The Waze To Go

Like many other folks, I do a lot of driving to get to science fiction conventions.  While I don't mind driving, I do mind running into traffic jams and other complications that make the trip more wearisome than it should be.  When I was in San Jose to visit with the Other Daughter for her surgery, she had me use an app called Waze to navigate around the city instead of using a GPS.  I didn't download it then since I don't drive much at home, but when we started planning our Florida trip, I thought it would be a good time to check it out.  It turned out to be a real timesaver.

Since we ran both our GPS and Waze at the same time, I could directly compare the two.  As far as map accuracy, Waze was more accurate -- my GPS was two years old and the maps weren't current.  Both showed the same position for our car, so the tracking was good.

At first it was just amusing -- watching out for stopped vehicles and confirming them or reporting them "not there."  But Waze showed its real worth when I spotted a notice of a big wreck on the interstate ahead and figured out from the messages and reports that the mess stretched for about six miles and average speed on that part of the road was around 4 miles/hour.  A quick view of the maps showed that we could avoid it all with a pretty simple detour.

The interface is pretty simple -- just a map and two buttons.  The one on the left allows you to customize your account; the one on the right allows you to report on-road issues to other drivers.  The app alerts you (if you wish) when you're within a half mile of cops, stalled cars, and various road conditions including roadkill and weather.   

The maps are all real-time maps and are generally more current than your GPS, since Waze gives you points for making edits to correct road conditions -- places where other maps might not be updated (recent construction that's closing the roads, for instance.)   It was better at identifying accidents than my GPS (which only reports based on the state's Department of Transportation status reports), and some of the features (tires in road, bad weather conditions) were alerts that turned out to be very useful.  Also included is a "gas prices" feature -- Waze gives you points for reporting updated gas prices, but because it can only be done when you're actually stopped at the gas station (the software has a method of checking), it isn't quite as useful as GasBuddy.

 Waze shows your position on the map with a custom icon that also indicates your activity if you're in the top 10% of active users for your state.  While this is fun, it also leads to some false reporting, which is a problem in some cities.

If you're the only person in the car, it can be a  very distracting app, since you will be tempted to respond to alerts.  This is especially true if you're driving in a city, since the number of alert messages can be pretty high.  But it's THE perfect app to hand to your passengers, and it's a real timesaver (and sanity saver) for long trips.

Waze is available as an Iphone app and an Android app.

Sports Tracker: A Private Little Exercise App

Monetization is taking its toll on Android applications.  Now, it's understandable that the developers want to see a return on their investment in time and resources -- and it's understandable that the users aren't keen to throw down a lot of money.  We'll try free stuff before we try paid stuff -- unless that "stuff" (a book, music, film, etc) is from someone whose work we really enjoy.  Android developers are using the tactic of "free to play but if you want the good stuff, you have to pay a few pennies for it."  At the same time they also do a social media push to get your friends to join you as a small community that uses this app.

"Sign up with Facebook and (by the way) let us have access to your friends list and your personal information" is the new Terms of Service of many apps.

The trouble is, not all of us want to bother our friends with our games or our diet progress or many other things.  And many of us don't want to compete or interact with strangers.  Enter "Sports Tracker", a free app from a Finnish company that has some interesting goodies and gadgets to support the software.  It doesn't ask you to join anything, doesn't ask your email.  Open it up, hit the "explore" button and you can start tracking your own walking or running activities.  It saves the log for you, if you like. 

You will have to go into setup and change the settings from Metric to Imperial (the foot/pound/miles standard), but this is trivial.  After you enter your weight, gender, and age, the system will tell you how many calories you burned.  If you're stuck for ideas on where to go for a nice hike or run, the "Explore" button shows you other places nearby that people using this app have walked, jogged, or cycled using this app.  This is a nice feature if you're away from home and would like to find a good place to do a little exercise.

They do have options if you want to share your data on Facebook or with a partner or with a team -- but that's something you set up for yourself.  You aren't forced into doing this to use their service.



So why am I so twitchy about the "new paradigm?"  Well, I got a new Android phone three weeks ago, and was trying to restore all my favorite apps.  I lost the password and couldn't remember which email I used for MapMyRun, so I downloaded it and tried to sign up as a new user.  But MapMyRun had fallen into the Facebook Sharing crowd and wanted access -- to figure out what language I spoke (is anyone having a "DUH" moment right about now?) and who my friends are. 

I refused it access and it wouldn't let me sign in another way.  So I trotted back to the app store and tried to find something that didn't need to have access to my Facebook information.

So why am I so adamant about this?  Well, one of my college classmates competed several times in the Olympics and won a Bronze and still teaches athletics.  I do NOT want to have my scores hanging out there (where she might see them and chuckle to herself at how slow I am.)  Another's had surgery and recent health problems and I don't think it would do her morale much good to see that I'd finished a 2 mile walk, no matter how slow it was.  I'm not on any teams nor am I likely to be and I sure don't want to "compete for the leaderboards."

Several other apps that I poked at requested the same amount of information.

So here's to the Sports Tracker App -- a nice little app that does what I need it to and doesn't want to blab all over the internet.  It's exactly what I wanted.

Oh... they sell bike mounts, arm straps, and heart rate monitors that synch with the app. 

Company site: http://www.sports-tracker.com/blog/

If you'd like to click and try it, here it is for Apple Itunes:https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sports-tracker/id426684873?mt=8
And here it is on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.stt.android