Stepz - Step & Calorie Counter 4+

Updated review, June 2019:
The developer has gone a very long way to addressing all of the points below. While the app is still not as good as version 2, version 4 is a remarkable improvement over the last few months.

Usability and readability are very much improved, and I can now safely say that I will give this app another chance. Load time is still slow and it doesn’t auto-update as well as other similar apps.

I rated version 2 as 5 stars, version 3 as 1 star and I’m happy to give this a cautious 4 star rating for now.

Prev review, March 2019:
The Feb 2019 updates (and, yes, I am now on the 3.1.4 version) has removed everything that was good. The design choices have made the app unusable while in motion—tiny thin white fonts on pastel backgrounds can’t be read at a glance—and the single graph format which told you steps and distance within the current hour and let you pick a header with your most useful other stats has gone in favour of 10 separate pastel graphs which provide no additional insight. Import/export functions have been removed. Weekly averages have been removed. It crashes constantly. When it doesn’t crash, it overestimates the number of steps I’ve taken and gives me credit for moving while the phone is sitting on my desk. Removing stride length has made a mockery of distance calculations. Using GPS, I walked 2km this morning. The app thinks I’ve travelled 3.2km.

Truly an appalling backwards step.

Hello, thank you very much for leaving this updated review. We cannot begin to express how happy and proud we are to know that you acknowledge and appreciate the efforts and hard work we've put into improving the app and addressing the previous issues. Regarding Automatic Updates you can turn them on by following the instructions on this link: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202180#iOS. Please be aware that it doesn't work if in Low Battery Mode. We'll continue to do our best to improve your experience and we remain available for any assistance our clarification you may need. Simply reach us by sending an email to reviews@bendingspoons.com.

I feel for you Stepz. You’ve clearly hit a lot of negativity about the recent updates from your most loyal fans, including me. But you could take the front foot by communicating back to us about the thinking behind the changes and whether or not any of them can be quickly updated again or reversed back to what they used to be like. Come back to us on the main themes of our feedback rather than simply sending occasional apologies and asking us to send emails. I sent an email and got an automatic reply asking me send another email which I did. I got another generalised response to that one too. That’s so frustrating. I realise you probably don’t have the resource to reply to the hundreds of messages you’re receiving, so why not put out a statement which is more specific, responds honestly to the issues and settles us all down. Then consider changing your automatic responses to contain the same info along with an apology for not sending a tailored response whilst you’re concentrating on trying to fix things. Comms is everything and unfortunately yours is letting you down more than the update itself.

Apologies if you have already put out a statement and I’ve simply missed it. If that’s the case, please point me in the right direction and I will eat humble pie. Thanks for listening.

Hi, we are truly sorry for your experience! Your message is a very precious source of inputs for us and we will surely take action to improve our offer and service. We are making evaluations on the introduction of old features in the new version and, although we we are still working on it, we will soon be ready to release a new update. You are always very welcome to send us your requests via email and we will keep doing our best to reply to all users that need our assistance.

The upgrade delivered on 31st May 19 has a much better user interface than the previous update. However, nearly every day I need to reboot my iphone8 to get the app to reflect the previous day’s total into the totals for week, month or year or get the total columns to reflect the right colour - often showing totals in green when they should be amber. For instance today my totals for week & month respectively are 22k & 76k against target of 30k & 80k but columns are green instead of amber. In settings I have my daily target set at 10,000 steps. Rebooting my phone always corrects the bug so it’s just a bit annoying but nonetheless prevents me giving it 5 stars - I’d definitely miss having the app as I measure my progress several times a day and apart from the problem of it updating correctly overnight I enjoy using it,

Hello, we appreciate the time you dedicated to write this review. We would like to make an investigation on what you pointed out. We therefore invite you to send us and email to reviews@bendingspoons.com attaching 2 screenshots of your totals checked on 2 different times (like you mentioned in your message). This should help us see that no update occurred in between. Feel free to include any other useful detail to have a full understanding of your experience: we will do our best to assist you!