It doesn’t take an esteemed leader in alternative medicine to convince people that Yoga is helpful for many things, such as weight loss, relaxation, general fitness and health. But, it’s not always easy to fit a yoga class into your schedule, and unless you have a Yoga for the People studio nearby, there’s usually a hefty fee to pay before embarking on your physical and mental wellbeing (try upwards of $13 per class in the Bay Area).  To assist you in those times when you’d like a studio session, but cannot, for one reason or another, be present in one, Authentic Yoga acts like a personalized collection of yoga videos. It can serve as both an introduction to yoga for the beginner or as a convenient tool to help the busy person enjoy something resembling a class, without actually having to attend one. Those who travel frequently will appreciate the flexibility and professionalism of this app, and I definitely consider it my go-to yoga app from now on.

Dr. Chopra is featured in several videos in the Understand Yoga section. In these, Deepak briefly mentions other types of yoga before explaining that Authentic Yoga focuses primarily on Raja yoga, a branch of yoga that focuses heavily, if not entirely, on meditation (this app is a combination of Hatha/Raja styles). Other main sections of Authentic Yoga include Learn to Practice, Yoga Routines, and Review Poses. The best part about the Learn to Practice section is not only does it teach basic yoga poses and positions, but it identifies poses for specific ailments like tight hamstrings, tight hips, or for building balance, decreasing stress, and more. Yoga Routines are divided between beginner, intermediate, and advanced and include routines for balance, flexibility, strength, body awareness, and even Deepak’s personal awareness routine. You can rate each routine on both difficulty and your personal enjoyment to keep track of which routines you use frequently and which ones you use only intermittently. You can also follow routines in their entirety or select specific poses. Each routine includes pictures and a video of Tara performing the poses to music, with Deepak offering instruction in the background, along with an explanation for the sequence. In addition, you can become a part of the Authentic Yoga community and send questions to Deepak and Tara directly from the app.

Can you believe the first Earth Day was celebrated in 1970, in a time when having an ecological mindset was correlated more with wearing birkenstocks and eating – the horror – foods not provided in a colorfully designed cardboard box? The environmentalists of this era are often dramatized as hemp-wearing hippies who tied themselves to trees, rioted against fur, and adopted a neo-Native American lifestyle of rediscovering simpler living, away from the granite confines of city interiors. Forty years later, environmentalism has changed into the yuppie mainstream, for the better: our entire lexicon is rife with words like biodegradable, ecosphere, carbon footprint, community supported agriculture and more, colleges around the country are building LEED certified buildings, the new wave of electric cars are emerging this coming year, and corporate America is taking a more sustainable approach to business (well, some, not all). Recycling has long been accessible on our curbs and eating locally grown food – or growing your own food – has become trendier, even, than the Prius, itself.

The problem with living an eco-intelligent lifestyle, however, is there’s so much to consider and remember. Thanks to green iPhone apps, all this information and much, much, much more is now available at your fingertips. Green apps are sprouting up faster than, well, sprouts. In honor of Earth Day’s big birthday, we at Appstruck combed through many different eco-friendly apps for shopping, travel, transportation, eating out and more, so you have them ready at your green thumbs.

1. Animal-Free – FREE
Animal-Free is a pocket reference guide for many common and hidden animal ingredients. Whether you’re vegan, vegetarian, part-time veg or simply trying to shop veg-friendly, this app by Symbiotic Software will help you make conscientious shopping decisions. New vegans will appreciate the list of commonly misunderstood or unfamiliar vegan ingredients that will help expand your dietary horizons.

2. Gorgeously Green Survival Guide – 99 cents
The Gorgeously Green Survival Guide is a quick reference for busy women. Developed by bestselling author Sophie Uliano, Gorgeously Green guides you through the confusion of shopping for eco-friendly choices. One of the best features is the ability to create convenient and helpful shopping lists for everything from lip sticks to light bulbs.

3. Greenpeace Tissue Guide – FREE
The Greenpeace Tissue Guide allows you to make informed decision when shopping for recycled tissue and toilet paper. Experts have rated more than 100 brands as “recommended,” “could do better” and “avoid!”

4. Harvest – Select the Best Produce – $1.99
Harvest helps you skip packaged and processed foods with information on selecting the freshest, ripest, healthiest and best-tasting produce. Now you can knock on watermelons, smell pineapples and squeeze avocados with knowledgeable élan. (read review here)

5. Locavore – $2.99
Eat foods grown and raised locally without spending hours Googling data for tonight’s meal. Locavore provides government and NGO data by state. Click on the food item for Wikipedia info and Epicurious recipes. There’s no market-finder feature for in-season foods, but it sure beats printing lengthy lists of locally grown foods. (read review here)

6. TheGoodGuide – FREE
GoodGuide helps you find safe, healthy and sustainable products while you shop. Simply scan the product’s barcode to view detailed ratings for the health, environment and social responsibility of more than 65,000 products and companies.

7. CarCare – $4.99
CarCare automatically calculates your gas mileage at the pump and reminds you when it’s time to change the oil, rotate tires, get a wax or any other service you desire.

8. Green Gas Saver – FREE
Green Gas Saver tells you when you’re accelerating or taking a turn too fast, which can hinder your gas mileage. The idea behind the app is to keep the ball in the center of the screen. When you accelerate too quickly, the diameter of the ball increases and an alarm will sound, indicating you’re accelerating too quickly. Green Gas also keeps a running score so you can see how well you’re driving in real time. A few weeks with this app and driving efficiently will become ingrained.

9. Greenmeter – $5.99
Greenmeter by Cleantechnica tracks your car’s carbon footprint and fuel efficiency while calculating weather conditions, cost of fuel and vehicle weight. You also can measure drag coefficient, vehicle pitch and rolling resistance with estimates available at CleanTechnica.com.

