Written by Caleb MacGregor | 27 March 2011
Posted in News - Site

I am of the opinion that it is possible to be both into electronics and fitness. I know many non-technophiles don't share that opinion and are more inclined to believe that we tech people prefer to go for virtual scenery options rather than an actual run. Ignoring what those people think, there is an app known as Runkeeper Pro, which tracks your run via the iPhone's built in GPS. Now, I thought that was pretty nifty in it's own right, but the features don't stop there. It tells you your current speed, current pace (That's how many minutes it'll take you to run a kilometre, for those who don't know) average speed, average pace, distance travelled, split pace, and split speed. Oh, plus it tells you how long you've been running for. And while doing all this, you can listen to music from your library, but never fear; the music automatically has its volume lowered when Miss Runkeeper tells you how well (or badly, in my case) you're doing. You can choose from a variety of activity types, from Running to Cross-Country Skiing, and almost everything in between. Including swimming, which I found funny, seeing as most of us don't have a waterproof iPhone. At least they gave us the option, I suppose. If you want to do something that isn't in the activity, simply choose the "Other" category. Good luck finding something that isn't actually in the activity types though, they've covered almost every base.

 

Their user interface is beautiful, very easy to work with, and with a touch of a button switches from vertical to horizontal, for those who fancy it. You can pause your activity at any time, which would be particularly useful if you fancied a rest and didn't want it to count against your time. Not that I would ever do something like that. It'd be cheating after all. Ahem...

 

Moving on, one of the other spiffy features is the ability to take photos during the workout, which then show up on the map, so you can see exactly where you were when you took it. The downside to this is that it uses the built in camera app, which means if you're one of the people that prefers a different camera app to the default, you'll be out of luck if you want to publish photos of your escapades using your favourite camera app. Not a biggy for most people, but I can see it as being an annoyance for some.

Once the workout's over, you can choose to either save or discard it. If you choose to save it, it goes onto the list of your saved workouts, and if you've been extra energetic that day and beaten your previous distance, you'll get a congratulations email from Runkeeper telling you how well you did. Also viewable in the saved workouts are the amount of calories you've burned, your average miuntes-per-kilometre, the total distance you ran/walked/crawled, and if you slide over a page, you'll see how long it took you to complete each kilometre.

So, in reality, I can't say how fantastic this app is. It's accurate, beautiful to look at, easy to use, and motivating. Something about having someone tell you how fast you're going or how long you've run really pushes more out of you. Someone asked me once how I'd describe this app in a few sentences. I said, "Like Nike +. But better. And free. And you don't need super expensive shoes. Enough said?"

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