Turning Exercise Into Games with iPhone Title Skimble

Location-based iPhone exercise application Skimble, from the developer of the same name, is taking some of the competitive elements from gaming and applying them as a means to get people up, out, and active. Taking a similar approach to the game Booyah Society, where players could “level up in life,” earning achievements for real-world activities, Skimble grants players some fairly in-depth means to motivate themselves into being active and getting healthy, through points, contests, leaderboards, and more. However, as interesting as all of it is, as a location-based app, its full potential depends partially on people using the app in your area. Not only this, but there is also the concern that Booyah Society did go the way of the dodo, until it was replaced with the successful MyTown. So what exactly is Skimble? In short, it’s an app that can track up to 45 different physical activities, but it attempts to give users added motivation to push themselves and to get healthy through game-like and social mechanics. The latter element is the most “primal” of game elements, and it is the aspect of competition and high scores. For each activity a player completes, they earn one point and are tracked via global, friend, and regional (near where your iPhone’s GPS signal is) leaderboards. As for the activities themselves, there is easily something for everyone: Cardio, running, weights, martial arts, surfing, horseback, and even BASE jumping. Depending on the type of activity, users will track how long they do it for, and if there is distance involved, they can input the number of miles, feet, kilometers, and so on. Additionally, other activities, such as aerobics, will allow you to input the type and level of difficulty of the workout. There’s more to add about a good number of these activities too, and this is where some of the geo-location comes into play. For any exercise that requires you to be outside (running, skating, biking, etc.), you can use the GPS system to track where you go on an interactive Google Map. Then, you can name and save that path for you to either use later when offline or for other nearby users to try. Skimble also has some other nice social features to account for as well. Whenever you finish an activity, you can post it to Twitter and Facebook, and since you can create a Skimble account with your Facebook account, that process is all the more simple. However, this is all just touting your accomplishments (and maybe trying to guilt friends into working out too), but exercise is all about motivation, and that’s something Skimble does not overlook. True, the earning of scores and points is great, and the leaderboards are great motivators for competitive players, but incentives don’t stop there. Skimble actually has some nice contests for its users. Currently, every day that a user tracks at least one activity, they earn a contest entry for some random, monthly drawing. The prize at the moment is a set of gear from Mountain Hardwear. Beyond this, the app tracks all of the users’ progress based on when they exercise, what they’re doing, and how long they do it for, and let‘s them know when and by how much they improve by. Moreover, when you look at user updates from everyone using the app, that helps you get off your butt too. Last but not least, users can even upload photographs, taken with their iPhone, of their activities as well. Unfortunately, you need to have an internet connection to do so, lest you have to pay for a “Pro” account which costs a monthly fee. Truthfully, the biggest downside to Skimble is the volume of users within your area. It’s great that you can see what people are doing nearby, share paths, and even try to connect with people doing activities you love, but if no one in your region uses the app, the potential for Skimble is limited. That said, this was an early issue for Gowalla, Foursquare, and MyTown too at first, and look at how they took off. Of course, Skimble is also very much like Booyah Society, a game that rewarded players for getting out and actually living life. The app, apparently, never did all that well, and got pulled from the App Store. Perhaps people just didn’t like the idea; perhaps it was the game itself; or perhaps physical activity is scary. Either way, it didn’t last. Nevertheless, Skimble is targeting athletes and highly active individuals, so with that targeted audience, things might work out differently. Overall, Skimble is a fantastic application to have for anyone that likes to exercise. There is something for everyone, and the more you play around with it, the more cool nuances you discover you can track.

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Turning Exercise Into Games with iPhone Title Skimble

Christopher Mack

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Christopher Mack