iPhone App - Ski Tracks- Review

I also use SkiTracks, it's excellent.  Your runs can be easily exported (emailed) and then loaded into Google Earth.  Easy to use, charts to show speeds, all sorts of simple but nice features.  The only thing SkiTracks doesn't have is actual resort trail maps linked in so that you can do real-time mapping, rather than exporting to Google Earth.  Other apps like SatSki have this awesome feature, but only large resorts are supported, so if you're in a smaller non-listed location then you're screwed.  SkiTracks isn't tied to any resort though, so even the smallest local hill can be used to track your speed, distance, vert, etc, etc.

Absolutely worth the $0.99.

there is also a free one that works very well call Phresheez in the APP store

I use the free Phresheez app and it is great for stats. Haven't tried ski tracks yet though. You only pay for Phresheez if you want to keep the trophies you can earn (I think).

Rossignol has sponsored a new app, called Ski Pursuit.  I'll give it a try next time I'm out.  Looks pretty solid actually, and it's FREE.  Provides all the necessary stats, can save each outing, it'll combine into a full "season" of stats, and looks like it connects to map functions as well.  Has all the high notes for a free app, so I'm eager to give this one a shot soon.

Maybe someone else can try Ski Pursuit and report back with their thoughts too.

I used Preesheez last year and Skitracks this season. Never paid anything for Phreesheez.  I like the stat's better on SkiTracks, but I think it uses more battery life...though I could be mistaken.

My biggest problem with both of them is not remembering to turn them on in the morning or off for lunch.  I've also driven home with it on giving a killer average speed for the day.

I was gonna head out tonight to test it.  Skiing.......Superbowl........skiing..........Superbowl..........ARRRRRRGH!!!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gunnerbob 

I also use SkiTracks, it's excellent.  Your runs can be easily exported (emailed) and then loaded into Google Earth.  Easy to use, charts to show speeds, all sorts of simple but nice features.  The only thing SkiTracks doesn't have is actual resort trail maps linked in so that you can do real-time mapping, rather than exporting to Google Earth.  Other apps like SatSki have this awesome feature, but only large resorts are supported, so if you're in a smaller non-listed location then you're screwed.  SkiTracks isn't tied to any resort though, so even the smallest local hill can be used to track your speed, distance, vert, etc, etc.

 

Absolutely worth the $0.99.

Agree that its a great app. I used it for the first time this past weekend. How accurate do you think the top speeds are? I had my Bonafides out this past weekend and was hitting 59/60 MPH on multiple runs. Pretty open and empty terrain to let them fly. It's amazing to me how such a wide rocker ski has such incredible edge grip on ice and rock solid stable.

Ski Tracks is a neat little app that's fun for the first few times, after that, no big deal. I agree that it eats battery life quickly, so make sure you have a full charge at day's start. At my home mountain, I ride the same chair 95% of the time and the app cuts off the peak  and base elevation frequently. I have little faith in the accuracy of the number of vertical feet skied. It also throws some very high speed numbers that I don't believe.

For .99 cents, it's a no-brainer to install and see what the data tells you. It sure gets the number of runs made correct.

The battery life issue is a function of how frequently it grabs your gps location data. The GPS in your phone is a radio, just like Bluetooth or 3G or CDMA. Every radio uses some juice. It seems that the Phresheez app (and probably the Ski Tracks one too - since you guys are saying it eats battery) opt to be pretty granular, and therefore use a lot of battery. Being granular helps them improve location accuracy as well as speed accuracy. But at the expense of your battery. I just took a quick look to see if you can change the frequency with which it accesses the gps on Phresheez, but I don't see any control over that. I do remember the guys who made it telling me that they were going to fiddle with that setting to try to improve battery life a little. Interestingly, the Squaw and Alpine apps don't seem to burn battery as quickly, so I'm guessing they don't use the gps as much. Then again, they also crash routinely and once they crash, you aren't using the gps radio any more - which will improve battery life.

