Quit Smoking Tracker
 

Happy New Year folks. Hope you all enjoyed the parties, the drinking, and of course, watching the ball drop in Times Square. Now that you've all recovered, it's that time of year where we make a list of resolutions of what we plan to accomplish or what nasty habit we want to break. While we all have the best intentions, it can be difficult to keep some of those resolutions. For example, my co-worker has been trying to quit smoking for the past four years. He gets to the three month mark and lo and behold he's back full time. So what better way to make that stop smoking resolution stick than by downloading Quit Smoking Tracker? It's an application that's sure to keep you in line the whole year long.

About

From the developers of My Books, Vimukti Technologies brings you Quit Smoking Tracker. Quit Smoking is an easy to use application that tracks your current and potential smoking habits to help you refrain from grabbing another cigarette throughout the year and begins the minute it's activated. You also have the option of sharing your progress by linking to your Facebook and Twitter accounts. Rather than humiliate, I see this as a way to build a strong support system as you try to quit.

BlackBerry App World Rating 2/5

The application size is 353 KB.

Using the application

When using for the first time it immediately asks to input how many cigarettes you smoke a day, how many cigarettes are in a pack, how much a pack costs, and the amount of tar/nicotine. These figures are then fed into the tracker to calculate the totals for each category. After entering the amounts (I used Marlboro Lights), click on Save in the upper right and you'll be taken to the home screen.

Quit Smoking Information

 

The home screen outlines your progress including the counter to track how long you've been without a cigarette. From here you can see the total money saved, cigarettes avoided, life extended, how much tar and nicotine you're not inhaling, and links to Twitter and Facebook. If you're looking for a condensed form of this information simply click on the summary icon in the upper left. You can modify and update your cigarette information at any time by clicking on the settings icon in the upper right.


Quit Smoking Home Screen
Quit Smoking Summary

When I first used this application I noticed the totals didn't add up which you can see in the screenshot above. Initially, the totals were based on an entire month of not smoking instead of just a few minutes. However, after a short time and a battery pull, the totals then calculated at a normal daily rate.


Quit Smoking Update

So what happens if you slip up and accidentally smoke a cigarette? Have no fear, Quit Smoking Tracker allows for that too. From the home screen click on oops! I Had a Smoke to be redirected to the reason screen where you can pick from some funny phrases as to why you needed a cigarette. As a result, all of your home screen values will reset and start from scratch.

Quit Smoking - Why I Smoke

Pros

· Improve your health and those around you
· Counter keeps running to show you how long you've quit smoking
· Keep track of how much you're saving
· Export and email your progress as a .csv file

Cons

· Interface is similar to their other products
· Intermittent error with values calculation

Conclusion

As a nonsmoker who grew up in a family of smokers this is a great little app for tracking your progress during the year. While other apps may come with more features (detailed statistics or motivational information), users will appreciate its straightforward approach without the extra gimmicks that may or may not be beneficial. I think that for people trying to quit just seeing what they would have consumed or spent right in front of their eyes is all the motivation they need to stay off cigarettes for good. Besides, with all the money saved you could afford to buy a PlayBook. Now that's motivation!

Quit Smoking Tracker is currently available at the CrackBerry App store for $3.99 for Touch and Non Touch devices running OS 4.5 through OS 5.0. Unfortunately no OS 6 support yet.

More information and download of Quit Smoking Tracker

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