GymFu Adds New Voices to iPhone Exercise Apps

GymFu apps use your device's accelerometer to track 'reps'

GymFu has carved itself a niche on Apple handhelds, coming across like an affordable Nike+ for crunches, push-ups, pull-ups or squats. CrunchFu was also an app of the week on this site recently.

A criticism of the suite of apps has been the built-in ‘Fubot’ robot, which counts your reps and barks instructions, sounding like an angry, dispassionate Dalek with a sore throat. As of today, GymFu reports that you can switch out the voice for one of the alternatives from the ‘Sarge and Missy’ voice pack. Of those voices, one sounds like an angry drill instructor and the other resembles a schoolmarm. (Cult of Mac leaves it to you to decide which one is which.)

Initially, GymFu users can grab the voices for the princely sum of ‘nothing at all’ by sending a message to Twitter of Facebook via a GymFu app. “We’d originally intended it as an in-app payment but then we came up with a better idea; why not reward users for tweeting about us from within the app?” says Jof Arnold of GymFu, noting that other companies have tried rewarding uses for inviting friends, but GymFu’s enabling users to write whatever they want. He adds: “There’s nothing quite like getting shouted at in aggressive pseudo-army tones to inspire you to squeeze out some more reps,” and Cult of Mac agrees this is certainly better than being yelled at by a Dalek.

GymFu’s apps are available on the App Store, and are currently a buck cheaper than usual at $2.99 each (or £1.19 in Brit-o-land, and €1.59 in the Euro zone).

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