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August 11, 2009 # 2:30 PM # Uncategorized # 6 CommentsAs someone who strives for building good life habits, and knowing that OPTED Magazine readers are interested as well, it made sense to review a “habits and goals” iPhone app to provide insight into a possible application that can help with tracking goals. While pen and paper is becoming a less attractive option in the age of fun programs that can remove paper from the equation, based on our review of The Habit Factor, I’ll be sticking with pen and paper for now.
The Basics
The Habit Factor, by Equilibrium Enterprises, was submitted in May 2009 and as of the date of this post, is on sale in the App store for 99 cents. The app is marketed as a way to help you “quickly establish, track and align your habits with your desired goals to improve yourcharacter and enable more precise achievement.”
Concept is great, features have problems
After downloading the app, the first step for me was to review the “about” link about how and why to use the app. I confess that I was impressed, and based on the specific imagery, as a consumer I felt I’d hit the jackpot to provide myself a product to enhance my life (welcome to the marketing concept of most products!)
So, I visited the goal feature first. I cleared out the “factory-installed” goals and proceeded to set one of my own: Reaching my goal weight. I filled in the goal, then entered my reasons for wanting to achieve that goal and entered today as the start date. The last field on the page was a completion date and it gives no option for picking “never” or “until I reach my goal” — I was required to enter a completion date to make the goal feature function correctly.
This is a problem for me. For instance, reaching my goal weight is a long term process and I don’t know when my completion date will be! I also intended to add a goal for “Making family a priority” which I intend to be an ongoing goal until the day I pass away — gladly I’m not able to predict that date and schedule it as my completion date! I imagine most people have goals they will be working on for years if not decades and will be unable to use the feature.
Okay, so I won’t be using the goals feature, what about the habits feature?! The same problem arose. I was required to schedule a completion date — but my habits don’t have completion dates, they are “lifelong habits” which is precisely the point of the app in the first place!
The other reason that the required completion date is a flaw in the program is that after testing the tracking feature for a habit using 2050 as my completion date, it filled in the total days left in the period for tracking as 14,975 days. And the tracking function marks your progress as a percentage of instances required to reach 100%. My statistics will always be flawed based on this system because I do not have an accurate end date for my habits and goals.
Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of using the app was the frequency that the app froze, or shut down completely. After reading similiar reviews in the App store, I realized this was not a problem limited to my phone. I also noted that the overall ranking for this app by over 60 people was only 3 stars — certainly not popular. Many of the reviews were not favorable.
Overall assessment: it’s only 99 cents, but as someone who values every cent of every dollar that I can save, this app is not worth the money if you are seeking to build daily habits and accurately track your progress over time. If your intent was to use this app as an alternate to do list, that could be more efficiently combined with your current system and you wouldn’t risk the app crashing in the middle of your data entry.
Have an iPhone app you’d like us to test and review? Contact us and we’ll add it to the queue!
This post is part of OPTED Magazine’s “iPhone Tuesdays” series, where we’ll feature a new iPhone app that helps with productivity, tasking, goal setting, or organization. These posts will include a review and all the information based on a personal test and evaluation. Watch for the series again next Tuesday!
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are you kidding me? who is the unnamed author here? as of the published date/time of this article and this response, the App is #16 in Productivity. 3 Stars with 131 ratings for a new version 1.xx app is alright, wouldn’t you agree?
the biggest problem with the review is the reviewer, who has no concept or clue about setting goals apparently. GOALS 101; YOU SET AN END DATE. Here’s the quote in case you didn’t see it, “For instance, reaching my goal weight is a long term process and I don’t know when my completion date will be!” OK. Here’s a thought, set a goal weight and a completion date that is between where you are now and your ideal. That way you can track towards your ideal.
This entire review is comical and if this were my website – i’d make sure it was by a nameless author as well. Only i wouldn’t actually post it. The Habit Factor is Equilibrium’s best selling and most popular app. Other great apps include Virtues, Noble Paths, BucketList Pro. As the publisher it’d be helpful if you understood the app and used it correctly.
As for the occasional memory issues, the latest version 1.2 has addressed those.
I have to respectfully disagree. An app may have a lot of ratings, but that doesn’t mean they are independent reviews, or all positive. In fact, several of them are negative and have made the same points as this post.
As far as “Goals 101,” forming habits (which your app is NAMED after!) is not about setting an end date for when you stop having a productive or life changing habit, it’s about making it a HABIT, which in itself means indefinite. While it may be nice for some users who are interested in establishing a habit for a little while, most of the habits I’m interested in pursuing in my life are continuous, with no end to them. And this app not only has no option for setting an open end date, it doesn’t even allow you to use the features unless you set one!
i’ll try one more time. PLEASE READ the ABOUT menu within the app-it’s important you understand the premise behind the app.
It is called the habit factor because once you consciously craft/track habits – they become habits (in all likelihood for life). there is no point tracking anything indefinetly. Then you (the user) moves on and craft new habits. Also, habits support the achievement of goals. A goal can have a long-term goal end-date while a habit may have multiple tracking periods WITHIN the GOAL period where a user might even increase the frequency target or each habit.
to revisit your rebuttal -”several of them have made the same point of the post”? none of them asked for a tracking period without an end date??? also, you’re comment was NOT about a habit but a GOAL. here’s your quote once again, “For instance, reaching my GOAL weight is a long term process and I don’t know when my completion date will be!” This is comical and i don’t mean to pile on – but again, that is fundamental goal setting – having an end date.
Finally, please know we’ve had multiple business and personal development coaches contact us and comment very favorably about the app and how they now use it with their clients. Be sure to see the review by “8280″ titled “ABA”. He/she cited this as applied behavioral analysis “whether we knew it or not – based upon experimentally derived principles to affect behavior change”.
So, what the difference? Same app. Very different reviews? Those who find tremendous value in the habit factor and those who might not? The difference is (i’m guessing) they understand how to use it. And, in this case, they are actually PROFESSIONAL coaches and understand personal development. How to modify behavior through target tracking periods.
we will be sure to let you know when the next release is out. however, i can assure you it will not allow for a tracking period with no end date.
The one nugget of information that has come from your review is that we clearly need to approach this from a standpoint of a user not having any idea how the app works. This is valuable feedback so i think we’ll start on an ebook for best practices to help clarify such confusion.
thanks
I appreciate your post and certainly understand what you’re saying, but you haven’t addressed the concern I have with the app and ironically, have brought another new concern after posting these comments.
You’re entitled to express yourself however you wish, but I’m surprised that a company like Equilibrium Enterprises has done work with personal development coaches and yet interacts with their customers in such a rude and flippant manner!
Finally, it’s also rather disturbing that you mention the “one nugget of information that came from the review is that we clearly need to approach this from a standpoint of a user.” Wow. I did not know your company up until yesterday was not approaching the development of your products with the user/customer in mind!
Thank you for sharing the information and participating in a dialog because it’s important to hear about your company’s business practices as well.
sometimes i am having some problems when setting goals~**