shiny phone - which apps?

ddraver

Hi Guys

I ve gone and got myself my first smartphone (HTC Desire S) so which ps should i be downloading so I'm up to date with da youth of today?

Any good bike ones?

Cheers
DaveK

naefearjustbeer

I use endomundo to track my rides
http://www.endomondo.com/workouts/gDwUudPh2eU
Its free and very handy

Northwind

My Desire S just arrived too, mmmmmmmm. More powerful than my brother's PC

You know what's awesome? Automatically connecting to my old Nokia by bluetooth and transferring the contacts. Clever stuff. Only a matter of time til it gains self awareness and declares war on russia.

ddraver

I know - i did nt even know my old phone had bluetooth until it told me!!

EarlofBarnet

Endomondo, iMapMyRIDE and EveryTrail are all on my phone. Very hand apps.

cat_with_no_tail

naefearjustbeer wrote:

I use endomundo to track my rides
http://www.endomondo.com/workouts/gDwUudPh2eU
Its free and very handy

Very this.

Once you've got it set up, have a venture into the Crudcatcher and join the Crudcatcher Endomondo Distance Challenge

Great way to motivate yourself to get out on the bike more.

Northwind

Mytrack seems good if you just want to log a route, better than Endomundo for that anyway. I know Endomondo's a work in progress but it's pretty flakey.

ddraver

So which one to track where I ve been and then show it somewhere so I can work out where I ve been and ride it again. Presumably there are nt ones that could tell me where to go again a la a real GPS?!

Northwind

ddraver wrote:

So which one to track where I ve been and then show it somewhere so I can work out where I ve been and ride it again.

So far, that seems to be Mytrack. Can upload to google maps too

Willow 15

http://www.sportstracklive.com/
Its the best one out there so far.

Northwind

OK, I don;t know much about GPS but I've got a coordinate (NT19128 65449) which I'm trying to enter into the phone and it's not having it. it's not a lat/long, not sure what the format is?

ddraver

It's a British Ordnance Survey Grid reference...Not sure how you'd convert it to lat-long, try an online converter maybe??

Northwind

Ah, is that it! Well that'd explain why I can't work it :oops: Cheers!

turkeytickler

Polar do a bluetooth HRM sensor that works nicely with endomondo too....

rhialto

I do a lot of solo riding and I am always looking for new (to me) singletrack in the area. I recently saw a reference in MBR to an app called ViewRanger (http://www.viewranger.com/) and it turns my GPS-enabled Nokia into a really nice high-res/full colour GPS device equipped with 1:25K topo maps of the area. It is a paid app but it cost me a lot less than a Garmin device. I have used it to navigate my way in unfamilar woods several times now and also to record my tracks as I ride. I am very impressed so far.

Anonymous

Also worth a look when it's out, is Sports Tracker which is due to be released on Android and iPhone. It's one that's been about for ages but has been Nokia only until now (made originally by Nokia).

http://www.sports-tracker.com/blog/2011 ... nd-iphone/


As for ViewRanger, the problem I have with it is that 1:25k OS tiles cost a fortune. Whole of Dartmoor & Exmoor region for example is £35. Paper maps for these at same scale are £16 for two maps, and most shops do a 3 for 2 or 2 for 1 deal, so you can get them even cheaper. I just scan the bits I want and print, then stick in my bag in a plastic cover.

It's a nice app though, but for OS maps at detail it's too expensive. I'm wonder if the OS licencing isn't what's making it that expensive, just they're inflating the price.

You can use OSM maps with it though which I believe are free apart from data costs. Not sure if it stores the maps or requires a live connection though. I quite like OSM stuff as people are marking trails on them that would never appear on an OS map.

dmorton

GPS can sap battery power on longer rides so if you get into trouble you might not have enough power left for a call. On my Nokia N8 I can put it into power saving mode and still use Sportstracker etc.. The battery then lasts a lot longer! You can probably do this on most phones and its a good idea to do so.

alan_sherman

dmorton. How long does teh N8 last for you? I have an older N78 that lasts 4 hours tracking with powersaving screen off with Sportstracker. Considering upgrading to the N8 for the bigger screen for browsing and car sat nav duties and was wondering about battery life.

dmorton

Alan

I haven't used it enough to tell you unfortunately! I've only just started tracking rides and using powersave mode definitely makes a difference, but as for total battery life I don't know. But the N8 is a good phone, the camera is brilliant and worth upgrading for alone!

sunnrider

I´d be lost (literally) without Oruxmaps on my android fone.

Anonymous

Sports Tracker on my E72 can be left running for a whole day of activity and still plenty of battery left. Don't know how the E72 compares against the N8 though. I'd expect the N8 to have more of a drain.

whitestar1

naefearjustbeer wrote:

I use endomundo to track my rides
http://www.endomondo.com/workouts/gDwUudPh2eU
Its free and very handy

I have an iphone and have been using BikeMateGPS. I have downloaded Endomondo Sports Tracker and it actually looks good - free too. Thanks

Cog Head

Ive been using iMapMyRide, its awesome, it posts up your route, average, and highest speed, calories burnt, and loads of other stuff, it also automatically posts your route up on facefook if you wish, you can publish your routes on the interwebs for others to view, and you can also view others routes and go check them out. im really quite impressed with it

J@mesC

Any of the free apps do a decent track of gradient? Endomondo seems ok, but doesn't take into account height gain/loss.

