Thursday, January 6, 2011
Running a Marathon on WP7
Posted by Don Tolson in "Windows Phone Software" @ 08:00 AM
Who says there aren't any useful navigation applications for WP7? A little while ago, I wrote up a review of a running/walking training assistant called Marathon, by JMD Software which I found very useful on my treks around the local parks with my wife. Well, it seems JMD have jumped on the Silverlight development bandwagon and produced a version for Windows Phone 7. It's available from the Windows Phone Marketplace for $1.09USD which is pretty reasonable and the statistics presentation and interface to the Internet have been improved. It's neat to see software from the WM6.5 world evolve along with the O/S.
As I've been playing with WP7 over the last few weeks, I've noticed a particular dearth of applications which make use of the Location Services and GPS within the phone. We seem to still be waiting for that turn-by-turn navigation application to show up. However, one application I've regularly used on my WM6.x phones for 'personal' navigation and training was Marathon -- just because it was small, easy to use and provided good information from our fitness hikes.
I was browsing through the Marketplace and I happened to find the new version of Marathon, written specifically for WP7. Below are some screen shots from the new application. Unfortunately, there isn't (yet) a screen capture utility available for WP7, so the images below are truly 'shots' taken with my Nikon D70. Hence, I apologise in advance for any imperfections in the imagery.
Figure 1: After a short, test walk around the local park, you get a pretty good set of stats on how you did. If you include your body weight in the settings, it can even tell you how many calories you burned!
Figure 2: In the WM6.5 version you got just a graphic picture of your track. In this version you get more useful graphs of your speed during the recording and the change in altitude.
Figure 3: If you tap on the magnifying glass on the previous screen, it will present a more detailed view of the graph displayed in landscape mode. In this case, I selected the speed graph. I think the numbers along the right hand side are artifacts left over from the previous screen.
As with all WP7 'paid' applications, there is a try-before-you-buy option, and in Marathon's case, the trial version provides all the basic funtionality, but for a limited distance and number of tracks. If you liked the WM6.x version, or are looking for software to help you out with the training for that next marathon, give this a try.
Don is a Senior Soluton Architect for Fujitsu Consulting, specializing in mobile security and privacy. In his spare time, he enjoys long walks on beaches and through forests -- yes, for real!. Sorry, ladies -- already taken....(and you have to put up with new gadgets in the house every few weeks :-)
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