AppleInsider Staff
Popular Apple Watch app Runkeeper was updated on Tuesday with a new feature called Running Groups, a cross-platform social element designed to help users achieve their fitness goals.
Available in the latest version of Runkeeper, Running Groups is a set of built-in networking tools that lets users to create, join and maintain virtual running clubs. According to the development team, the idea is to push users toward specific fitness goals through group encouragement.
Once a group of up to 25 people is set up — invites can be sent out before or after a group is created — administrators select from a number of challenges like weekly or monthly distance, or number of runs per week. As the challenge progresses, group members receive notifications on goals hit, and can send motivating messages to each other through the in-app chat client.
Located in the Challenges section of the Runkeeper iOS app, Running Groups also allows for a bit of friendly competition with the inclusion of a leaderboard that aggregates and displays individual app data from the club's top-three participants.
Since Runkeeper is a cross-platform app, users on both iOS and Android can take part in the new Running Groups feature.
One of many Apple Watch-enabled run trackers, Runkeeper has consistently kept ahead of the curve by refining its unique and useful set of features. Last year, for example, the app was one of the first third-party titles to offer a native watchOS version under watchOS 2, allowing users to track workouts without being tethered to a host iPhone.
The latest version of Runkeeper is available for free from the iOS App Store.
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Christine McKee
4 Comments
I used to use RunKeeper. It is/was overly agressive in ads and pushing their subscription service. And, the GPS was a battery killer. I believe they recently got caught tracking user location when the user was not using the app, to drive ad revenue
For over a years I was using Mapmyfitness and then switch to Runkeeper for the sole reason if was the only fitness app that support the Apple Watch for heart rate monitoring. I have used this product for a good 200 days now and I am not sure why people raved about the App. The list of issue it has is long especially with it working well with the Watch. I have submit bug reports and they only once got back to me. Other apps had much better customer support. Also when you go to their website and file a bug report, they only allow you 200 characters to tell them what the issue is. Most of the issue I have required more than 200 characters.
The biggest issue and the reason I switch to the app and I am still hanging in there 200 days later is the voice queue for the heart rate. When I work out I would like the app to tell me what my heart rate is, it will tell me everything else but will not voice queue the heart rate. It does work from time to time but most time it never says what my heart rate is. The few times it does work during the work out it says the exact same number no matter what the actual rate is at the time. I have reported this issue to them every release they have they still have not listed it as a known issue with the app.
However, the company is more interested in rolling out new feature like this article talks about verse fixing what they already put out.
I have been using RunKeeper for years. I have over 2900 activities. A year or so ago the app was just about as good as it ever was. Simple, mostly accurate, but a battery hog. About the time the Apple Watch was introduced as a means of keeping the iPhone out of sight and not needed to be out to view, or at high sound-volume to monitor while running, the big bugs started to be introduced. Bugs were in several distinct classes:
1) multiple back to back runs would fail to save individual sections and lose some segments
2) network glitches that were masking runs while prioritizing social and advertising connectivity (runs not saved but dialogs announcing slow server for data saving - though these are not Internet-problems related as email, iMessage etc. run fine)
3) occasional dialogs on the iPhone for application access to data areas. Showing no Apple Watch notification of any problem (can't see an issue until the iPhone screen is viewed. Say good bye to iPhone battery while modal dialog is front and center on the phone, often hiding other dialogs which were just as poorly programmed in RunKeeper). Apple Watch is not indicating issues. Effectively say goodbye to the current run data until the iPhone is checked/dialogs-dismissed.
4) watch button use (pause run, save run) resulting in wiping iPhone gathered data when Apple Watch was introduced as a stand alone run monitoring device. When the iPhone captures a more accurate run (even when the watch is set up on the iPhone as view-only) the iPhone map and run data was often wiped out by less accurate watch data i.e. watch stopwatch data with no map info replacing previously available iPhone data.
5) have to hold the watch up for 5 or more seconds while running to view real-time current pace data (last viewed data would appear and not be replaced with current data until watch held up for many seconds. Why not even give an indication that what is showing on the watch is not current say, by changing its color until data is updated)
6) start run from iPhone, takes several minutes for Apple Watch to notice, Watch then shows current pace etc. Use the iPhone to pause, stop, save current run but Watch keeps running. I've no idea how to save the RunKeeper data captured from the iPhone without messing up the capture from the watch at some time later.
7) how to stop Watch RunKeeper application? It'll crash and auto restart itself from time to time on the Watch.
Bugs in so many categories I have no idea how to start a dialog with RunKeeper support. Has anyone else seen these kind of bugs or suggest running iPhone-based applications that work with the Apple Watch used as a real-time progress display (I just want to tell the iPhone to segment parts of the run (run to run-course, run around-course, then run back-home) without glitches destroying segments)?
Sorry the bug issues are so muddled. There seem to be so many problem categories as development introduces new features without QAing existing functionality.