10. Twavel – $1.99
Twavel isn’t just for wascally wabbits. It calculates the CO2 emissions associated with your travel choices and allows friends to compare their travel footprints.

11. Green Sushi Selector – 99 cents
Green Sushi Selector allows you to research whether the sushi fish you’re about to buy comes from threatened species or has been caught or farmed in ways harmful to the environment. Fish are listed both by their Japanese and common-market names. Additional features include health alerts for mercury and PCBs, as well as dietary recommendations.

12. VegOut – $2.99
Vegetarian offerings in many restaurants are often limited and boring. VegOut makes life a bit easier with the world’s largest international listing of vegan, vegetarian and vegetarian-friendly restaurants. Search listings by your exact location or a customized location when on the road.

13. Geocaching Toolkit – FREE
Geocaching, the green outdoors game of hiding and seeking treasures, has caught on throughout the world. Geocaching Toolkit guides players between locations with clues involving puzzles, calculations and projecting a new waypoint using distances and bearings. Sometimes the calculations are easy, but this toolkit can help when calculations become tedious .

14. Lonely Planet Travel Guides – Prices begin at 99 cents
Lonely Planet Travel Guides are the guide of choice for many frugal and green travelers. Various apps provide paperless guides for both U.S. and international destinations. Some of the guides are buggy and need work, but Lonely Planet is working on updated versions. Tip: Read the reviews before buying.

15. BraveNewFilms – FREE
Find and access the latest, hard-hitting videos on social and economic issues. From exposing abusive health insurance companies to combating unregulated Wall Street greed, the videos on BraveNewFilms inform, challenge and recommend opportunities to take action.

16. Get Green – 99 cents
Get Green, from Candied Apple, provides you with daily ammunition in the battle against climate change.You’ll receive daily updates about how you can make a difference. Tips cover everything from green workplaces to green Halloween celebrations. It even has tips on how to reduce the carbon footprint of your wedding.

17. Green Charging – 99 cents
Green Changing reduces your energy consumption when you charge your phone. Launch the app when you start charging and it’ll notify you with sound and vibration when your battery is fully charged. Some of the best things are so simple.

18. Green Wars – $1.99
Based on the classic Drug Wars game, Green Wars requires players purchase environmental products for cheap and resell them for a profit. Manage your inventory to make the biggest profit on buying and selling recycled paper, LED light bulbs, reusable shopping bags, recycled paper and fixed-gear bicycles. Once you’ve earned some street cred by making deals, you can buy and sell high-end goods like solar items, geothermal pumps, carbon credits and hybrid cars.

19. iGreen – 99 cents
Stay current on the latest solar, hybrid, green and green tech news. Aggregated new sites on iGreen include About My Planet, Azo CleanTech, VentureBeat, Green Biz, Green Computing, Hybrid Car Blog and more.

20. MeterRead – $2.99
Read your meter with ease using your iPhone. Check it again later and MeterRead provides you with data to better control your power bill. This app from Zerogate displays the total kilowatt hours used since the last reading and calculates your total usage for the next 30 days.

French Women Don’t Get Fat, The Okinawa Diet, The China Study, Dr. Atkin’s New Diet Revolution, and The Best Life Diet are but a few of the the most notable diet books from the last decade, each one acclaimed in its own right, each one later lambasted, and each heavily featured on various bestseller lists. Anyone can argue that one such diet will make you lose weight rapidly, but that another is better for your heart, that this other diet will give you the clearest complexion, but no one can truly say that one diet is better, overall, than another – or, at least, not any one of the modernized diets we see lining our bookshelves today. Many physicians today agree that some generalized form of a Mediterranean diet is the healthiest one to subsist on, if we define healthy in terms of a localized population with a low incidence of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and a host of other modern conditions. The principal aspects of this diet include a high consumption of olive oil, legumes, grains, fruits, and vegetables; a moderate consumption of dairy products (mostly as cheese and yogurt), wine and fish; and a low consumption of meat and meat products. Of course, dietary jargon like moderate consumption often fall on deaf ears – how do we define moderate? Everything, after all, both diet and people, is relative to one’s own health and experience. Dietary factors, really, are only part of the reason for the health benefits enjoyed by these cultures – genetics, lifestyle (notably heavy physical labor), and environment are also involved. The putative benefits of the Mediterranean diet for cardiovascular health are primarily correlative in nature: while they reflect a very real disparity in the geographic incidence of heart disease, identifying the causal determinant of this disparity has proven difficult. Here is where my dad would pump a fist in the air and exclaim, with all the enthusiasm of a closet theorist, the correlation between cholesterol, cardiovascular disease, and Vitamin D.

One diet book bestseller that has been captivating people around the country doesn’t so much advocate a diet, in the traditional sense, as it advocates a simple substitution method when eating out. Their motto? Eat This, Not That! Rather than require readers to plow through literature on why certain foods are better than others, or vaguely telling readers to eat only moderate amounts of something, Eat This Not That instead takes a visual approach, inundating readers with pictures of food commonly eaten at fast food establishments, or during holidays, common snacks, breakfasts and more. The idea of the book, and its recently released app by Men’s Health Magazine, is to familiarize people with the concept of which foods are healthier – mind you, on a modest scale – than others of seemingly equal caloric value. If anything, the idea is pared down to the simple, but everlastingly true dogma of “calories in, calories out” – if you eat less, you will weigh less. Obviously, this isn’t a diet book that focuses on health, per se; if it were, then it wouldn’t advocate eating at fast food establishments. The meal substitution principle is a good one, though, because many people do dine at these establishment on a frequent basis, and if you can’t deter them from eating there, you may as well steer them toward the better choices.

