fitness app has to communicate with GPS, camera, Bluetooth, microphone, Wi-Fi networking capabilities etc. You should remember that the application has to deliver pure user experience with smooth connection and communication process.

 

 

• 1. Fitness apps are about individualization and hence the app should have an option to create account. The data in the user’s progress should be stored on a single device. This feature enables the users to switch between devices, making the tracking of activities much more convenient.

 

• 2. Another important feature to include in fitness app is synchronizing with other services. The app can combine with some functions of social networking such as – RSS feed, tracking, searching for friends and so on.

 

• 3. Users consider adding personal information as a part of signing process. Create a corresponding page for adding age, gender, height, weight and other personal details. You can also suggest adding a profile photo by downloading or taking a new photo.

 

• 4. If the user is using a wearable device, you can put the registration by connecting the user’s wearable to the app. The app should be compatible with many trackers and wearable products.

 

• 5. Integrating geo-location feature will allow the user to build a walking or jogging routine, and track his/her current position. There are a bunch of navigation services that help you integrate this feature into your app.

 

• 6. Besides the above features, you can include features that allow the user to set targets, get notifications, pre-set exercise routines, create workouts, log food details and many others.

 

Step 3 – Calculate the cost of developing fitness app

 

Once you have identified the type of fitness app you are going to make, the next step is to calculate the cost of developing fitness app. It is hard to tell the accurate price of developing a fitness app. The cost of fitness app depends on its type and features. It also depends on the number of developers working on the app. On an average, one can expect the app to be completed in a time frame of 2-3 months. However, the time also depends on the platform and app function.

Some of the essential steps that need to be completed during the mobile app development process include –

 

 

• Design

The design of the health and fitness app is of utmost importance. Usually, the mobile app development team spends 50-70 hours in creating an outstanding design, which includes both the UI and UX. If you hire a offshore app development company, they may charge you around $20-$30 per hour.

 

• Documentation

The next thing to consider is the technical documentation of the app. You need to hire a technical writer to complete this. The technical writer usually takes 30-40 hours to complete the work. You may need to spend around $25/hour for technical writing.

 

• Testing

The process of app testing plays a very important role in app development. It may take up to 80-90 hours, where the rate of testing would be around $25 per hour. Bug fixing is one of the important parts of app testing, which usually costs around $1000 – $1200.

Hence, the overall cost of fitness app development would be around $10,000. However, the cost may go high depending on the features and complexity of the fitness application.

 

How does fitness apps make money?

 

There are different ways in which fitness apps make money. Most of the fitness apps offer premium subscription that gives access to unlimited features and activities. The freemium upsell is another monetization technique that app developers use to make money using fitness app. It is a kind of feeder system where the users have to download the app and get a sense of what they can get.

In-app purchase is another strategy where the users will unlock best features of the fitness app. When you build an app, you can set the in-app purchase feature. The in-app purchases can also be in the form of subscriptions.   Besides this, fitness apps make money through ads, CPI networks and sponsorships. If you are new to the market, just have a cool idea for the app. No doubt, there are plenty of opportunities for fortune in the fitness app market and you can earn huge amount by creating a useful fitness app.

There is plenty of fitness tracking apps that remind lot of mobile games. If you want to create a fitness app, you should check out how gaming apps make money. The same strategies are applicable to fitness applications.

 

Conclusion

 

Creating fitness app is a challenging task and you need to make it unique and useful. It should possess all the basic features and offer seamless performance. It should also have the capability to create custom workout plan. At the same time, it should not distract the users from their fitness routine. Make sure that it is collaborative with as many as wearables as possible.

 

Choose a mobile app development company that helps you develop the best fitness app. Developing a fitness app enables you offer services in different platforms. If you have a great idea but no experience, don’t give up your dream. We have developed some of the best fitness apps in 2016 and can help you develop a great fitness app.