The Actifit Series - Actifit Development Updates V0.1 - V0.3 [Episode 2]

Repository

https://github.com/mcfarhat/actifit/

Introduction

Two days ago made it exactly one month since actifit was put out to the public on the steemit blockchain. And since then, the community has been growing on and on, from strength to strength as can be seen in several factors that would be mentioned in this post.

Actifit started out with a simple beta version 0.3 of the actifit app running on the Android OS platform. Few weeks later, a version 0.2 was introduced to take care of some bugs reported by users and now, the actifit app already has a version 0.3. Definitely a lot of progress in a short while.

A. What is Actifit?

For new users who would wonder what I am talking (or maybe ranting) about, Actifit is an android app built on the steem blockchain which seeks to reward/incentivize users for carrying out different activities that help them continue to remain fit at all times.
This reward is given out in terms of upvotes from the actifit account, as well as AFIT tokens sent to users for proof of activity.

The aim of this post will be to talk about the various introductions that have been carried out on the actifit app from the start till date and try to look at how it has made the app much more beneficial to the actifit community as well as the open source community.

B. Actifit V0.1

The very first version of the actifit app was released and announced on the 27th of June this year by the owner of the app @mcfarhat. As at then, it was only a simple app to count steps of users, and post to the steemit blockchain once your username and posting key had been inputted.

It could be likened to a skeleton with little or no flesh on it as at then but with several complains from users came the need to update the app. This thus brought about Actifit V0.2

C. Complaints From Users About Actifit V0.1

There were several complaints from quite a number of members of the community using the actifit android app on their phones. There were two standout complaints amongst them all. The first one was that;

1. The app was not correctly counting steps.

This complaint was made by several members who were using different platforms or hardware devices in addition to their actifit app. They noted that while their other device had a higher step count, Actifit always had a lower step count by more than half of what the other device had. As such, something needed to be done about it. The second complain was;

2. Posting to the steem blockchain always gave off an error alert

This was yet another complaint made by users of actifit. In fact, it was so prevalent that the v.0.2 had to be hastened. When users have gotten their step count, and input their username and posting key in a bid to post their actifit report card, the error alert always shows whenever the final “post to steemit” button is clicked on.
This made it frustrating for users as they had to go back to try and redo the process again to see what was wrong. I myself was a victim of that at first when I started out and not knowing what the issue was, I blamed it on network. But later, I got to know better.

D. Actifit V.0.2

The Actifit Android App was upgraded to a V.0.2 on the 9th of July, 2018, barely two weeks after the first version was announced. Several improvements and functionalities were made while some of those annoying bugs plaguing users were all fixed.
The new update came with;

• A default content title: This addition ensured that all posts carried the title “My Actifit Report Card + the date of the day you made the post” A benefit was this was that it brought some kind of sanity and orderliness as to how actifit posts look like on the blockchain.

• An activity dropdown menu: The sensor algorithms of the actifit app was tweaked a bit so that it could easily sense some kind of activities. Users engaged in all kinds of activities so it was only just right that they were given the menu to choose what kind of activity(ies) they carried out in the day. As such, an activity drop down was introduced.

• Leaderboard screen: A new leaderboard screen was added to the app. Here, the top five users were shown with their step/activity count. This screen was then updated on a daily basis to reflect the changes in the ranking and the score line for that day.

Several other functionalities were added in the background while a number of bugs were fixed thus giving rise to a much more stable version of the actifit app. This laid the groundwork for the release of the V0.3 of the app.

E. Actifit V.0.3

The third version of the Actifit app was announced on the 27th of July, exactly one month since the V.0.1 was first announced. As well as to make a few bug fixes, a number of major improvements and functionalities were also implemented in this version of the actifit app. Some of these include;

• Wallet Support: The V.0.3 came with the wallet support functionality. A new screen was implemented for wallet and once you input your username, you will be presented with detailed information about your actifit tokens as well as the transactions carried out.

• Lock Screen Display: To make the actifit experience even more awesome for users, the actifit lock screen display was introduced. With this, there was always an actifit notification present on the user’s screen showing his step counts and updating as he continued his activities. The notification only comes up when the user opens the app, and goes out when the user completely exits the actifit app.

• Aggressive Background Tracking (ABT): Another issue we faced was that some users complained that their phone models or android versions did not count steps or capture activity while the phone was locked. As a result of this, a new setting was introduced. With this setting, affected users only need to check the ABT checkbox and the issue would be corrected.

• Donations to Charity: Actifit is encouraging its users to give out their widows’ mite to charities across the globe. This thus was implemented in the v.0.3 allowing users to donate part of their earnings to these charities. At the moment, this feature is still currently under fine-tuning but two charities are now listed there at the moment.
  Tracking measurements were also part of some features included in this upgrade though it is not completely compulsory.

F. Abuse Prevention Unit (ABU)

In almost every quarter, abuse is always present and comes in one form of the other. Most often, it is hard to completely eliminate all abuse. However, the best thing that can be done is to reduce it to its barest minimum by taking stringent steps to ensure this. There were two major forms of abuse Actifit faced.
One was that some users were posting more than once a day in an attempt to gain more upvotes and rewards from Actifit. The second was that users hardly wrote anything about their activities, at least to put out a nice post content on the blockchain.

• Thus, to curb the posting of more than once by some users, the number of posts a user can make via the app everyday was limited to just one post per user. Since then, the abuse reduced quite drastically as we at the moderation team realized during the course of our work.

• We also wanted the posts from the app to look lively and create more interactions via comments, while not misconstruing the main reason for the app which is activity and fitness. As a result, the minimum word count before you can post was increased to 30. This gives you the opportunity to tell us even a tiny little bit about your activities for the day.

Conclusion

Actifit has come a long way in just a month plus since it came into existence and it still has quite some miles to go before it becomes a near- perfect app. As such, everyone’s hand is on deck to ensure that only the right things happen within the community and the reason why the app was created, is achieved.

Keep Actifiting!!
Curtwriter (Actifit Moderator)

Resources And Image Sources

A. https://steemit.com/actifit/@actifit/announcing-actifit-innovative-smt-for-rewarding-fitness-activity
B. https://steemit.com/actifit/@actifit/actifit-smt-second-update-new-app-version-token-view-delegations-and-more
C. https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@actifit/actifit-month-one-stats-app-v0-3-charity-support-50k-sp-and-more

Series Backlinks

• Project Promotion: All You Need to Know About Actifit, The New Fitness App on The Blockchain!!)