The Eat This Not That app takes the visual principle a step further by plugging it into a game – a transportable one, at that. I’ve often lamented at how little people read, but the fact of the matter is people are highly visual creatures – when it comes to diet books, or recognizing portions and alternate food options, images are key. There won’t always be nutritional information available for everything you eat, and even with the caloric information now required by law for many places, there’s still no solid verification that people will always be interested, or patient enough to read this information and make better choices. With the Eat This Not That game, users will slowly become adept at recognizing which foods offer them the best bang for their health; they’ll learn, along the way, that mashed potatoes, while heavy in their own right with cream and butter, still make a more well-rounded choice than a slice of sweet potato pie. A shortbread cookie, while smaller in size, and seemingly innocuous and unassuming, has nearly three times the saturated fat of a chocolate raspberry brownie, which clocks in a modest 5 grams with 370 calories. The game presents you with two images, and you must decide, based on appearances alone, which is the better choice based on potential levels of saturated fat, sodium, and calories. As the clock ticks down, nutritional info starts popping up, to help you make a more informed choice, but you’re only docked points if you play in the speed round.

Yikes, the calories.

Many of the foods contained within this game are establishment-specific, like a Wendy’s Frosty or a Double Whopper with Cheese and Fries from Burger King. The game is particularly exceptional in this regard, for sorting out the caloric, sodium, and saturated fat values for these foods because I, personally, find it very difficult to weigh my options at these places. A burger is a burger, to me, so how do I know which one actually has four times the amount of already catastrophic sodium… and why? It never ceases to amaze me the disparity in calories and fat between two, seemingly identical entrees. Other foods featured in the game, however, are a bit more vague in origin, labeled simply as “slice of pumpkin pie” or a “blueberry cheesecake.” A blueberry cheesecake from Lindy’s in New York may very well be a heart attack on a plate, but not all cheesecakes are made in the same ilk. Portion sizes, too, remain vague in the slice arena. A quarter of a pie slice of pumpkin pie could very well rival a small slice of cheesecake; of course, this is making the argument against standard pie slice sizes, which frankly, I’m sure most people are unaware. Some choices make me scratch my head, it being completely obvious to anyone which is the healthier choice, but then I have to remember the general state of the nation: we’re obese, on a cattle scale, and most people probably will choose that deep-fried crab cake with 19 grams of fat and 300 calories over the 12 shrimp cocktail with sauce, averaging around 165 calories and zero fat. Sometimes, you just want that turducken.

Regardless of personal choices, Eat This Not That is a host of information on things we really don’t want to know about. The true success of this game, and book, lies in the scare tactic when users realize, with horror, that a salad from Wendy’s, with all its innocent iceburg lettuce, can range up to 700 calories, making a burger the unforeseen better choice. It may not be a revolutionary diet plan, and it may not be the most accurate in its representation, but it does fascinate you (albeit in a somewhat horrific and masochistic way) into making wiser decisions… and for a nation that scares itself silly over trite, inconsequential things, that isn’t a bad thing at all.

I would definitely benefit from iBaby Care, an iPhone app for new parents by D Technolabs, who also created ASL – American Sign Language (read the review here). When first opening the app, I was less than thrilled with its bland interface, and I was tempted to just toss it in the reject pile. After all, what new parent has the time to sift through dully presented information – there are plenty of colorful, and well-organized books on the market that most parents are happy to shell out a good, upwards of $20 for. I forced myself, though, to give this app a chance, and I can say with complete truthfulness that I’m glad I did so. It’s true, the app is pretty lackluster – the interface is nothing more than rows of bold-type headings like Baby Care, Growth Development, Breast Feeding, Sleeping, Handling, Talking, Crying, etc, followed by plain, written sections of black font on generic white background – but it’s actually not too bad to read. It’s pretty much an outline, or an essay with bullet points, of all the most pertinent points on having a newborn. Babies are complex human beings, and every new parent needs to understand all the intricacies of, say, holding the baby correctly, or properly reinforcing the instinct and urge to talk. I recently welcomed a brand new puppy into my life, and while raising an animal is different from a human, properly raising a puppy includes thoroughly researching the basics that help develop your pup into a mature adult – things like adequate feeding, housebreaking, greeting manners, and commands to keep your dog in your control. These essential rubrics are fairly similar, only much more complex, when raising a baby.

iBaby Care tries to narrow and focus the scope of baby literature, so definitely do not use this guide as research when you’re pregnant – there are more thorough, and detailed resources for that. However, iBaby Care is an excellent glossary-type guide, to remind yourself of the basics, or as a quick study for interpreting crying, or better scheduling your breastfeeding (or bottlefeeding). I found the Growth and Development section of great potential use for parents. Just as I have a guide for my puppy, it’s important to keep track of your growing child’s developement, whether he’s underweight or overweight, within average for his age, or an outlier. For your baby’s future health, it’s good to keep such things under careful watch. The section on Baby Care and Health Care may seem common sense, but for many people, it may not be, so it’s good to have a section that covers proper temperature, vomiting, irritability and the like.

I enjoyed reading the section on handling, because in case it wasn’t apparent in the opening paragraph, I’m not terribly adept at holding babies. The Crying section had some good pointers too; I particularly liked the app’s advice on various holding positions to soothe a crying baby:

“Hold your baby facedown over your forearm with his head at your elbow and your thumb and fingers wrapped around his thigh. Hold your baby seated in your hand with his back to your chest and your other hand across his chest, wrapping your thumb and fingers around his upper arm.”

Descriptive enough to visualize, and strangely instinctual sounding.

