App Profile: HikeTracker

Why another tracking app?

ACCURACY - GPS receivers, including smartphones, can record locations every second but have inherent and unavoidable errors that are small compared to the distance traveled in that second by an automobile, airplane or cruise missile but are large enough to overwhelm the data when used in human-powered activities like
• Hiking
• Walking
• Running and Cycling
This is especially true In situations where the GPS satellite signals can be compromised by things that block or absorb microwaves:
• Hills and mountains
• Heavy tree cover
• Rain and clouds

SIMPLICITY - Most apps have a lot of features that may be very useful for some folks but they often make the user hunt for the simple stuff. Also I have occasionally lost all my data when I accidentally touched the wrong thing on a busy and complicated screen

HikeTracker was designed with Accuracy and Simplicity in mind to support hiking in the mountains of the beautiful Pacific Northwest but it works just as well for less challenging activities like walking and biking around town. It uses several strategies to combine and curate the raw GPS data, filtering out some of the inherent errors and saving only enough points to get a smooth and accurate picture of the user’s track and accurate distance measurements.

But all that fancy-schmancy stuff is kept out of sight - to use it you just:
• Open HikeTracker
• Press “Start”
• Go

What it does
• Makes an accurate GPS-based track of your activity
• Shows accurate distance traveled and elevation gained
• Saves that info in a standard GPX (GPS file exchange format) file that can be saved and/or shared with other apps and programs

What it lacks
• No social media
• No ads
• No in-app purchases
• No saving or sharing of personal data
• iPhone only
• Currently lacks support for languages other than English