My Tracks review
My Tracks allows you to track your walking, running, hiking, or any other outdoor activities with the press of a button, rendering your routes beautifully through Google Maps and providing you with useful real-time stats like distance, speed, and calories burned.
Pros
Useful activity stats: Apart from providing basic real-time stats like distance, total time, and moving time, My Tracks can also record fairly accurately your average speed and maximum speed and even calories burned based on the selected activity type, as well as the ground elevation, showing it on a chart together with your speed. Outdoor enthusiasts can't ask for more.
Ideal outdoors: The streamlined interface with the big Record button that tempts you as soon as you open the app and the tabbed Map, Chart, and Stats features and their accessibility (only one tap away), together with the voice announcements for your progress and annotation options, make this app a valuable companion during any outdoor adventure, whether you're running, walking, hiking, skying, or merely driving. Furthermore, the app integrates with third-party biometric sensors like heart rate monitors.
Syncing, exporting, and playback: You can sync your recorded routes to Google Drive, export them as KML, GPX, CSV, or TCX files for use with other apps and replay any completed route through a beautiful Google Earth satellite rendition.
Cons
Security risks: By using this app you're basically handing Google much more than your location info -- your routes and your running or travel patterns, too.
Not really for tablets: While you can install this app on an Android tablet, you need to have your device in your pocket or on your person in order to enjoy its features.
Requires a strong GPS signal: This app's better suited for use in and around city parks than in the countryside or wilderness.
Bottom Line
Overall, My Tracks proves to be a Google-quality app that, through its polished interface and neatly packed features, helps you focus on nature rather than distracting you from it like similar apps do. If your GPS signal is good and you don't mind handing Google even more of your data (don't they know everything already?), then you should definitely download this useful app.