I may compliment iBaby Care on its advice, but I admit it’s not the greatest app. It’s dull to look at, which is a huge drawback for anything on the iPhone. With such an awesome gadget, it’s borderline lazy to create a written app without so much as an illustration in it. There are also a few typos here and there – nothing major that would be cause for concern, just the random, annoying switching of prepositions for incorrect ones. If it’s a dully presented app, it should at least be written perfectly. Plus, I digress: the information contained within is a good, quick guide, but there are so many other resources for parents that it’s hard to assess whether parents would give this app a second look. Used bookstores, and online manuals are nearly as cheap, are much easier to read, and carry much more information, so why bother buying iBaby Care? Their heart is in the right place, and it’s still an untapped market in the iPhone app world, but iBaby Care has quite a ways to go before I’d consider it a worthwhile app.

cover model Brooklyn Decker

In light of the recent controversy over the loss of certain scintillating, titillating apps in the iTunes app store, we rejoice over our continued access to the annual Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition on the iPhone. It may seem odd that the Swimsuit edition is still available, given the picketing outrage of many a feminist, but compared to the more, dare I say sexual apps out there, the SI Swimsuit edition is downright vanilla. But, in all seriousness, looking at beautiful women in something as natural and breezy as a swimsuit, and especially when part of a well-known publication, is hardly something worth considering outrageous or anti-feminist. I hardly consider idolizing voluptuous women as something degrading and abhorrent. Besides, there’s a thing called Parental Control in case you don’t want Junior oogling over bikini-clad women at an early age. He has plenty more hormonal years ahead of him before he can give up the bike riding just yet.

But, back to the app. The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2010 was recently released for the iPhone, as I mentioned when reviewing the Sports Illustrated app two weeks back. The app is free to download, for you to admire the likes of Brooklyn Decker, Jessica Gomes, Daniella Sarahyba, Irina Shayk, and, my personal favorite, Bar Rafaeli. Plenty of newcomers appear in this edition, along with newcomer actress Ashley Greene, of the now famous Twilight franchise. While free, the app is considerably limited in its photo and video albums, and in order to view more options, you must upgrade for a price. It’s too bad, considering GQ offers its entire publication for free, but I guess looking at beautiful women is an entirely different privilege. For the bare bones, dry minimum free download, you can view one photo and one video for each major model in the issue – in the upgraded, premium version, you are granted access to more videos, more photos, and the entire rookie model collection (new faces to the swimsuit modeling world). You also can read the models’ biographies, and pertinent information. For a mere $1.99 you can get 50 videos, photos of several Winter Olympians, some women from Dancing with the Stars, photos of Ana Ivanovic, and even a few famous soccer stars’ wives and girlfriends in body paint. How absolutely… scintillating.

It’s too bad the app, itself, isn’t terribly functional on the technical front. Sure, it’s easy enough to navigate, but a few simple measures could make it breezier to flow through, like the ability to swipe through photos, rather than exiting and tapping each photo individually. Really, what photo app

Jessica Gomes

doesn’t have a swiping ability? Other than that, the app is pretty basic: it’s meant for a younger demographic, of both men and women, who enjoy seeing models in swimsuits. It’s a famous, annual spread, and it’s usually a hugely anticipated event, one highlighted in magazines, blogs, and news sites – whether you consider it something worthwhile or not is entirely your own opinion. I think it’s fun, like looking through a Victoria’s Secret catalogue, and I relish the fact that Sports Illustrated tends to choose models with a more natural, full figure, rather than the twiggy icons we see on catwalks. Not that there’s anything necessarily wrong with the latter, it’s just nice to see variety. Sure, models are models, and many women can choose to be nitpicky over their own or others’ perceived flaws, but it’s hard to argue with a magazine that showcases natural beauties, in next to nothing, with happy, radiant smiles, like the girl you’d find next door, or just frolicking on the beach. Almost like your best friend. So if you are one of those avid readers of Sports Illustrated, why not just buy the iPhone app, instead?

In the beginning, QVC – standing for Quality, Value, Convience – mostly catered to the stay-at-home mom demographic who couldn’t find the time to shop and would thus watch television, and buy whatever she needed, at good, reduced prices. But in the late 1980s and ensuing decade, the QVC corporation underwent a series of huge mergers that would broadcast QVC for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with expanded merchandise, and celebrity endorsements that skyrocketed its national appeal. My mother, to this day, keeps her eyes peeled for Today’s Special Value, an item with its price nearly slashed in half. In the mid 1990′s, with the commercialized advent of the internet (I still can’t believe I witnessed it’s birth – mind you, I was in the fourth grade), QVC began offering its services via the web, as any well-minded business would do, and newer generations developed more of an affinity with the web-based service over the televised one. Naturally, with the advent of the iPhone, and the way it’s changed our lives, condensing the internet, mail, phone and computer into one handheld device, QVC made the wise move to create their own iPhone app, to once again appeal to another generation of technology.

I love these!

The QVC iPhone app maintains the clean interface and ease-of-use of all previous QVC incarnations, and for that, it successfully upholds that diehard standard for Quality. The main page opens to all the QVC essentials: the One Time Only Value, the Today’s Special Value, and two tabs that link you to the item currently on air and items recently on air, respectively. A large banner beneath shows a vibrant, multiracial woman with the phrase “Whole You” adjacent, representing QVC’s recent line of wellness products for women. The ad for this is rife with beautiful women, in beautiful situations, resplendent in pinks and soft hues, and doing those beautiful girlish things like loving animals, smelling flowers, winking flirtatiously, and just being, well, beautiful women. It caters the idea that Whole You will help every woman find what makes her unique – a beautiful marketing ploy at materialism, I could coyly say. But, on to more technical matters.

