Great variety of workouts but app has too many bugs – Jillian Michaels | Fitness App Review

VIDEOS 1. There’s a wide range of pre-set workouts varying from “easy”, “medium” and “hard” as well as a “generator” that will create a workout based on your choice of minutes (10, 20, 30, 45); difficulty; and target area (abs; buns & thighs; arms, chest, and back; cardio; total body). This part of the app gets 5 stars from me. 2. You can preview each move (25 sec intervals) to practice it before beginning a workout. This is helpful 3. Some of the moves are blank videos. The 25 sec interval will pass during the workout but the screen will be blank as if it is on pause 4. You can’t delete “progress” to track *actual activity*. I started a couple workouts to preview them and they showed up on my daily calendar as workouts I had done that day + calories burned. CUSTOMER SERVICE There is almost no help available if you experience a problem with the app. For example, the app would not let me login with my password and after a few attempts, I was locked out of my account. The reset link sent me to a page where I was supposed to be able to reset my password but since I was locked out, I got an error message denying me access to the page (catch 22??) I had to send an email and wait 48+ hours for a response. In the meantime, I could not use the app, which I was relying on for working out at home. This is a huge problem. Who wants to pay for an app that they might get locked out of for 2+ days? RECIPES 1. No search function For example, if you want to make something with chicken, you have to scroll through the whole alphabetical list of recipe names. Same thing if you saw a recipe you liked and want to find it again ... you can’t just search for “smoothie” 2. Cannot print recipes from within the app I took screenshots and printed those 3. You can’t make your own notes on the recipes in the app The app is like the NYC subway system - awesome when it’s functioning properly but miserable when there’s delays, unanticipated route changes, and no way to find out what’s going on UPDATE (reply to developer) Thank you for attempting to address some of my concerns. a. According to JillianMichaels.com ANY emails to customer support will be answered in 48-72 hours. Hence, the fact that it took 48+ hours to address the password lockout issue should not be attributed to the recent backend update b. I found the search bar in “recipes” but do not see a readily available print function. I also see how substitutions can be made (switching one day’s suggested meal for another) but my comment above was re: the inability to type notes directly on recipes. For instance, if a certain brand of an item works best or I substitute greek non-fat yogurt for standard yogurt I would want to make note of that directly on the recipe, next to the list of ingredients. c. I am aware of how to change time between exercises - not sure why you mention that since it’s not something I commented on in my review d. I read the article on JillianMichaels.com re: how to resolve connectivity issues. Restarting and/or deleting the app and reinstalling are not optimal workarounds. Besides, I have a fairly fast 5Ghz WiFi connection at home; I don’t think I should be experiencing any difficulty downloading the videos. Something I didn’t say in my review but read in another user’s comments is, THE APP RESTARTS EVERY TIME YOU SWITCH WINDOWS. This is terribly annoying and inconvenient. For instance, let’s say I’m shopping for items from a particular recipe. I cannot switch back and forth between the app and my web browser to consult the list of items. Every time I go back to the app, it restarts, forcing me to reselect the recipes tab, search for the recipe, and reopen it.
Review by Sasha Minny on Jillian Michaels | Fitness App.