MobiHealthNews started rounding up calorie counter and nutrition tracking apps as early as 2009, and as recently as last August, when Weight Watchers told its investors that free apps were probably eating away at its profit margin.
Most of the healthy eating apps MobiHealthNews has tracked have relied on manual entry, giving users a space to enter information about every meal, although exactly what information to track, what to do with the data, and how to streamline the entry process have been challenges different apps have dealt with in different ways. Some twists on that have emerged: apps that track food by having the user take a picture of it or apps that crowdsource analysis of meals. More recently, the world of food tracking has started to move from an app-only ecosystem to one with some hardware, like TellSpec and the allegedly forthcoming Airo.
Here are 27 apps and devices for food tracking that have either been around, been discontinued, or are coming soon.
Calorie Counter & Diet Tracker by MyFitnessPal
Calorie Counter & Diet Tracker allows the user to enter a daily diet history from the over 3,000,000 items listed in the app’s database. The news feed shows which of the user’s connected friends are reaching their goals as well as how close the user is to his or her goals. For users who are tracking exercise along with diet, MyFitnessPal also integrates with a number of activity trackers including Endomondo Sports Tracker, EveryMove, RunKeeper, Runtastic, Rhythm Pulse Monitor, Striiv Smart Play Pedometer and Digifit.
Lose It, which is available on iOS devices, Android devices, and the web, has long been one of the most downloaded weight loss apps. It includes calorie tracking from a food database, as well as an interface for users to set goals and features to track their eating habits against those goals. Lose It has also recently begun to integrate with more activity trackers, including Nike+ Fuelband last year.
