MSN Health & Fitness: Everything you wanted to know about health and fitness but were afraid to ask. Microsoft has closed Photosynth and MSN applications, including Health and Fitness, Food and Drink Msn health and fitness counterpart

Are you still planning to start running on Monday, next month, or in the spring? And, of course, eat right? In principle, we all know very well how important it is to be healthy, and we have a rough idea of what needs to be done for this. But for some reason, something is always missing - willpower, time, motivation. And today, when all we do is look at the screens of our smartphones, fitness applications may well become that magical kick towards health and wellness. If you are too lazy not only to run, but also to download several applications about proper nutrition, health and fitness, then you can try a service that was released just a month ago - MSN Health & Fitness. Works with, and by the way, completely free. Let's see what the IT giant did.

The first thing that catches your eye is the Metro style interface, widely used by Microsoft in its products from Windows Phone (for which it was originally developed) to Windows 8. The service operates based on the Bing search engine. So, the main page is divided into four tabs - “Today”, “Fitness”, “Nutrition”, “Medicine”. The first is the main screen with quick access to basic information; both the running and diet tracker are launched right away. There is still data pedometer for today, by default it is set that you need to walk 10 thousand steps per day. When I installed the application, I was surprised how it knew how many steps I walked yesterday. It turns out that the information is from the Health App, pre-installed in iOS 8. MSN interacts with it and exchanges information (if not disabled in the settings).

Second top tab " Fitness"takes us into the world of sports. There is everything your heart desires - all sorts of thematic articles, collections of video training, lesson plans for different types of fitness. Tips, sets of exercises. Everything is updated via the Internet.

In chapter " Nutrition"- relevant articles, advice from nutritionists and all that. By the way, the transition to the diet tracker - from the page today, in “Nutrition” - only articles, which is a little strange. In the diet tracker, we set the required number of calories per day, and then everything we ate per day, the program analyzes and counts the calories. This makes it easier to control your diet, especially if you want to lose weight. Just don’t cheat too much and write down all the pies you eat. I'll write down my omelette for breakfast.

Medicine- visually this is the most successful part of the service. In addition to articles, here you can open a 3D model of the human body - see what systems or individual organs look like. Models can be rotated and viewed from all sides. Useful for schoolchildren and anyone interested in anatomy.

And Microsoft developers decided to surprise us with a built-in “mini-doctor”. By selecting the “Check symptoms” item, we again see a 3D person, and by touching the part of his body that hurts, we get a list of possible problems. I chose my stomach, and these are the problems with the stomach.

There is also a whole list of nonspecific symptoms, such as anemia, edema, high blood pressure, and others. A real paradise for hypochondriacs. You can find 10,500 different ailments in yourself. In general, if something really bothers you, it’s better to see an offline doctor.

And for dessert the most interesting thing. I’ll try to run around with MSN, because among this colorful variety of health tools I managed (though not immediately) to find in it and running tracker. It is launched from the main page (“Today”) - with the icon of a man with an arrow.

Here, in general, everything is standard - mileage, pace, speed, goals, voice coach, the frequency of notifications of which can be configured. Only the Russian voice is very artificial and pronounces some sounds incorrectly. No autopause is sad. After the run I want to see my route. The map is very sparse, it cannot be enlarged and in my case the street names are not even visible. Forget about tricks like viewing the routes of other users or saving your own. After training, you can view an analysis of your lap runs, and the results are also added to “Health.”

Are you still planning to start running on Monday, next month, or in the spring? And, of course, eat right? In principle, we all know very well how important it is to be healthy, and we have a rough idea of what needs to be done for this. But for some reason, something is always missing - willpower, time, motivation. And today, when all we do is look at the screens of our smartphones, fitness applications may well become that magical kick towards health and sports. If you are too lazy not only to run, but also to download several applications about proper nutrition, health and fitness, then you can try a service that was released just a month ago - MSN Health & Fitness. Works with 8, and by the way, completely free. Let's see what the IT giant did.

The first thing that catches your eye is the Metro-style interface, which is widely used in its products from Phone (for which it was originally developed) to Windows 8. The service operates based on the Bing search engine. So, the main page is divided into four tabs - “Today”, “Fitness”, “Nutrition”, “Medicine”. The first is the main screen with quick access to basic information; both the running and diet tracker are launched right away. There is still data pedometer for today, by default it is set that you need to walk 10 thousand steps per day. When I installed the application, I was surprised how it knew how many steps I walked yesterday. It turns out that information from the Health App, preinstalled in 8. MSN, interacts with it and exchanges information (if not disabled in the settings).

Trying to keep up with the times, Microsoft has released a now fashionable sports service. But such an impressive set of tools is cramped in one application. It turned out to be an obvious overkill; some features could have been interesting, but turned out to be unfinished. And in general, the application often slows down, even with a good Internet connection. Remember the bearded joke about the 5-story airliner from Microsoft “...and now everyone fasten their seat belts, and we will try to take off with all this stuff”?

