Nike has announced the Nike+ Fuelband which gives iPhone users in-depth information on their daily physical activity. With development assistance from the likes of Lance Armstrong, Kevin Durant and Carmelita Jeter, the Nike+ Fuelband is able to keep track of your daily physical goals using a built-in accelerometer. The user sets a daily goal in the morning, and Fuelband tracks time, steps, burned calories and more.

One aspect I like about Fuelband is the ability to gain points from more activity based on a social metric after syncing with your iPhone.

The Nike+ Fuelband will be available for $150 and pre-orders are now being taken online, however Nike hasn't disclosed an official release date.

Source: Nike+ Fuelband

Summer is almost upon us and it is always a great time to get outside and do some exercise. With the help of your iPhone, you can make that experience so much better and more rewarding. We look at our top 5 Fitness apps to help you reach your goals! Check them out after the break!

RunKeeper

RunKeeper uses your iPhones built in GPS technology to track your fitness adventures. It has a very easy to use interface and you can use it to monitor running, walking, cycling and many other activities too. You can also enter activities manually; if you do your exercise on your treadmill, RunKeeper still has you covered.

RunKeeper syncs up to its own web portal where you can view your history and stats in more detail. Integration with Facebook and Twitter is also included so you can show off your fitness prowess to your friends!

[Free - iTunes link]

Nike+ GPS

An additional feature is the Nike+ Tag. This allows you to run against friends in a virtual Tag type game. Outrun your friends to win. The Nike+ website stores all your stats and you can also post to Twitter and Facebook all without leaving the app.

[$1.99 - iTunes link]

Full Fitness

You can easily create your own exercise program or use one of the 20 built in programs to help you reach your goals. Full Fitness can also be used to track your food intake and body weight as well as schedule your workouts.

Full Fitness allows you to log your exercises, view progress graphs, and email or backup the results online.

[$0.99 - iTunes link]

Edomondo Sports Tracker

The app allows you to track distance, duration, speed and calories burned as well as monitoring of your heart rate if you have the necessary add on. All the data is again synced online where you can share information to Facebook and Twitter as well as other members of the Endomondo community.

[Free - iTunes link]

Cyclemeter GPS Bike Computer for Road & Mountain Biking

Cyclemeter is not just for cycling however it is aimed squarely at that market. Cyclemeter is an app that tracks your rides, recording time, location, distance, elevation and speed. Your progress is announced to you via 25 configurable announcements including distance travelled, time taken, current speed and elevation.

You can set up your next ride against a previous ride of the same route. This is like a race mode and enables you to try and beat your previous best times. If you have friends that use the app, you can import their routes and times into the app and use this to race against too.

Twitter and Facebook sharing are all catered for and you can also get text to speech; although this is via an in-app purchase.

[$4.99 - iTunes link]

Your top apps?

Every week a few of us from team TiPb, bloggers and forum crew alike, will bring you our current favorite, funnest, most useful App Store apps, WebApps, jailbreak apps, even the occasional accessory, web site, or desktop app if the mood strikes us. As long as they're iPhone (or iPod touch) related, they're fair game.

So who's on deck this week and what are our picks? Find out after the break!

James' Pick: Nike+ (3GS version)

I am an avid runner and used and iPod Nano with Nike+. Nike+ tracks your runs and syncs with an online website/community. Now with the iPhone 3GS and Nike+ built it, I have one less item to carry around when I travel. [Built in]

Justin's Pick: SportsTap.

It's been an app I've used for a while, but now with push it's really useful. Makes it easy to follow the score of the Marlins. [Free - iTunes link]

Leanna's Pick: Stoneloops of Jurassica!

My hand cramped and I nearly got a callous on my finger from playing Stoneloops so much. Enough said. [$0.99 on sale - iTunes link]

Matt's Pick: Helios

For any cinematographer or photographer that does any serious work, this is a must. Helios helps you determine when and where the sun will be for any location on the Earth, as well as tell you the azimuth & the shadow length. Lastly, my favorite is the Inclinometer,which can be used to determine when the sun will come out from behind or go behind an object. The application has saved me a lot of time. And for more practical uses- you can use it (as I have) to find the parking space likely to have the most shade [$29.99 - iTunes link]

Rene's Pick: Stoneloops of Jurassica

Sigh. I love TiPb's community. I really do. But they recommend games that end up consuming vast portions of not only my life, but the lives of many staff members. Trails of gems snake their way towards a skeletal maw, and you fire more gems at them in an attempt to make matches, blow them up, and prevent them reaching their grim gateway. Combine 15 levels repeated, with additional colors each time, over several ecosystems (jungle, desert, glacier, etc.) and you have a lot of fun for your iPhone. Like the very best casual games, Stoneloops is quick, simple, and utterly addictive. And yeah, I totally got Leanna hooked too! [$0.99 on sale - iTunes link]

Your Pick?

You're part of team TiPb too, so what's your pick? What app was your absolute fav last week? Let us -- and everyone -- know in the comments!

Poor iTunes 8.2, not even a week and its code has been sifted and (some of?) its secrets laid bare. Apple Insider reveals details including:

• radio capabilities along with a corresponding ability to tag songs so that they can later be purchased from the iTunes store
• additional string shows the ability to change VoiceOver settings to manage aspects of the Nike+ application

So, Nike+ like the iPod touch, VoiceOver like the iPod shuffle -- looks like Apple isn't only adding new features to the next gen iPhone, but leveraging features they've added to the rest of the line since the last gen iPhone. Good way for Apple to keep the iPhone "the best iPod we've ever made", isn't it?

[Thanks daveizzle for the tip!]

Gizmodo confirms what we feared during our meta-live-blog -- the bits that receive the information from the shoe-insert are built-into the 2nd Generation iPod Touch and not any other Apple device. That's not surprising -- hardware is as hardware does.

That's not the real bad news, though. The real bad news is that the 'dongle' that iPod users have been able to use for those transmissions in the past continues to be incompatible with the iPhone and the 1st Gen iPod Touch and that's not a situation that's likely to change.

So if you're looking to track your run without buying new gear, it looks like you'll be doing it the old fashioned way.

Those Nike+ Pictures we reported a few days back? There's some rumblings that they may be fake. Yes, Apple and Nike are still in cahoots and plan on releasing Nike+ for the iPhone, but the pictures floating around the web are not a production of Apple or Nike but rather some enterprising photoshop expert.

Who knows when we'll get some solid info on Nike+ for iPhone. Hopefully, Apple and Nike are working on creating a great program that includes some of the features we saw in the screenshots like the ability to map out a running route. There currently is no timetable for Nike+ to be released on the iPhone.

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We've all known that Nike+ was supposed to come to the iPhone, we've just been waiting a bit longer than expected. So what has been cooking over at the Nike+ factory? A lot of great features and smart implementation, Nike+ definitely uses the iPhone's technology to its advantage to create a better user experience and offer a better feature set.

Because of the capabilities of the iPhone, a lot of the stuff that Nike+ used to run on the Mac and on the Web are now being run on the iPhone itself. You're able to keep track of all the classic stats and maybe even map out your route with GPS. Taking in all these screenshots, Nike+ and the iPhone has the looks of a winner.

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