Newsletter
Google Fit was announced last year and made available last fall. It’s basically Google’s answer to Fitbit as well as Apple’s Health app. It keeps track of your steps, distance walked, ran or cycled, and a bit more. It wasn’t all that robust, until now. Today’s update from Google now tracks calories burned as well as distance traveled. However that’s not all. Google has also brought in a new Android Widget for Google Fit as well as a new watch face. The watch face has a small widget on the side that shows you how long you’ve been active for. As a way to get you to be more active throughout the day. Which is a good thing, as we all could use a bit more activity in our day to get fit.
Google also says “you’ll now have a new way to look back over your fitness history. As you scroll down your timeline you’ll be able to look at your activities grouped by days, weeks or months and get a sense of how your activities impact your fitness over time.” So now you can look back and see how you’ve faired in the past when it comes to fitness. A good way to keep yourself motivated to get more active.
This is a somewhat small update, and we expect Google to share a bit more at Google I/O in just a few weeks – there are a few Google Fit workshops and talks on the Google I/O schedule this year. The update is available now over on the Google Play Store, and it doesn’t appear to be a slow staged rollout, as I was able to get the update right away, strangely, on a few devices. We do have the APK though, if you’d rather sideload it, or for some reason can’t get it from Google Play. To sideload the APK, simply download the APK. Jump into settings and under security, make sure “Unknown Sources” is enabled. Then just tap on the APK and let it install. It will replace your current Google Fit APK though.
Download: Google Fit 1.52.41-000