Anonymous

Sports Tracker tracks altitude and gives you a graph of it, but their own website doesn't show you the gradient.

However the data is exportable in ST and I'd guess some of the other apps. Usually to GPX files, and often to other formats as well.

Should be possible to calculate gradient somehow. Might be some web apps about or something that will get you gradients from GPX files.

alan_sherman

I've been looking a bit more at the apps as I'm out of contract soon and have been looking at the phone options. Some apps are available on some platforms but not others, and cost is always an issue! Apologies for the long post but thought I'd bring together my findings and thoughts.

Currently I use a Nokia N78 with Ovi maps and Sports tracker.

Ovi maps for car type sat nav. I've used it on the bike in unfamiliar areas with an earpiece in giving me voice directions. Maps held on the phone so there is no data charge, no issues with 3g coverage and has low battery usage. Cost about £10 per year but is free on newer Nokias. I don't have an in car sat nav as I use this and its very good. You can plan a route on the phone or on Ovi maps online and follow that route. The only thing missing is the ability to import a route in GPX format. If / when that comes it will be perfect for road riding.

Sports tracker for recording events. Can upload to facebook and export GPX traces for use in the programme of your choice. If I stumped up 60 euros I could also record heart rate as well for more structured training and analysis. A very good cyclecomputer / low end garmin replacement. Only missing cadence. I use it for recording road training, racing and TTing. The phone app caches some Open Street Map maps for use offline but I don't know now much. See web output here: http://www.sports-tracker.com/#/workout ... 2gr63aa4fm

Recently I've got into MTB and it would be good to have off-road maps. I'll download viewranger tonight for a trial as it uses openstreetmaps with opencyclemaps. It will cache some of these maps on the phone so I want to experiment with how much. It says it will import a GPX route so it can be followed. This is the audio bleeping/alarms style rather than "turn let" instructions. Looks good for mountain biking. A 16 day trial download is on their site and is only £1.50 to buy at the moment. Ord Survey maps are extra so seeing how much OSM can be cached is key (I have a 16Gb card in the phone so it is the App limitation that I am worried about).

Now I could stay with Nokia (probably upgrade to an N8 to get a bigger screen and better camera). I've yet to see such a good value, locally cached road sat nav as Ovi maps on any platform so that is swaying me.

Sportstracker will soon be on iPhone and Android, or Endomundo seems to do the same thing (also with the same polar Bluetooth Heart Rate sensor) on Android, iPhone and Windows for free. Sportstrack live on android does more, as does imapmyride on Iphone, blackberry and android (even a cadence sensor is available with these two with the hardware from Wahoo).

Viewranger is available on iPhone, Android and Symbian. Any other alternatives that use either ordinance survey or OpenCycleMaps sources (cached on the device) to show bridleways and green lanes?


Battery life is always an issue with these things. I've recorded 4 hour long rides with sports tracker but found 3 hours was about it for sportstracker and ovi maps running concurrently (one to tell me where to go, one to track the session).

I've got a box at home with this waiting to be trialled with my SON dynohub for touring duty:
http://europe.nokia.com/find-products/a ... harger-kit

This guy butchered it for android phone but you can use a USB adaptor:
http://toddlerontour.com/universal-usb- ... onversion/


In summary unless anyone can suggest a better free sat nav app on android than ovi maps then I'll probably be sticking with Nokia, maybe even my 3 year old N78!
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alan_sherman

The Nokia charger is very good. The supplied bottle dynamo is a bit crap but the electronics are very goo. When paired to a hub dynamo you can have continual power for very little effort. With an adaptor you could probably use it with any USB charged phone. i wouldn't trust the bike mount for MTB though.

infoxicated

deadkenny wrote:

Also worth a look when it's out, is Sports Tracker which is due to be released on Android and iPhone. It's one that's been about for ages but has been Nokia only until now (made originally by Nokia).

http://www.sports-tracker.com/blog/2011 ... nd-iphone/

Thanks for posting that link - I was totally unaware that they might be releasing it on Android. I haven't used Sports Tracker since I switched from Nokia to an HTC Desire Z back in November.

I'm reasonably happy with Endomondo, but as a stats collection freak I hate the thought of all my old workouts being orphaned on Sports Tracker.

blazingmonga

I have also recently obtain one of these shiny phones of the future, a Sony Ericsson Xperia X8 (Android phone).

I am trying to find a decent app that will log GPS data but without using the phone/data collection. There is a plethora of services out there but most of them based around maps, sharing with facebook, competition or navigation etc. I am looking for something that just collects raw GPS data that I can then export when I get home - thus saving me battery power and costing me nothing. I'm more interested in just seeing where I have been!

Endomondo looks like a good app, but its always going to go online, isnt it? Similarly Mytracks looks very neat, but it seems to always have to load a map to log your track against.

Any advice for a shiny phone noob like me?

JonnyN

ViewRanger .........get it!

whitestar1

JonnyN wrote:

ViewRanger .........get it!

Yeah? A app that cost £14.99? Is it that good?