I have used both Phresheez and Ski Tracks. I like the UI of Ski Tracks a lot better, it's much more "modern" feeling where as the UI on Phresheez feels super outdated to me and is very sluggish in loading stats pages when I go to view on the iPhone. That being said, I really like that the Phresheez app figures out what trails I went on each day, the Ski Tracks app doesn't know what runs I took, just knows the map view of what I did and how many runs I did. 

As for battery problems, I keep a New Trent portable battery charger in my pocket when I ski so I'm at 100% all day. I have the highest mAh rating one they sold on Amazon (11,000 mah) so I can charge my iPhone up to 6 times on one New Trent charge. So I charge the New Trent once before the weekend and then I'm good for a whole weekend of skiing no problem. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by nikonfme 

Agree that its a great app. I used it for the first time this past weekend. How accurate do you think the top speeds are? I had my Bonafides out this past weekend and was hitting 59/60 MPH on multiple runs. Pretty open and empty terrain to let them fly. It's amazing to me how such a wide rocker ski has such incredible edge grip on ice and rock solid stable.

 

I reckon skitracks' top speeds are pretty accurate. I ran my Garmin GPS62s in parallel with skitracks last January in WB - the Garmin had me at top speeds over 70mph, skitracks clocked me in the low 40s (about 60km/h). The WB app also grossly overestimates speeds and while not quite as bad as the GPS62s, pretty sure I have not broken 65mph - I am hitting low 50s now according to skitracks !

Thx for that shima. Hmmm, gonna have to get me one of those!

Yes, the one downside of Ski Tracks is it doesn't link into resorts/runs, just generic locations that can be exported easily to Google Earth.  I have a couple other apps that do reference resorts/runs, but they've only included some of the largest and most popular places in North America.  I really wish more places would be added somehow.  I would really prefer specific locations to where I am, rather than the generic ones found on Ski Tracks.  That said, Ski Tracks interface, features, etc are second to none.

Any coders out there that can make an app that has both of these, it'll be a hit!  I'd pay good money for an app like that.  More resort locations!

We used Whistlers free app there and it also works anywhere else too i.e in NZ .

Dunno if it's better than skitracks but downloads into Google earth and plots speed, vert, distance and the number of runs etc.

Too bad Vail's Epic Mix app doesn't track the speed... Or does it and I haven't found the feature?

Quote:

Originally Posted by CaliSki 

Too bad Vail's Epic Mix app doesn't track the speed... Or does it and I haven't found the feature?

Nope it doesn't track which runs you were on or your speed.

There is something for them to upgrade for the next year :).

I tried looknig for the Ski Tracks on a droid but couldn't find it, am I missing something or do they not make it for the droid?  Donloaded Phresheez, will try to test it out at Kirk this weekend.

Quote:

Originally Posted by CaliSki 

There is something for them to upgrade for the next year :).

 

I tried looknig for the Ski Tracks on a droid but couldn't find it, am I missing something or do they not make it for the droid?  Donloaded Phresheez, will try to test it out at Kirk this weekend.

No 'droid version, it's made by Codecoders. They only do IOS development.

Quote:

Originally Posted by snala 

We used Whistlers free app there and it also works anywhere else too i.e in NZ .

Dunno if it's better than skitracks but downloads into Google earth and plots speed, vert, distance and the number of runs etc.

Kio ora! How did you find their speeds? I reckon they were a bit too high. 

Looked at Satski's site, could not find a list of resorts served. Anyone have this? Not sure what "large" means.

Couldn't find a list on their site, but they do have many countries across the world included.  As for North America, here's the list (taken directly off the Satski app on my iPhone):

Canada:

Banff-Sunshine Village

Banff-Norquay

Big White

Castle Mountain

Cypress Mountain

Fernie

Kicking Horse

Lake Louise

Nakiska

Panorama

Revelstoke

Sun Peaks

Whistler Blackcomb

Mont Tremblant

Blue Mountain

Grouse Mountain

USA:

