RidewithGPS, perhaps best known for their awesome online route planning tool, have just produced their first Android app. And it rocks!
Take any given market, and you can usually identify the main players, but are the most popular products always the best? Who remembers good old video tapes? Betamax was technically superior to VHS but it was VHS that became the standard format.
The smartphone fitness app market is a great example of this. Sure, there are huge market leaders with thousands of users globally, but popularity shouldn’t automatically be an indicator of quality. I mean, just look at the TV show “X-Factor”.
I’ve been promoting RidewithGPS for a long time as the best way to plot your routes online. It’s what I recommend in my most popular article – “Foolproof course navigation on the Garmin Edge 800”
But RidewithGPS does a whole lot more besides route planning. You can also upload and log all your rides, to share with friends and get a detailed analysis. They even have their own version of segments, and probably the best engine to find other local rides near you.
Of course, it’s not the only site to do those things, with Strava, MapMyRide and Endomondo being very popular alternatives.
If you’ve never seriously checked out RideWithGPS, it’s probably time you did! They’ve pulled out all the stops to produce an app that’s fully featured, yet easy on the battery. They claim it’ll use 10% per hour, so with a full battery that’s 10 hours. I’m assuming that means with the screen turned off.
It does all the basic stuff you’d expect, plus a few features that you’d expect to see on a “premium” version. Their promo email said that the app offers:
- Rock solid and efficient recording
- Navigation with alerts and voice prompts
- Live logging lets friends and family track your progress
- Great photo support lets you easily upload and share
- Extensive Bluetooth and BTLE device support, including power meters
Apparently, an iPhone version is on the way.
I downloaded the app from the Google Play marketplace, and took a few screenshots as I went along. First impressions? Nice, clean design, with some great features.
Grab the app from the PLAY market now.
Still here?
Check out this little promo video, from the founders of RWGPS. It gives a nice flavour of who they are and what drives them.
Thanks for the writeup! I’m one of the guys behind Ride with GPS and we’re really excited to finally be getting this app out.
One thing about the app that was hugely important to me was really good support for taking photos. If you have a Garmin unit that you use to record, and take photos on your phone, we’ll automatically find photos taken during your ride and let you easily upload them. If you are recording your ride with the app, we’ll pick up photos you take from another camera app, or from the camera on your lockscreen, etc, there is no need to take photos directly from the app.
If anyone has any questions, feel free to contact me directly at zack@ridewithgps.com
Hi Zack, thanks for dropping by and congratulations on the release of the app!
That sounds like a very flexible and practical approach to handling photos.
Hi Zack,
Great app. I tried several others but RWGPS is the most user frienly and intuitive i found.
It replaces my garmin edge 800. No need for buying new devices in the future!
Looking forward to new features in future releases. :)
Johan Todt