All Posts Tagged With: "runkeeper"

I love this post by the developer of an iPhone app called Runkeeper: “The power of social.” So, Runkeeper tracks your runs, hikes, bike rides, etc., and records not only a map of your route to view later, but also your performance. The iPhone sends the data of your workout to your account on the Runkeeper website.

While the app is still in its early stages, its developers are adding new features, including “social” ones where you can share your workout stats and maps with all other Runkeeper users or just your friends who also use the app.

Runkeeper developer Jason Jacobs explained in his blog post how this can make you fitter and a better athlete. He describes taking Runkeeper out on a run and for the first time sharing his results:

“The whole time I was running, all I could think about was all of you seeing my results and wanting to put in a good showing. Whether ‘all of you’ is one person or millions of people that are actually seeing these results isn’t so important. What is important is that, because I knew I would be making this data public, it lit a fire under my butt to push myself harder! This is exactly the feeling we are trying to harness — using the power of social to motivate the individual to train harder.

Most amateur athletes, including those of us who do it just to stay fit and not so much to compete, know how hard it is to keep up the training routine and schedule without some social pressure, like a running buddy who you don’t want to let down. Digital social media also can make you a fitter, more disciplined athlete!

As a cyclist and runner — and iPhone 3G owner — I’ve been eagerly trying out several new fitness trackers that utilize the iPhone’s built-in GPS to track the trails and routes I ride and run. Like a “real” GPS unit, they record speed, pace, distance, elevation gain and loss, and at the end of the workout send the data to a website where you can later look at a map of your route. It’s pretty cool stuff, for a phone.

The first app I tried (and one of the first introduced) was RunKeeper, for which I paid $9.99 to download from the iPhone App Store. I’ve also tried out several free competitors that do pretty much the same thing: Fitnio, Trailguru, and Path Tracker. Peruse the Health and Fitness category of the App Store, and now you’ll find even more fitness-tracking applications, some free and some that cost anywhere from 99 cents up to several dollars. It’s getting really competitive in this little segment of the iPhone apps market.

So I was interested to receive an e-mail yesterday from RunKeeper’s developer, announcing that the app is about to become free. The reason is obvious: The company wants to become a dominant player in the mobile GPS tracker space and build up a large user community. The best way to do that with so many competitors is to give away the application.

Developer Jason Jacobs of Fitness Keeper Inc. says the company will shift to a business model based on selling advertising and possibly premium paid features (to be determined). For now, “We are … foregoing short-term revenues with the hope that our community will get to massive scale.”

I wonder if this will become a trend in the mobile-phone application community? Sure, you can charge if you’ve got an application that’s unique or has very few competitors. But for segments where the phone app market gets flooded with competitors, developers may be forced into the free model.

Well, it’s certainly a nice thing for consumers. We’ll see if companies like Jacobs’ can figure out how to make money from free and survive.

I finally succumbed to iPhone fever and got an iPhone 3G the other day. While I’ve been thinking about the expanded mobile footprint in our lives for a while, having this thing in my hands really brings the future into focus.

One big thing that the iPhone represents is the lessening of gadgets that we carry, since the phone now does so much. I used to carry my phone and an iPod when I went out for a run; now I just need the iPhone since it doubles as an iPod. I don’t need to pack a small camera if I go on a mountain bike ride; the iPhone will suffice to take snapshots. (Actually, the iPhone is better than a camera in some ways. While the resolution isn’t as good as a stand-alone camera, with the iPhone I can take a photo, have it mark my position using the built-in GPS, and send the photo to my Flickr account and/or to Twitter.)

Another gadget I sometimes carry is a Garmin handheld GPS unit, for when I want to have a map and statistical record of a trail I’m riding. But it’s kind of big and I don’t use it all the time. (And I broke it once on a mountain bike ride when it was mounted on the handlebars and I crashed.) But now I’m using a new iPhone application called RunKeeper ($9.99), which for some exercise uses replaces the Garmin. RunKeeper tracks my runs or bike rides, telling me how far I’ve traveled, what speed I’m going, average speed, and it produces a map of the route when I’m finished.

What’s very cool is that RunKeeper automatically sends my data off to its website, so when I get home and sit at my computer, I see my stats and a Google map of my route. The site stores all my runs and rides.

RunKeeper is new, and it’s not perfect. The iPhone GPS sometimes drops the signal; the software doesn’t track elevation gain/loss, which is a critical data element to any runner or cyclist. It doesn’t have the bells and whistles that a Polar heartrate monitor (yet another exercise gadget I own) has. Worst of all, it can only record about 3 hours of trail activity, because the iPhone’s battery can’t handle more; so it’s only useful for short trail adventures, not epic all-day ones.

But RunKeeper (1.0) is a good start, and I’m eager to see how it improves with future releases. The software does get us closer to the day that a phone can be a decent GPS unit. The iPhone isn’t there yet, but I’m confident it will get there soon enough.