Ski Tracks - iPhone App

A snowHead

There was no turning involved and was tucked for the majority, straightening up at the bottom, it was quick and in my experience the video tends to 'flatten' slopes. Perhaps corecoders could have a look at the file and verify?

A snowHead

The run for those who know it was Eglatine in the Les Gets Bowl.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Chattonmill,

It COULD be a spike, as stated by others; the methods of calculating Vmax can result in spikes if sat reception is poor. I have a 300GBP plus marine unit and that has spikes; I have a plot of me doing a steady 19kts and then jumping to 130! - clearly wrong; but when I look at the actual plot points it is obvious that at some point I lost sat reception of a few seconds and then got a dodgy couple of points and then return to standard speeds.... What format did you save it in?

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scooby_simon, I just hit the save button on the app!

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

My top speed today was 334 km/h on my iPhone 4 !!
Great app, but there are obviously some minor bugs

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corecoders, Just replied to your email Happy

After all it is free

Ski Tracks V1.2.3 - Max Speed

We have received over 1500 tracks in the last 3 weeks from users of Ski Tracks - there is an error in the max speed on some of the tracks due to a problem with the altitude being reported by the phone. The next version filters out this anomaly so Max Speed is more accurate.

We are committed to make Ski Tracks the best App on the hill.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone supporting Ski Tracks, those users who have written such fantastic reviews and all the Snowheads on this forum who have helped answer users questions.

Steve

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

Thanks Steve, that would explain it, th eprevious run had a Max speed of 55, which I assume would be the more correct one.
Keep up the good work, this is a cracking app, one of the best I have come across!

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Steve- any idea what date the next update/version released will be?

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The next Ski Tracks update should be available in the next couple of weeks.

+ New preview mode on maps.
+ Animated preview on Google Earth.
+ Max Speed update.

Just got back from a long weekend in Flaine and wanted to pass on our positive comments on the Ski Tracks App. Superb and provided some good entertainment in the pub afterwards comparing top speeds etc.

Although my own top speed record was called into doubt, when on the final day I apparently clocked 69mph! I was tanking it straight line down a red at the time and it did feel very fast, but 69mph……….. Any thoughts?

We also felt pretty good at clocking up 29.7miles in one days skiing.

You know it makes sense.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Shoot me down in flames here if needed but..............great though these apps may be for logging distances travelled and altitude etc, isn't the ability to log your speed going to create a scenario where some sliders are just going to be straight-lining down pistes in a macho effort to achieve the highest speed ? Don't get me wrong, I've seen enough people doing this with or without phones in their pockets, ( apparently there were a group of nutters in Wengen doing it the other day wink

) but now, with this technology available to all - in a world where pistes are getting busier all the time, I would have thought the last thing we need is more encouragement for people to be sliding outside of their ability level ?

A snowHead

A snowHead

Without access to the calculations the device performs, or unless you calibrate the device against known data, you can't be absolutely sure. Because you can't know if they are plotting the position in 2D or using the height data. But you could assume all slopes are 45 deg then height and horizontal distance will be the same anyway. wink

But EveryTrail lets you plot the elevation from the GPX data, and here is my data from a flight we did and the dogdy points show up straight away, but it closly follows the distances, times and what we did in terms of take off 400ft, landing 800ft, stalls, and circuit heights. We probably get a few more spurious readings getting in and out of cable cars but usually downhill is pretty steady.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

The problem with using a fixed slope angle is that this in itself would create large inaccuracies. For example if you went down a slope that was say 30 degrees you would get an overspeed but if you then went on a straight section and kept a good pace then you speed would increase and not decrease - and this would probably confuse users.

We do actually get good accuracy with the altitude data over a period - the problems arise with glitches in the data and this is causing the Max Speed problems - however we think we have solved this. We also have an experimental product that does not rely on GPS altitude at all - so we do expect to improve Ski Tracks accuracy even further.

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Timberwolf, possibly it helps to motivate some people to ski faster. But generally I have a look at lunch, then again at the end of the day, the rest of the day it stays on my wrist (gps watch) or in my pocket (phone). To go about trying to clock higher speeds you'd probably want a display that you could see all the time.

The main motivation is to see where I've been, look at the maps and see how I've got on over the longer period. Maybe I'm a wuss, or not sure of my ability yet, and so will always ski within myself.

I know one thing though, as non helmet wearers (not a conscious decision not to), knowing that we've gone 40mph+ in places was enough for the OH to say "I think we'll get helmets for our next trip".

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

mate had this app this week and it worked reallt well. Top speed might be a little overstated though

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Back from a week in Alpe D'Huez testing this app out. Very impressed with battery consumption.

