Description

An admitted shoe geek waxes philosophical about running, triathlon, and life in general.
Comments welcome!


Friday, July 8, 2011

Now we're strong AND smart...

I remember an old Star Trek: The Next Generation episode where there was this race of... whatever they were, and they would scavenge things needed to keep their ship in repair... "We collect things. Things that make us go."

Well, they stole some weapons... "Now we're strong."

Then they kidnapped Giordi LaForge... "Now we're strong AND smart."

So... My wife wanted an iPhone 4 for her birthday. She's with Verizon, and has been for some time. I've been with Nextel, then Sprint, for some time as well. But we figured out that we could get smartphones with data plans for the same total that we're paying together now. Both our plans were coming up for renewal this month.

Verizon kind of forced our hand a little early by announcing they were doing away with their unlimited data plans as of... yesterday. We (okay, SHE) hurriedly made all the needed calls, got my company discount applied, and ordered the phones (I got the Droid Global 2). They should arrive today.

I know I want to use the phone for navigation (I'm HORRIBLE with directions), and would like to use it for route tracking when running and riding. I can't use WiFi at work. All this added up to needing the unlimited data.

But I have no idea what I'd want to use for tracking and such. Which apps?

So... Calling on the users of such devices, what say you for the usage of these devices for running and riding, and the apps you use for tracking? Drop me a comment.

2 comments:

stephan.uzzell said...

I think it depends how long your runs or rides are. I have an oldish iPhone, and I would not use it to track my training because running the GPS function on it will tear through my battery pretty badly. So I have a dedicated device for training - my Polar.

My buddy who only just started biking, and does shorter rides therefore, uses an app called Endomondo to track his rides - he loves it. Might be worth looking into.

Tim said...

I've just switched to Runtastic. It's impressive so far and flexible for different activities. Used Runkeeper before, but it did not hold GPS signal well enough.