Bmi+Bodyfat Calculator iPhone App Review: Your Body Fat Analysis On The Go

Good morning, good day, good how! I have an app for all of you athletes out there. Today I am taking a look at Bmi+Bodyfat Calculator by Michael Heinz for the iPhone. What makes this a great app is it’s simplicity. But is that enough? Let’s find out.

You can find Bmi+bodyfat Calculator with a quick search in the iTunes store. It is free, so that’s a plus. The file size is rather small and will only take a blip of memory on any iPhone.

Opening Up

Opening the app is a little slow. I tested Bmi on both an iPhone 3g and a 4. Strangely, there wasn’t really any noticeable difference in speed. I found my self sitting there waiting for a few seconds. A few seconds on the go for a mobile device can mean an eternity though. I wasn’t terribly impressed by that. Especially if you take into consideration how simple the app is.

Once the app finally opens you’ll find the most of the information you need on the main screen. Presented, you’ll find today’s date, your weight, your body fat percentage, and your BMI. You can change your weight on the fly as you need to. The rest of the calculations are automatic.

What I didn’t like was the mixed motifs of the design. All the numbers are in a very robotic digital calculator like display, while the information surrounding is in grey boxes. On the bottom of the screen, above the navigation buttons, is something of a torn post it note with a pin kind of graphic with some BMI facts. On the top of the display are ads. Yes, this is an ad supported app. The problem is though, the ads are often colorful and cartoonish next to the rest of the app. It’s very distracting.

All though you can find the information easily enough on the main screen, and the layout is simple to follow, trying to navigate anything quickly is hard. The screen is just to busy and distracting from itself. The app gave me A.D.D.

Setting it Up

Next we move on to the “Person” navigation tab. This is your second screen. It’s somewhat simplified. Here you will find your basic information to set-up of the app. It’s more of configuration file then anything else. Basic info is required like your gender, age, and height. You’re also given the choice to select which BMI formula you wish to use. To be honest, I didn’t even know there was more than one way. This lead me to a little bit or personal research, and self discovery, but my love life is for another story… This tab is more of set it and forget it kind of thing.

Next on our journey we move to the “Desired Data” tab. The point is simple enough. After entering your target weight the app feeds out what your projected BMI will be. We have the mixed graphic dilemma here again. This screen is presented like a cork board of information. There are some general facts, mostly quick bathroom reading, held up on your screen with virtual push pins.

And last, but never the least, is your “More” tab. I guess this should really be called your advertisement tab. Nothing special here folks, just move it along. Unless you’re in to the ads. There’s a few links to the developer’s other little apps on the iOS market. Feel free to check them out if you would like. But I’m going to save that for when I run out review ideas.

Conclusion

Do I like this app? Yes, and well, no. It’s very simplistic in nature. It gets the job done. From what I found out through rigorous research the calculations are fairly accurate. But I wasn’t impressed with how busy the app is. There isn’t much of a common theme in the graphics. And the clip art that was chosen just murdered my attention fast.

Oh, and that rigorous research I just mentioned? In case your wondering it was very intense. I made a grilled cheese and then called my doctor to see exactly how these formulas were used and asked him to run numbers for me. He was not impressed by the grilled cheese.