When recently tapping on the item currently on air tab (a picture is shown beside it), I was shocked to see a pair of lovely, scrunched leather boots for the ridiculously low price of $40.00. Mind you, in another clever marketing tactic, QVC peppers their name all over their business – in this case, the price is called “QVC price,” and it’s been called that since the 1990s. That’s a Value, indeed, if I may point out another upholding of the QVC standards. I can zoom in on the picture if desired, read a product description (usually including measurements), select among an array of colors and sizes, and then, should I absolutely need this product, I can buy in one of two incredibly easy ways: I may call, just by tapping Call to Order, or, if I’m a QVC member, I can even more easily tap the Speed Buy tab. The Speed Buy instantly sends the purchase through to your online account, with your stored credit card, shipping and billing information (a long Privacy Agreement is given, for those with deep trust issues skepticism). So, no more punching numbers, ladies, all you need to do is tap a button, and recite the easily seen Item number at the top of the page (the Rialto Pull-on Scrunch Boots w/Belted Straps are #A95235). QVC was convenient to begin with, so I applaud their ability to outdo themselves over and over again.

In the Featured Tab section, you can browse by New Today, Customer Top Rated, and Most Wished For, each of which usually contain great items at great prices (or, at least, they’re never above the price you would find in a store). If you don’t feel like browsing, then just tap on the Search tab, and search to your heart’s delight; also, any previous searches you have performed will conveniently appear below, should you want to return to a specific search. My one problem with the search function is the lack of filters – for a big site like QVC, I’d like the option to filter my search results based on price, from low-to-high, or the highest-rated. Price, really, is a big one, especially for a site that touts Value and Convenience so much. When searching for a television, not only was I bombarded with vast price ranges in random order, I was also presented with various tv-related items, like media stands, remote controls, and covers (yes, TV covers). It’d be nice to refine my search to solely televisions.

In the end, however, QVC is remarkably convenient, and priced at a great value of zero dollars. For anyone who uses sites like Overstock.com, SteepandCheap, or even Sephora, QVC is a great app to find great values, for just a phone call or finger tap away. And yes, it still mostly caters to women.

My boyfriend, on the other hand, is a skier. Gliding this way and that, effortlessly, over powdery snow, sloshing pretty streams of it in either direction, he just exudes lithe grace and expertise. A familiarity I do not possess. His father took him often to the slopes of Mount Shasta and Mount Lassen, where he learned from a young age – age four, tucked between his father’s knees – how to don those frumpy snow pants and goggles without looking silly. When I hold ski poles, I do not look elegant and keenly aware, I look clumsy and unsure, the poles jutting at inharmonious angles like barbed, insect limbs. Last year I had my first bout with cross-country skiing, which left me permanently, for the rest of the trip, with a surly, angst-ridden expression on my face. No, I am definitely not a skier. But, I would like to learn.

It’s finally getting chilly in northern California, enough to see your breath around 5pm and to want only soups and hot cider drinks. My boyfriend’s dad calls me every now and then, asking, “Hey! So, when are we going skiing?” A few murmured hesitations are my usual answer, but I am determined to hit the slopes this year. Yes, I’ll even rock the jargon with my hit the slopes. Much like how WeatherBug is useful in preparing for weather conditions, there are three snow/skiing apps for the iPhone that despite their individual flaws, are great when used in tandem with each other. They’re far better than the other skiing apps out there; besides, they’re all completely free. For both the fledging skier like me, and the gelding, these apps are a great asset to any skier’s iPhone. These apps are The Show Report by The North Face, Ski Report, and iTrailMap.

The Snow Report by The North Face definitely has the prettiest interface out of the three: it’s easy to be partial to the charcoal gray and Christmas red theme, and the app itself is easy to navigate. The Snow Report opens to a summary page of five default ski resorts, including Whistler/Blackcomb of Canada; Chamonix of France; Snowbird of Utah; Kirkwood of California; and Stowe of Vermont. Beside each resort name is the current snowfall within the last 24 hours – currently, none of the stock sites have experienced snowfall, but if you switch the gauge to 48 and then 72 hours timeframe, then you’ll see that Whistler/Blackcomb experienced 33 inches of snowfall. Going back to the resorts, I’m not entirely sure what their reasoning was for including these particular places. With big names like Chamonix, I’d expect to see Aspen and Tahoe included, perhaps a few places in Alaska and Montana, Jackson Hole of Wyoming or Squaw Valley, even. You may add additional sites by tapping the plus symbol in the upper right, but this isn’t a surefire way to get information. I added Mount Shasta, but the app was unable to find Mount Lassen, and a few other smaller California resorts, like Heavenly, Gold Mountain, and Cedar Pass. More resorts are included in the Global Top 10 tab, which generally includes places outside of the U.S, far away from here.

Tapping on any of the resort names takes you a report page with in-app links to weather forecasts, snowfall, trail maps, and a “locate resort” map button (to access another resort, simply flip through or go back to the summary page). There are also tabs at the top indicating “Details” and “Twitter,” – just in case you need to keep tabs on people currently skiing who feel the need to tweet. Almost too much information is given on the forecast page, it seems – while it’s good to know what times sunrise and sunset happen, and what the UV index and wind speeds are, I don’t necessarily need to know that the moon tonight at Chamonix will be Waxing Crescent. The Satellite imaging is not quite up to par with WeatherBug’s, but it works in a pinch, and there’s no reason to snub your nose at any app that includes satellite imagery. It’s only too bad the trail maps featured on The Snow Report are woefully lacking. They’re pretty to look at from afar, like a Monet painting, but once you try to zoom in, the low resolution takes a toll and everything being a mishmash of blurred lines and words. It’s absolutely useless unless you want a general overview of the area.

But, other information peppered throughout the app is more helpful. Tap on the “details” tab to check out when lifts and runs open, what the average snowfalls of the area is, or what the elevation top and base are. There’s even a handy webcam to check out live conditions (maybe even a skier!), and a phone to get you immediately in contact with the resort. Some additional features of The Snow Report include finding a North Face store (that was a given), a North Face news feed (another given), an avalanche advisory panel (good thinking), and an image gallery showcasing the wild talent of both snowboarders and skiers, taken with wild, highlighted colors on the photographer’s part (glam factor). Overall, though, an excellent app for skiers.

