Death of an App

Sorry I haven't written in a while. I have been busy in a new job that has a lot going on.

Anyways, two of the apps that I reviewed and recommended have sent e-mails that they are closing up shop and will no longer provide service as of August.

These apps are Pact app and Heirloom.

I was a Pact app user for multiple years and I'm sad to see it go but I could see the writing on the wall as the weekly reward for completing healthy activities went below $2 a week to as low as $1.20 (I could be wrong but that's what I remember).

This isn't the first time that I have had a favorite app go away but I feel like app companies have done a much better job of communicating ahead of time to its users. They never really explain the "why" but I guess we can deduce that it is a lack of making money. I understand why they can't tell users the whole story but I'm sure some us would be interested.

In the past I have had apps that were bought up by other companies such as Sunrise Calendar by Microsoft. They use the technology in another one of the company's apps, in this case Outlook.

Losing an app that you really enjoy is kind of like having an acquaintance or coworker pass away. It's not the end of the world, just sucks.

I'm a bit worried about Evernote, they've been sending a lot more e-mails about their Premium features and they changed their paid features pricing about 9 months (that's a guess) ago.

Anyways, if you have an app that you lost. Tell me about it in the comments. If you have an idea about something to write about let me know.

Pact App

I thought that I would do an in-depth app review about an app that I have mentioned a couple times in the past because I know that there are a lot of people trying to live healthier. This app is called “Pact” and you can make a small amount of money each week if you do health activities that you promise to do. The downside is that if you don’t do them the penalty is a lot higher than the money you make. The average reward for a week if you participate in all three pacts is between $1.75 and $2.25 the penalty per item missed is $5.00. You can see how it might be possible to lose a lot of money on this. I have made an average of about $2.00 a week for over a year.

Here is a look at the app’s menu. It has a nice “Tutorial” area that explains how “Pact” works and how you record your activities. There are three pacts: exercise, food logging, and veggie. Each pact has certain rules / limitations. For instance, with the exercise pact you have to do 30 minutes of activity. The exercise can be tracked with step counting, motion tracking, or gym check-in. You can only count exercise once a day. So this means you cannot make up for a missed day by going to the gym twice on another day or doing an hour of activity.

For "food logging pact" you have to use a partner app. The one that I use is “My Fitness Pal” and like the exercise pact there are certain rules and limitations. You have to log all your food the day you ate it also known as “the pact day”, there must be three “meals”, and you have a minimum of 1200 calories and a maximum of 1450 for it to be a successfully logged day.

The “veggie pact” is the easiest and the name is deceiving. You can eat or drink fruit or vegetables. You need to take a picture that gives evidence that you are consuming it and that it is a full serving of fruit or vegetable. Users take a picture and the community of Pact users determines whether they feel it fits the definition of fruit or vegetable. In my opinion they are very lenient because I have seen fruit juice, smoothies, and a handful of dried fruit counted.

Each “pact” has a different reward value. If you participate, at the end of the week they send you a “rundown” with a record of what you completed and how much money you earned or owe. If you want to retrieve your rewards you can request a preloaded debit card or you can connect your PayPal account (which is what I did). The minimum amount that can be transferred depends on which you method of payment you choose. I believe it is $20 for the card and $10 for PayPal. The way I think about it is that “Pact” helps me pay my monthly gym membership fee. The app is available for Android https://goo.gl/FzK9gi and iPhone https://goo.gl/olXIC7