Health and Fitness App after OS upgrade

Nokia Icon's OS  was recently upgraded to version 8.1 from 8.0. This resulted in the Health and Fitness app having all its features enabled. With OS 8.0 Machine Data was not supported.

The Health and Fitness app requires a minimum charge of around 40% to produce correct  readings from its GPS. Here are some comparisons of the app before and after OS upgrade. All screen shots are for the same track but on different dates.

With 8.0. Notice no step information. Also notice GPS is smoother and measures lower values.

 

Windows 8.1 was rolled out sometime today or yesterday. Higher reading for slightly lower duration. Charge on battery before starting 38%

One more measurement this time at 97% charge at start.

 

 

Finally Verizon upgraded the Nokia Icon OS

In the last couple of days Nokia has upgraded the Nokia ICON OS from Windows Phone 8.0 to Windows Phone 8.1. They took a very long time to do this. Anyway it is better late than never.
Now the Health and Fitness app can record your footsteps as Machine Data has appeared in your Settings list.

Read more about Sensor core here:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/26558729/why-do-i-get-this-sensornatavailable-error-what-is-wrong/28547660?iemail=1&noredirect=1#28547660

I was using the Windows Phone 8.1 developers preview and this also got upgraded.
The apps created using Windows Phone 8.1 Developer's preview cannot be opened in Windows Phone 8.1

I also notice differences in the way the apps react to OS. At least in the case of Health and fitness apps I notice two things (I will confirm in a future post with proof).

1. The GPS tracing via map in the app appears to have more resolution.
2.  More imporatantly the distances measured are quite different for the two OS Versions.

The OS 8.1 versions seems to measure a greater value for the measured distance than that measured on a OS 8.0 phone for the same track.

I invite anyone who reads this to comment.

Nokia Icon and Motion Data

In order to run the Bing / MSN Health and Fitness app you need the following:
GPS
Accelerometer

Icon seems to have the GPS and if one believes the specifications released by Microsoft (see next link) it should have the accelerometer as well. In fact ICON is supposed to have the following sensors:
Ambient light sensor, Accelerometer, Proximity sensor, Gyroscope, Magnetometer, SensorCore.
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/mobile/phone/lumia-icon/specifications/

Although it has the required hardware, only the feature dependent on GPS works and the one related to accelerometer does not. You get an error that SenseNotPresent, etc.

Here is a response from Microsoft Windows Site when I used my authentication (linked to my Nokia Icon Phone) to find out if I could download Motion Data needed for step counting in the app .

This gives me the feeling that unless, Lumia Cyan or Lumia Denim is applied the Phone cannot use the Bing/MSN Health and Fitnes app.

The GPS based tracking works well. Here is my 2.4 mile route that I do most days of the week.