Alta

Arpahoe Basin

Arizona Sunbowl

Aspen - Buttermilk, Highlands, Aspen Mountain, Snowmass

Beaver Creek

Big Sky

Blue Marsh

Breckenridge

Brian Head

Burke Mountain

Canyons

Copper Mountain

Crested Butte

Crystal Mountain

Deer Valley

Gunstock

Heavenly

Hood Meadows

Jackson Hole

Keystone

Killington

Loveland

Mammoth

Marmot Basin

Moonlight Basin

Park City

Powder King

Red Mountain

Sante Fe

Smugglers Notch

Snowbasin

Snowbird

Snowshoe

Squaw

Steamboat

Stowe

Sun Valley

Sunday River

Telluride

Timberline

Vail

Winter Park

Yellowstone

Obviously many are missed, but that's their version of "large" resorts. If your mountain is on the list, it's well worth the small cost.  I think Satski is very good.  Mine are not on the list, but I bought it anyways in the hopes they would be (or added later).  Alas, that's not the case.  So I settled on Ski Tracks instead.  Doesn't link to resorts, but it has most other features I want.

Hope that helps!

BTW, on the iphone, the App is officially called Satski 2.0.  For some reason it shows up as "lite" but it is indeed the full (paid) version.

Thanks, GB, very helpful. Getting an iPhone this week, this looks to be an early app. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Canuk1w1 

Kio ora! How did you find their speeds? I reckon they were a bit too high. 

Hey mate.

Seemed okay. Fastest we got was 86kph which wasn't for long but we will take it. The daily distances ranged from 22-30kms travelled and 6000 to 9000m vert so we think that's right. It maps out your runs on Google earth and also the phones' display each day as a file with maps and graphs etc. You can download on into a PC for keeps later.

Worked fine back here at Whakapapa last season too so it's just GPS not ski field dependant really. Just looks pretty when at Whistler cause it's linked to the ski report, current conditions and what's open etc and as it is free wifi there on the field is easy as. Good for the price

Kewl. Looks like they fixed it in a recent upgrade. They had me at just over 100kph a few times.

I'll run both simultaneously - WB app to get lift reports and wait times, skitracks to record my stats. I'll turn tracking off on the WB app to save some battery. 

100kph, legend!! We had 1 with an Apple and another with a Samsung and the kph was slighty different on both initially when skiing side by side.

The phones do indicate differently if you have the update or contour sizing different on them too as far as vertical distance is concerened which we found was the case. It's more accurate the smaller the setting obviously but I think it uses more phone power as a result as you said. We used 3m I think by memory which felt about right.

I'm pretty sure I did NOT hit 100kph! Skitracks clocked me at 82kph - a bit more reasonable... 

BTW, is it possible to change the update or contour sizing to get a more accurate speed reading? I poked around a bit in iphone and skitracks settings but couldn't find anything. I do have the location services turned on.

Someone else made a good point earlier in the thread about the frequency of "polling" being correlated to the battery use which makes complete sense when i think about it.

Added Ski Tracks to my iPhone this past week and used it for the first time these past two days.  Really enjoyed the app and the results.  Had a bit of trouble getting the app to post to Facebook, but got those problems worked out and got a prompt response from their support group.  Really like the stats reporting and the integration of the photos into the data.  Didn't feel like the speed data was too far off of reality.  Having spend quite a bit of time using my Garmin this summer while cycling, I find this to be a similar type app for skiing.  From my .02, it's a good app if you like to see that kind of data.  There is an Android version available now.  Battery usage was OK to my mind, but I didn't keep it running all day.  Would recommend it if you like to track these kind of stats.  It would be really cool if they could link it to a resort map and show you the actual trails.

I gave SkiTracks Five Stars...an excellent program for tracking your day on the mountain and your whole season.  It stores your ski days and numbers, I'm up to 24 so far.

The stats on vertical skied, miles skied, slope angle of runs skied, time on mountain, the graphics for altitude and speed, the Google Earth overlay on area skied.  A really superior iPhone app.

Even though the iPhone has a built in GPS, I keep a GNS 5870 MFI Blue Tooth GPS in my glove pocket to boost the GPS accuracy.

In addition to the information below, SkiTracks produces a Google Earth KMZ file.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tag 

  It would be really cool if they could link it to a resort map and show you the actual trails.

It does provide the Google Earth file, email it to yourself.

That will show the overlay on the satellite view of the mountain and includes a "Preview" video file that takes you on your ski runs on the mountain.