When you see a brand name like LIVESTRONG.COM on just about any product, you should expect high quality. And anyway, there are plenty of decent calorie-counting apps on the market, most of them free. So, when you download the My Plate Calorie Counter by Livestrong.com, you know what to expect. The problem is that this app falls short of meeting those goals. We’ve reviewed several free calorie-counters already, and while none of them were as flashy or had the brand name recognition of My Plate, each one was more useful. Why? There’s nowhere to input goal information, so the most crucial part of any calorie-counter, a personalized daily calorie goal, based on your lifestyle, activity level, and current health, are completely absent from this app. The seemingly arbitrary daily goal of 1,903 calories is fixed on the home screen, and is all but meaningless.
The pros
The reason this huge oversight is such a shame is that My Plate certainly is the most attractive, user-friendly, and fun to use calorie-counter we’ve seen. That can’t make up for the hugely minimized functionality, but maybe it should count for a little something. The Remaining Calorie bar toward the top of the home screen adjusts itself according to the calories you’ve expended while exercising, and ingested while eating breakfast, lunch, dinner, or snacks. The diary gives a day-by-day summary of the calories you’ve burned and eaten, and weight (input by user), calories, and nutrients are tracked on graphs in the progress sections. There is no barcode scanner, which is another drawback, but you can input food information or search the app’s fairly large food database. The same applies for exercise, but that database seems to be fairly small. Finally, the community feature allows you to connect with other users.
The price is fairly high at $2.99
Check out the website here.
iPad, iPhone Download (Paid Version):
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/calorie-tracker-livestrong.com/id295305241?mt=8
To download free version, just search “myplate” in app store.
MyPlate is also available for Windows and Blackberry.