Ski Report has a few definite edges over The Snow Report. As soon as you open the app, Ski Report prompts queries you about GPS, and if you select yes, then Ski Report shows you all the resorts in your given area. For someone like me – i.e. someone who never skies – it’s incredibly helpful to know where all the nearest resorts are. For my position in Petaluma, the app shows Bear Valley, Royal Gorge, Kirkwood, Soda Springs, Sierra at Tahoe, Sugar Bowl, Boreal, Homewood, Donner Ski Ranch, and Alpine Meadows. I haven’t even heard of half of those. As indicated on the main page, all these resorts are currently closed but will be opening soon, some with specific dates (November 25 for Sugar Bowl), and the amount of snowfall and projected snowfall is given. As with the Snow Report, you may add additional resorts by tapping on the informative “i” in the upper right, and you may view forecasts and a webcam. I may actually prefer the forecast information through Ski Report – it’s less involved and convoluted than The Snow Report, and is more direct in its detailed blurb, covering the basics over what you should expect. Unless you’re a competitive skier, there’s really no need to know about wind speeds and dew points, humidity levels and what not. So, you’ll sweat a bit more in your suit, or lean a little more into the wind than usual. No big deal. First hand ski reports by people currently on the snow are a small point of amusement, with their posts like “Bear Valley is the best!!!!!!!!!!” leaning a bit in the direction of hyperbole, but some posts actually give a good impression of what the scene currently looks like.

Unfortunately, Ski Report doesn’t even have trail maps to compare to The Snow Report’s low-res ones, so this is where iTrailMap comes into play. This app is straightforward and simple: it provides ski trail maps. Excellent ski trail maps. After checking to see if the resort nearest you is open with Ski Report, and after checking out snowfall rates and weather patterns with The Snow Report, open up iTrailMaps and start downloading the map to your resort. Trust me, iTrailMaps is bound to have it (it has Heavenly, Cedar Pass, and all the other resorts I mentioned The Snow Report didn’t recognize). Once a map is downloaded, you view it in its grand entirety, then pinch and zoom wherever you please, getting so far in you can distinguish the individual paths on Aspen. Now, tell me that isn’t completely zoomed in. Since the maps are downloaded to your iPhone, you need not fret about losing wireless connection. The screen is a bit small to look at a map, in general, but it sure beats carrying around different trail maps all the time. If you want, you can upgrade to iTrailMaps 3D, but I find the free version suits just fine – the 3D version lets you check out the resort’s topography, which could be useful if you’re planning a course around a severe drop, but skiers have always done just fine without this kind of routing technology. Big Air Software is constantly adding new resorts to the app, but it seems the North America section is pretty complete.

Now, all of the above are excellent apps that serve their purpose with recent accumulation, weather forecasts, community banter, resort information etc., but as I looked over the recent snow/winter app list to see what was new, one caught my eye. I’m familiar with the Skullcandy brand on a superficial level, seeing their highly regarded headphones for sale on Steep and Cheap and WhiskeyMilitia constantly, but I am also aware that they have some of the most creative and viral ad campaigns in the action sports industry, and the fact that the app is free made me really want to check it out. Skullcandy has really created a great app. The features are too numerous to name, but some of the highlights are as follows (from their site): Surf reports so you know when and where to rip; to the minute snow reports plus a 5 day forecast; a skate park finder for nomads who have to try them all; free music player; video from Skullcandy TV loaded with shorts featuring Skullcandy athletes and musicians; a dealer locator feature will find the nearest shop for instant gratification (very nice); a mobile Skullcandy store that allows you to buy new headphones, backpacks or other Skullcandy gear (even nicer); a fresh selection of continually updated wallpapers designed by Skullcandy fans that allow users to defy genericism (can’t retain your indie cred otherwise); and, finally, access to all Skullcandy happenings through the Skullcandy blog. The app also works with your phones mapping functionality to get you to any of the surf skate or snow spots you might find. Basically it does it all. It gets you stoked via its music, video, and photo content, then keeps you informed with their blog’s connection, and the best part is it wraps it all in a beautifully designed interface that is simple to use. If you’re looking beyond a strictly skiing app, this is a surefire win.

I actually can’t wait to try out skiing again – the plan is to go this next coming weekend, hit the bunny slopes for a good hour with other n00bs, then try my newly instated poles and skies onto bigger, badder slopes. I may have spent my childhood on the snowy, bitterly cold east coast, and I may have shoveled many driveways and enjoyed many episodes of ice skating, but I had absolutely no introduction to skiing. Maybe it’s just not in my blood. But, with these 4 apps on my side I can at least pull my weight with my boyfriend and his dad. It won’t improve my skiing, but at least I’ll be more informed.

When it comes to feeling frazzled and stressed, no amount of hot cocoa or neck massages can calm me like yoga can. I, and the other regulars of Nicholas Giacomini’s Vinyasa Yoga class in Petaluma, can attest to the physical difficulty of ashtanga yoga, and to its simultaneous unwinding effect it has on the body and mind. I practice every day, and no other physical act (ballet, kickboxing, running) has brought such a sense of – at the risk of sounding like every other yoga guru/spiritual advisor – sweat-induced renewal and clarity. Since attending class can be expensive ($15-20 a class for most private studios), being able to practice at home is pivotal to anyone practicing yoga. And no, you don’t have to be expertly trained to reap the benefits of a custom practice.

