Seeking health and fitness app recommendations

For me, music is a very big player in my fitness journey. If you are a runner or walker, if you love music, if you use
music for a myriad of things such as cleaning house, taking a drive, etc., then I highly recommend RockMyRun. this is both a free and paid subscription
service. The free version of the app will allow you access to any mix that is 45 minutes or less. Anything longer than that requires a monthly or annual
subscription. They have live DJ's who put together playlists and are designed by genre, BPM, etc. I have found music for many things that goes far beyond
my workouts themselves. Absolutely love this app. Before starting to use RockMyRun, my fastest walking speed was 2.5 MPH. Afterwords, for the first time in my life, I ran 5.0 MPH. I was shocked to say the least. Give it a try. I think it will help to push you forward in your own fitness journey.

Go to your iTunes App store and search for rockmyrun.

I was really excited when I read about this app and downloaded it straightaway!! The only problem I’m having with it is that I can’t seem to get anything to play!! Is this an accessibility issue or do you actually have to keep moving to get your chosen music to start playing? I would be so grateful if someone could help with this issue as this really is a wonderful app once we can get it working properly, as my friend and I have just purchased the yearly subscription!
Many thanks in advance

Well, because the accessibility has degraded a bit since I first started using the app several years ago, things have gotten a bit more difficult than they used to be. I tried reaching out to the developers many times, to the point that I think they got frustrated with me. I am glad to share with you the work-arounds that I use, however.

First of all, I had already added mixes to my favorites list, so if I click the Quick Play button, it will autoload from that list. Recently, I discovered a new control by accident. Once I have a playlist playing, if I don't want that one, what I do is touch one finger in the middle of the upper third of the screen and swipe right or left. This acts like a control that changes stations. There is no voiceover feedback in this area but it seems to be pretty reliable. Note: If you want to see the other things on the screen, after using this feature, you must touch one finger somewhere in the lowest third of the screen, in order to highlight something. Voiceover will then speak.

Before they broke some of the accessibility, you used to be able to select a newly added playlist, double tap on it to open it and then demo the song list. None of this is accessible anymore. In fact, there isn't a way to add songs to your favorites list at this point either. However, all is not lost.

Since I am familiar with some of the DJ's, I will look at the home screen and if I see something I want to demo, then I turn to the computer. Go to www.rockmyrun.com and sign in to your account. Happily, I just discovered that there is a newly added link called Preview Music. Open this up and there are many check boxes, by which you can filter your choices, even including your preferred BPM. Click the checkboxes you want and then click the filter button. This brings up a list of playlists that fit your criteria. If you want to preview a playlist, open up the link. Then you look for two buttons, which controls the playback. They are called Unlabeled 3 and Unlabeled 7. First activate the Unlabeled 3 button, which starts playback. then click the Unlabeled 7 to jump to the next track. If you like the playlist, click Favorite link. this adds it to your profile. the next time you open the app on your iPhone, it will be there. The only problem is that, at least for now, there is no sure fire method of selecting that specific playlist, unless you use the method described above, but still it's a roll of the dice.

Note: Sometimes the Unlabeled 3 button turns into Unlabeled 1 button, instead. They act the same.

As far as being able to change the BPM on the fly or being able to have the app count your steps, I haven't been able to figure those features out, either. As stated before, some of the newly added, and admittedly cool features, simultaneously broke some of the accessibility when they were added. Perhaps if enough visually impaired users reach out to the devs, they just might realize their users aren't all sighted and do something about accessibility.

Note: Due to the fact that I can't control the BPM changes or manage the steps counting, I do not allow RockMyRun to record anything to the Health app. Instead, I use my Apple Watch to manage my workouts and resulting stats. I don't want the Health app to have erroneous data from the RockMyRun app recorded to skew my data.

All I can say is please don't give up on this app. There is a wealth of music to be had if you can just learn the work-arounds. Despite the shortcomings, the app is one of the best apps I have found for pushing my own workouts to the next level. RockMyRun has changed my life and I hope it does the same for you. Sounds silly to say something like that about an inanimant opject, but music does really make a difference, especially in the land of sweating hard and getting healthy.

HTH