Couple of feedback points, some of which have been covered already-

1) The max speed figure per day didn't tally with the detailed graph which breakdowns speed
2) Slope figure seemed overstated- Had 42,40 degrees etc on most days. Without a graph for this its hard to know how long you were at this for, what the average slope is.
3) Would be good if you could somehow incorporate resort piste maps onto the map function, so you could see where you have travelled. The google map/satellite view didn't really mean much to me when reviewing a days skiing. Also icons on the map showing where you hit max speed, max slope etc would be good.

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After all it is free

Experimented in Selva area a couple of weeks ago. Kept forgetting to 'resume' so the recording is erratic!

Can you edit the tracks? It got confused on the 2-way chair at Corvara as to whether I was skiing or on a lift. I can see why, but it would be good to put it right after the event.

I agree with the comment above that it would be good if the maps included the lift infrastructure. That could be used by the app to avoid the above problem too (as well as being good for navigation).

I also fancy my top speeds were overestimated.

Good product - a few tweaks would make it great.

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

Any easy way to show track on google maps with the topography turned on?

I go from google earth to maps but lose the track when terrain is switched on. Probably just finger trouble on my part but if I could see my track on google maps with terrain on I could then red pen my route onto a paper map which for me would really work well

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A good app but not without it's issues.... We recorded 107mph! I'm fast but not that fast wink

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corecoders, Also one other issue I had when emailing the track the photos did not export on the email with the attach photo slider on great app and any help on the two issues I had would be warmly welcomed

You know it makes sense.

That's a shame. I've just tried to download this app onto my iTouch ahead of our trip in a fortnight. But it says it isn't compatible. Why? Can anyone shed light onto why it won't download onto the iTouch?

Puzzled

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Bluebell, does your iTouch have a GPS receiver?

A snowHead

Yes it does!

A snowHead

Bluebell, OK, I didn't think that they did have a GPS receiver, but I've never really paid much attention to the iTouch. Maybe email the Ski Tracks guys to ask them?

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

I will, thanks. I've just tried to download it again but to no avail and I was so looking forward to using it in Morzine rolling eyes

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Bluebell, which version iTouch do you have. The Apple website doesn't mention a GPS receiver in the current version of the iTouch.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

iTouch has no GPS chip. Just "loacation aware" features. afaik.

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andy, Boo. You are right. I have the latest version but it just has 'locations aware' as you say not GPS. What a nuisance. Confused

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corecoders, Any thoughts on a Blackberry version?

I have just gambled a whole £7 on the BB version of SatSki covering PDS - will I be disappointed? I am guessing I will be having seen the size of the map on screen - but who knows - its all part of the pre ski trip build up!

It tracked me into Reading fine last week (speed, trip distance etc), although I was a liitle off the right hand edge of the map!

After all it is free

Great app - Used it all week and loads of fun seeing where we had been skiing. Very simple to use as well. One of the best 59p apps I've ever bought. I found the max speed to be consistent which suggests it was ball park correct but did seem quite high. The splitting of the lifts and runs was also fun.

Battery life on my iPhone 4 was fantastic. I turned off all the superfluous functions while skiing (3g, bluetooth and WiFi) and tracked full days worth of skiing. Most days I ended with 75% battery remaining and that included using the camera and sending text messages alongside tracking.

There are a few things I would tweak to improve the app but even without these I give it 5 stars.

Tweaks are:
1) The waiting at the end of a run for the left gets logged as being part of the run. This would be better added to the lift portion as it gives an idea of how long the run took to ski and average skiing speed, waiting for a lift should be counted as lift time.
2) Would be great to have the runs and lifts named and use "Open Piste Map" as an map overlay when viewing the track on a map. Would just give a bit more context to the squiggles on Google maps.
3) Gradient and speed graphs have time on the x axis. It would be nice to have the option of distance on the x axis so we could see the profile of the route.
4) When spliiting runs and lifts it would be good to have rests separated as well so you don't need to pause when stopping for a vin chaud on the slopes.

Overall a great app. Buy it if you are a ski/map geek!

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

I had a lot of fun using this on a recent week in 3V. I compared it to a friend's Garmin and the readings were generally similar, but the distances travelled were longer on my iPhone than his - maybe due to a loss of GPS and it moving to triangulation briefly instead?

I did find that there was a bit of delay in calculating the maximum speed though - there was one long, straight, smooth and empty piste where we, er, 'went for it' a bit to check our max speeds, and mine was much lower than his, although I was definitely a bit quicker. This then recalculated itself to a different, higher and maybe more realistic value when I looked again a couple of hours later? The chart showed that the max speed was relating to our 'max speed' attempt a couple of hours earlier.

Another odd thing - I used it again yesterday for the first time since, and in the meantime I had upgraded my iPhone's software and the app for the latest version, and this same reading from the 3V had jumped from about 75kph to 122kph! In fact all my max speeds saved had gone up by a similar jump?

Help!!

Ski Tracks - iPhone App

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