An improved selection of iPhone apps have appeared that track your running/walking/cycling activity. I’ve been testing out a few of them.
I’ve previously done my time with other run tracking solutions, specifically a Polar watch and the Nike+ attachment for the ipod. Both of those use a foot pod that has something inside it, like a gyroscope or a little person that magically knows how far you’ve taken with each stride. I’ve tested those on a track and they’re remarkably accurate for me. I’ve heard otherwise for other people.
I like the idea of an iPhone app that takes advantage of the nice display as well as the phone’s GPS, which is of course a natural for tracking runs. GPS offers not only distance (and therefore pace) but also altitude tracking.
321Run
The first app I tested was 321run. I tried this first because I saw it in an ad on Tweetie on my desktop. As a side note, they use Fusion to deliver their ads and have some quality stuff in there, so I usually have no qualms about giving their advertisers a try.
321run had a pretty good interface, though it felt a bit beta-ish. The killer was that it dropped my run about halfway through. As you can see in this picture, my run didn’t end where it started.
Take a look at 321run at 321run.com. As you can see, they don’t have a web interface at all. You can upload your runs to a few services, such as MapMyRun.
RunKeeper
My complaints about the above brought about several tweets recommending RunKeeper. This morning I finally got a chance to give it a test run.
The iPhone interface for RunKeeper is very well done. I particularly like the option to rotate the screen to landscape, which doubles as a screen lock. Hitting the screen anywhere in this mode triggers a voice response of your current time, distance, and pace.
RunKeeper automatically uploads your run data to a very nice web interface where you can view your runs and do some basic social media operations like share them on twitter.
The maps are very nice, showing mile markers. You can even edit the map and move around any of the waypoints that it records (like every hundred feet).
The map also records elevation of your run. The altitude is a bit off, maybe the GPS in the iPhone isn’t quite up to the job. Since my run was out and back, the elevation chart should have been a bit more symmetrical. Basically, that first dip doesn’t really exist.
Still geeky-cool anyway, which is exactly what I need to keep me motivated. And none of this cool mapping is possible with the foot-pod solutions like Nike+.
All it’s missing is the great social features of Nike+, like keeping tabs on friends, and challenging them to a race to a goal. I assume they’re working on this.
Check out RunKeeper at runkeeper.com or get it on iTunes.