I reviewed a yoga app for Appstruck pretty early on, but it definitely had its problems. Yoga Stretch by Neil Harris greatly improves upon the basic formula of only poses with accompanying pictures, by including an hour long practice narrated by an actual yoga teacher (you can change the music too, but I prefer the default China Morning). She guides you, with calm, assured voice, through many poses, giving you small hints here and there as to proper alignment. Should you tire of the same practice after awhile, there’s the option to create a custom practice, where you choose different poses in different sequences; it’s the perfect path toward becoming familiar with poses and what order of poses you find most beneficial for your body. For beginners (granted, with an already good level of flexibility and strength), it’s a great starting point to becoming comfortable with standard poses. The poses included in Yoga Stretch are of the Ashtanga Primary Series, or at least, the shortened version of the Primary Series that most yoga studios use, which focuses heavily on Surya Namaskara, or the Sun Salutation. In using this app, or attending any vinyasa class, you’ll become familiar with poses like Mountain Pose, Child’s Pose, Forward Bend, Plank, Chaturanga (lowered plank), Downward Dog, Upward Dog, Crow, Chair Pose, Warriors I and II, Half Moon and more. Yoga Stretch helpfully includes detailed descriptions for each pose, so users can visualize the movements in tandem with the silhoutted person illustrating each pose. In addition to the written and visual directions, the app includes, at the bottom, small blurbs on each pose’s physical and mental benefits. Kneeling pose or Bhujrasana, for example, aligns the spine and helps relax the nervous system. Well, gee, that sounds like a good position for me right now.

Obviously, I recommend anyone using Yoga Stretch to at least attend one, good yoga class. Nothing can replace the guidance of a teacher, and with something so potentially injurious as yoga, it’s best to receive proper guidance from a certified teacher who can watch you, and physically adjust you if need be. For such poses as Shoulder Stand, where you carry all your weight in your shoulder, it’s all too easy to put too much pressure on your cervical vertebrae – for those of you scratching your heads, let me tell you: injure your cervical vertebrae too much and you won’t be able to scratch your head. Thankfully, Yoga Stretch focuses more on physical endurance moves – ones like Warrior I and II. But, overall, after you develop a sense of how a pose should feel, then Yoga Stretch is a great, additional asset in improving your form and practice.

Thankfully, in the iPhone world, there are plenty of foods apps to choose from, ones often with plenty of recipes. Epicurious, Whole Foods Market Recipes, and AllRecipes.com are only three of the most promising I’ve reviewed, and there are plenty more out there. One that recently caught my eye, not just for its title, but for its presentation, is EatingWell.com by Amphetamobile, the app version of the popular magazine Eating Well. Eating Well Magazine was established in 1990, and has grown into not only a successful magazine, but a conglomerate of cookbook publications, e-newsletters, electronic media, and a website. While I’ve never subscribed, Eating Well was one of the few magazine I would always peer into while in the grocery line at Whole Foods or other natural markets. I always felt it was way ahead of its time, beautifully designed, and compared to other recent magazines like VegNews and Vegetarian Times, it contains healthy recipes for the carnivorous-minded. Its recipes sway across all borders, from the homey to the exotic, and never fail in their delivery of medically-relevant details to accompany the dish. How divine.

The app, itself, mirrors the magazine’s quality of being simple and straightforward. A Recipe of the Day shows up every day when opening the app – today it is Pocket Eggs with Soy-Sesame Sauce, a Chinese dinner accompanied by brown rice and what looks to be watercress – and at the bottom of the main page are just two bars, a Recipe Search, and a My Favorites bar. That’s it:  clean and easy, and doesn’t overwhelm you. Tapping on the Recipe Search takes you to a page with the various types of meals we eat – appetizer, breakfast/brunch, lunch, dinner, snacks/drinks and dessert – and each of these may be narrowed down by main ingredient, as shown symbolically along the bottom. The filter choices below are poultry, meat, seafood or vegetarian, any of which you can tap to select. Once selected, the symbol (fish for seafood, drumstick for poultry) will light up, indicating that’s your selection, and you’ll see the numbers for the categories above change accordingly.

Once you select a Category – I’ll pick Desserts – all the recipes are listed in alphabetical order, with the option to filter your results based on time. In the green bar at the bottom of the screen, you’ll notice there are four timer icons, allowing you to choose a total recipe time of 15, 30, 45 or 60 minutes. The Time filter icons aren’t extremely obvious at first, but once you realize they’re timers, and that the numbers adjacent represent the amount of recipes for each time, then it becomes apparent what they are.

I’m feeling pretty short on time today, if I wanted to make a dessert, so I’ll opt for a 15 minute dessert. I am given 18 options, starting with Blueberries with Lemon Cream and ending with Cocoa-Nut Bananas, a recipe that looks entirely too easy to ignore. My instincts rang true as I read through the directions, which entailed merely cutting the banana into slices, dusting them with cocoa, and then dipping the tops in coconut flakes. Presto! Instant dessert, and quite healthy to boot. In case the symbols at the bottom aren’t instinctually decipherable, tap on the i for information in the upper right. A symbol chart will decode the various markers for High in Fiber (>5g of fiber; finally! Someone who understands what high fiber means!), Heart Healthy (<3g of saturated fat, fish can have more), Healthy Weight (reduced calories and fat), and Low Carbs (<22g of carbohydrates). Unlike some other food apps, Eating Well doesn’t cover more involved bases like gluten-free, wheat-free, sugar-free, or the even more obscure, diabetic-friendly, leaving it up to the consumer to gauge for himself whether these recipes fit within his dietary mold. In a way, I appreciate this, because the gluten-free diet has morphed from a diet for those suffering from Crohn’s Disease and other digestive disorders, to a new diet craze brought on by a frenzy of media giants and celebrities. Gluten-free bread, with its reliance on potato and rice starches and other fillers, will never be a “whole food” to me. However, in defense for those with wheat allergies – an increasingly common affliction – knowing which recipes are wheat-free up front would be appreciated from Eating Well.

Despite its shortcomings in the category filters, Eating Well is a food app worth looking at, for its clean lines, easy interface, and undoubtedly delicious recipes. I’ll be keeping this one in my iPhone selection for a long time to come.

