One of the things I miss most about running is playing about with Zombies Run. Making exercise fun is a key thing for me, and the game aspect of it helped keep my going when otherwise I would probably have stopped early.

I’ve been keeping an eye on apps and things that made moving about fun, and spotted the new Zumba Dance app. Now, I’ve never done Zumba - my understanding is that doing it in the class is the best way, everyone all having fun and not worrying about how good you are. I’m not sure how good it actually is for fitness, but moving is always better than not moving. I’m not particularly good at dancing, but I was intrigued by the motion tracking aspect of this app.

This slightly irritating advert shows what the app does.

I used to enjoy using the Wii Fitness Board before the Wii fell out of fashion, and I know the Playstation 4 has a camera coming soon that will do similar motion tracking things. Having your physical movements affect what occurs on screen is very interesting to me, but I’d never thought of the front-facing camera on my iPad being able to do the same.

I had a go at a Zumba class on this app, and as predicted, I wasn’t all that good. The camera seemed to pick it up and work it all out very well though. I don’t know how accurate it was because there was one dance it gave me four out of five stars, and I know I’m not that good.

You have to have enough space to back away from the camera, and it does keep warning you if you get to close. It’s also fussy about background colours and good lighting, but otherwise it seemed to work straight away.

It also kept me dancing for a full twenty minutes without realising, and that’s kind of the aim, isn’t it?