“When the iPhone 5s launched with the M7 motion coprocessor on September 20, Azumio’s ARGUS fitness app was updated that same day with M7 compatibility,” Scott Buscemi reports for 9to5Mac. “I’ve been an ARGUS user for quite awhile, as it syncs with my LifeTrak and can also independently track steps in the background throughout the day even without a wristband.”
“Seeing that the app gained M7 compatibility so quickly – it was the first one that I noticed and I haven’t been able to find one that added it before them – I was curious about how ARGUS was able to take advantage of the M7 so quickly,” Buscemi reports. “I had the opportunity to speak with Peter Kuhar, product manager for ARGUS at Azumio. He was able to break down some of the intricate information surrounding the M7.”
Buscemi reports, “For pre-iPhone 5s devices, ARGUS usually drains about 20-30% of battery life per day while running in the background. The app continually checks for motion and calculates the distance and number of steps using the accelerometer and GPS. With the M7, however, the app does not need to be running in order to keep track of the number of steps – all of that data is tracked by the M7. As such, ARGUS no longer takes up any battery power while running in the background and the stated battery life from Apple – 10 hours 3G talk time, 250 hours of standby – will stay exactly the same.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Attribution: iDownloadBlog. Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
As long as Apple continues to enable developers by creating fascinating and useful hardware for them to access with their apps, iOS will be the platform to beat for many, many years to come. This type of hardware development is nowhere near as consistent (or existent) with the Android handset makers.
But Android defenders say that some of the devices and some of the OS versions and some of the apps have some of the ‘wiz bang’ features some of the time when they work.
This is gonna be awesome. Strava, Powermeters and computer integration on bikes, and a whole slew of other wearable tech for fitness and medical applications.
Yup! Strava, etc. Biking. Boarding. One major reason why I don’t want a phablet, and prefer a phone that fits unobtrusively in my pocket. And why I’ll also be getting an iWatch, if such a thing ever comes to market.
I believe M7 is more important than people think. Forget about fitness. The iPhone becomes a dual processor device; think Mac Pro. With predefined tasks it will make app development easier. Find My iPhone will become more accurate. Games will now have a separate controller. Camera apps can become more stable. Measuring tools can become useful. I think this was quietly introduced to keep the competition focused on 64 bit and not dual processors. Something OSX has had from the beginning.