I suppose this is where I insert the typical celebrity mantra of “oh blah blah, I have a fast metabolism,” since I gain nary an ounce when feasting on these delights. But, truth be told, I am a very active person – exceedingly active by some standards – and while I do enjoy a generous, indulgent meal here and there, I’m a healthy eater, and I am definitely not one for a willing gastronomic coma. But, to each his own, and I can imagine how wondrous the sweet stupor one falls into from plenty of cider and sweet treats. When you reawaken from the land of turkey thighs – it’s been known to last a whole weekend – feel free to use any of the apps below to acclimate back to the land of the moving. They’ll jumpstart your system with some grit. And no, I don’t mean the kind from corn.

Lose it

I reviewed Lose It when Appstruck was just in its infancy (you could argue we’re just a toddler now), and it still stands today as one of the best calorie-tracking fitness apps on the iTunes market today (you may read the review here). Much like a food diary, use Lose It to keep track of your daily caloric intakes, and then easily check on your weight or nutritional progress with handy weekly and monthly charts. The food database is astoundingly large, and whenever you manage to stump the app (“Eh? What is this larabar?”), you can manually input a few food source – i.e. larabar – and save it so the database will remember it in the future. Easy as pie. But, it gets better. Taking it up a notch from a food diary, Lose It takes into account your current BMI (height and weight ratio) and then calculates, based on your general activity level, what the proper amount of calories you would need to either maintain, lose, or gain weight. This is helpful stuff when you’re faced with a leaning tower of turkey, and an avalanche of whipped cream. Not that you’d actually use this app while eating your Thanksgiving dinner – you should enjoy your meal. But, for those looking to lose or gain weight, Lose It will help you toward the goal, Thanksgiving or not.

iFitness

I used to be a gym rat years ago, but now I’m definitely a factory-equipment-only kind of gal. Yoga, running, rock climbing, dance, and general monkeying around keep me in better shape that I ever was as a gym rat, but with gyms still popping up all over the place, and with their undeniable convenience factor, there will always be people who prefer sweating it out in a gym than in the blustery, cold, pre-winter chill. Besides, gyms are bonafide social hubs, and eyeballing that woman always donning the spandex makes for entertaining workout. It’s all too easy, though, when lifting those weights, to not push yourself, or to get bored in between sets, or lose track of what you’re doing, as compared to what worked yesterday. For this, iFitness by Medical Productions is key, as it provides images of over 230 exercises, sorted by body region or the exact muscles they engage. Behind each image are detailed instructions, and there are workout circuits provided for my expert trainers should you want a more specific approach to your routine. A muscle diagram in lush, sinewy detail is provided, as well, so you may become familiar with your general anatomy, and find exercises based on whichever muscle you choose. Want to track your progress? Tap the log icon to record what you’re done and you can later send it to your email. Instructional videos, stopwatch timers, custom workouts, bmi calculators, weight result chart and more make iFitness the only fitness you’ll need. Except for the spandex lady, of course.

iHeartRate

Of particular use for people at the gym – since they have a place to put their iPhone – iHeartRate by Endloop Systems is an excellent heart rate monitor that keeps track of your resting heart rate, your target heart rate, you level of exertion while working out – warmup, fat loss, aerobic, anaerobic, VO2 max – and even has a handy Calories Burned function. Who needs those big, clunky devices on treadmills with their usually exaggerated results when you can have this for cheap on your phone? With iHeartRate, you can chart your heart rate when running or biking outdoors, or after manuevering a tricky v4 at the rock climbing gym. You may even customize your current fitness level, by plugging in your various stats, like height, weight, age and gender; and, if you wish to get even more technical, input your measurements for an overall body fat percentage. For me – a 25 year old very active female – I came out to a surprising 18.8% of body fat, which is far lower than the 25% I had during my high school years, and I had a resting heart rate of 66 beats per minute. Oh my. I guess yoga and running are doing me wonders.

iPractice

Provided by Yoga Journal, the preeminent yoga magazine in the country, iPractice by Andrea Kowalski is a yoga lover’s dream. I just downloaded the free version, which includes 2 full workouts of a slower, more meditative Iyengar nature, but if you download the full app for $4.99, 12 workouts are provided, including a few of a more forceful vinyasa nature, should you want more of a sweat-inducing routine. But, we of the Type A personality oftentimes overlook the value of a calming, stretching routine, and underestimate the benefits of a yoga routine that focuses on mind-body awareness. While there may be such a thing as “runner’s high,” never have I felt so good as after a quiet, lengthening yoga class that focused on breathing and movements. With iPractice, you may either view each pose independently, or you may tap the button “play sequence,” to have the routine dictated for you. Since the times aren’t customizable, it may be a bit problematic for those people who don’t wish to hold chaturanga for an entire minute. Most of us don’t. The two workouts in the free version, Empower Yourself and Ray of Light, sound a wee bit too women’s workshop and eccentric Madonna album for me, but the sequences are good, the directions detailed, and having a professionally laid out routine is usually better than just surmising one on my own.

iMapMyFitness

I just used this app for the first time the other day, and I plan to write a more thorough review later. For now, however, I must include it in my Healthy apps for post-Thanksgiving bliss. A free GPS tracking app, iMapMyFitness by mapmyfitness.com helps you achieve your fitness goals by tracking your distance, time, pace and speed whenever you so much as walk or run or bike; keeping a log of your training history (with maps!); and by providing a connection to the MapMyRun.com community of users who will tell you anything and everything about running clubs, where to run, and more. The latest update includes Twitter integration, but before this was included you could still email your map routes to friends. I usually plan out my runs beforehand, along with having usual routes, but it’s great to know how fast I’m running and what my overall pacing is. I can see how this would be great for improving your interval training, or seeing how quickly you improve your running times over the weeks. It may be cumbersome to carry your iPhone around, but there are a few snug carrier options that render the iPhone unnoticeable on your arm.