If Microsoft shut down MSN Health & Fitness, it's not entirely clear what that means for fitness trackers for Windows Phones.

Microsoft confirmed Friday that work on underutilized MSN apps will be discontinued and apps like Photosynth, MSN Food and Drink, MSN Travel, and MSN Health & Fitness will not be coming to Windows 10. But ending support for the latest app seems like a real blow to Microsoft's nascent health initiative.

All applications will be closed for any platforms on which they ran: iOS, Android, and Windows operating systems. In almost all cases, only applications have now sunk into oblivion. For example, Microsoft plans to keep its MSN Health & Fitness website.

Because of this, the impact on each application will vary. The app for MSN Health and Drink, for example, includes a feature that allows users to create and organize shopping lists. But the rest of the application replicates the web page: The user can explore and search for various recipes and read "news" on such a variety of related topics. The MSN Travel app allows you to search for flights and available hotels, as well as track the status of all your flight functions, which can be handled through the website. Finally, even Photosynth.net will be supported, although support for the IOS and Android apps will be discontinued.

Microsoft Health & Fitness offers a surprising amount of information about your day.

But MSN Health & Fitness is likely the most valuable to users and there is no telling what the app's destruction will mean for the company. Microsoft representatives did not provide an answer to this question during the press conference.

"We regularly evaluate our business to ensure it is focused in the areas where our users find the most value," Microsoft said. "We will continue to support apps with broad consumer appeal, including News, Weather, Sports and Money, which will be available in the Windows 10 app suite and remain cross-platform."

Backup apps that are still different

Microsoft offers two focused health tracking apps: MSN Health & Fitness and Microsoft Health. Both work on Windows Phones, but Microsoft has determined that the new Microsoft Health app will work almost exclusively with the Microsoft Band.

Unfortunately, MSN Health & Finally is a great standalone app that has the enhanced tracking capabilities supported by most modern Lumia phones, allowing you to save an extra $100 instead of purchasing a dedicated device. It even tracks walking and running steps by default, which the Band doesn't do unless you specify a "workout" mode. And while it has a slightly different mix of workouts than the Health app (mainly focused on yoga, Pilates and strength, while Microsoft Health & Fitness has expanded to include work even on the bike), the Health & Fitness app is possible provides a more comprehensive list of the most common exercises.

The MSN Travel app simply scrapes information from the website.

Unfortunately, the MSN Health & Fitness website only offers a general list of health-related news, without offering anything specific to users. And according to VentureBeat, the Health & Fitness app will reset any of your saved data before November 1st.

However, Microsoft says that Microsoft Health will also lose data for Windows Phone. "Microsoft Band works with Microsoft Health, a cloud-focused service to store, share and transform information into insights you can use to achieve your fitness goals," a Microsoft spokesperson said in an email.

"The same way you track steps and calories burned on WP, the Microsoft Health app will work," the spokesperson added. "If you are wearing a Band, it will be selected as the priority tracker.

Microsoft plans to get rid of MSN applications and after Windows 10 Mobile the implementation of its solution is expected. And maybe then a viable alternative will be created for Windows 10 and Microsoft Health. But it still seems like Microsoft is making an attempt to end a good app and get rid of it for no good reason.

In a healthy body healthy mind!

Introduction:

Microsoft's service, called MSN, was constantly promoted by the company within the Windows system, but never found great popularity (at least among users of the CIS countries). More recently, Microsoft released a set of applications that provide access to some of the capabilities of the MSN system and it is worth admitting that the applications turned out to be very high quality and worthy of attention. The first app you should pay attention to is “MSN Health and Fitness”. This application not only contains workouts, diets and other useful health articles, but also has a built-in diet and workout tracker, so the versatility of the application is really pleasing.

Functional:

After launching the application, you are surprised by such a beautiful interface, which is somewhat reminiscent of tiles from Windows 8. The interface consists of 4 main tabs:
1. Today - on it you will find the main picture, after clicking on it you will be shown a series of news that corresponds to the specified title. You can also go to the diet/exercise tracker, see a list of popular workouts, exercises, and another little surprise - a 3D model of the human body, which can be viewed directly in the application.
2. Fitness - a list of exercises that you can do both at home and in the gym. For each exercise there is a description and video on how to perform it.
3. Nutrition - a list of articles from various sites that correspond to the main topic of the “Nutrition” section. All articles can be viewed even in the application without going to the browser, while the readability of the text remains just as convenient, plus, there is the ability to increase/decrease the text size.
4. Medicine - on this tab you will find a 3D model of the human body, as well as various articles from Russian sites that fit the theme of the “Medicine” section.
There is also a search bar on the top panel and there you will also find a button to open the side panel. On it you will find the “My Profile” section, where you can indicate your personal data (weight, height), and also go to settings.

Results:

There are a minimum of settings, they are in Russian and it will be very, very easy to understand. Let's summarize: “ MSN Health and Fitness” is an excellent aggregator of news on health and a healthy lifestyle, as well as a convenient diet and exercise tracker. Enjoy!

It might be useful to read: