Comments on: CalorieKing for Palm OS Review

For the record, I don't usually review "these kinds" of apps (lifestyle type programs), preferring to leave that sort of stuff to real-world influences (Doctor, wife, people at the gym etc) but I thought it might make for an interesting change of pace for a review.

TreoCentral reviewed CalorieKing a while back, as did PalmAddicta. One of the PA associate writers also did some other diet and exercise-type software reviews that you might want to look into.

I'll definitely keep using CaorieKing for the forseeable future. Of course I'll definitely post any impressions of the new version of CK whenever it's released.

I can assure you that the vast majority of the reviews here at PIC will continue to be the usual hardware, games, apps, media players etc.

Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P

The program is very stable. Only occasionally crashing when searching the large database stored on my SD card. Ease of navigation is better with CK than any other thing I tried.

But my favorite things are being able to see so many types of real time reports and charts. Tracking my progress became a huge motivator for me. I am a visual guy so seeing the chart trending down or leveling out (or going up God forbid) helped me in my weight loss and helps with maintenance.

I've used CK for over a year now. I lost 50 pounds in sixth months and kept it off. Bet 40 dollars I ever spent!

I've been using CK for months. It's got much more serious problems than mentioned so far.

On the one hand, the database you get with the initial purchase is actually only about 10,000 entries in size. They have database updates you can download, in either the "Most Popular" version (10,000 entries) or the "Full Database" version (over 50,000 entries). After downloading the latest "Full Database" version, I found many, many items that I'd had to previously enter manually into the "My Foods" section.

On the other hand, they also have desktop software for Macintosh and PC, a website, and handheld software for PocketPC as well as Palm. But none of them talk to each other. I have no way to print out the data that I enter in my Palm, and I have no way to share that data with another CK program on my desktop or on the web, so that I can print it out that way. This makes it much less useful to me when I go in to see my nutritionist.

In addition, they force you to do a "net calorie" method with your food intake and exercise. My nutritionist wants me to track these things separately. It's hard for me to tell if I've had too many calories or not enough, if I'm having to do the math in my head to remove whatever I've expended in terms of my workout. Doing a "net calorie" method may be preferred for some people, but not for me. There needs to be an option for tracking them separately.

I'd like to see a way to treat the "My Foods" stuff exactly the same as the official database, being searchable, etc.... You never know when you are going to run across some new item from a company who has lots of other items already in the database. But once you've manually entered all the relevant information, you shouldn't have to worry about where the information came from or where to find it again. If you have lots of foods that you've created in the "My Foods" section, this becomes a royal pain.

Same problem for "My Exercises" as they do for "My Foods".

I can deal with the UI issues, but I shouldn't have to.

There are more problems than this, but I will stop now. Suffice it to say that it's a seriously crippled piece of software, and the fact that this is the best available program in this category doesn't mean that it's not still seriously crippled.