Walkholic#
Walkholic is an Android app that I released on Google Play around 2015. It has since been removed from Google Play for maintenance reasons.
Back then, fitness apps that tracked basic activities—like walking, running, and cycling—and recorded metrics such as activity volume and heart rate were just starting to become popular. Around the same time, Google launched the Google Fit API to grow an ecosystem, and a developer contest called the Google Fit Challenge was held. As you might expect, I joined the challenge and started building an app.
Looking back at my old notes, I had written things like: “The deadline (2/17) is coming fast… I haven’t even properly started, and I’m running out of time.” In practice, I really did build it in a hurry, thinking, “Maybe I can at least get a participation award.” But I ended up being selected as a Grand Prize Winner. (The Google Fit API notes from that time are still here: Google Fit notes (Naver blog, Korean).)
Proof that it happened still exists#
Being a Grand Prize Winner didn’t come with cash, but there were prizes, and the app was featured as a Featured App. At the time, it honestly felt like I had “hit it big.”
Thankfully, traces of it still remain on the web. The article below lists Walkholic under “Google Fit Challenge App Winners”:
Prizes (and the tax bill)#
The prizes were fitness-related devices worth roughly 800,000 KRW in total. The only items that were genuinely useful were a smartwatch and a scale. I also remember paying about 150,000 KRW in taxes/fees.
To be honest, my feelings were mixed. I was happy to receive a prize box, but at the same time it also felt like some of the items were “sponsored inventory” that weren’t particularly popular.
What was disappointing: “Featured” didn’t translate into installs#
It would have been much better if the app had appeared on Google Play’s home page, but unfortunately it was only a “Featured App,” and the Featured section itself was fairly hidden at the time. So even though the app was featured, installs didn’t increase as much as I had hoped.
Back then, I blamed the circumstances: “Maybe the Google Fit team inside Google wasn’t very big, and they didn’t have enough budget to run a major event.”
But in hindsight, there’s no one to blame but me. Even if the tangible outcomes weren’t huge, it still meant the app was recognized among many submissions—clearly a good start. It should have been my responsibility to market it and keep improving the product. Instead, I waited for it to “blow up on its own,” and when it didn’t, it simply faded out.
Screenshots#
Here are some screenshots from back then.
Google Play description (English, lightly edited)#
Below is the English description for Google Play, with minor grammar and wording fixes:
For your health, get moving—walk, run, or cycle.
Walkholic is a simple Google Fit app.
On the Dashboard, you can check your walking, running, and cycling distances.
On Goals, you can add your goals.
On Data, you can enter your weight and view your weight history.
If you turn on notifications, Walkholic checks your goal progress at 5:00 PM every day. If you haven’t reached your goal by then, you’ll receive a notification.Why I took it down: maintenance costs & reality#
As Android kept evolving, maintenance issues accumulated and the app required updates. I decided it wasn’t reasonable to keep investing personal resources into it, and I eventually removed it from Google Play.