Stride: Fun Fitness Motivation 4+

This is a great app that keeps you motivated to run by turning it into a game. I especially love how it almost forces you to explore new places. However, there is room for improvement. One feature I would love to have is auto pause or at least a start count down. Another feature that I think would improve the dynamic of the game is to add “hex decay”where a captured hex will decay over time if not visited. I think this feature will make the game a little more competitive as runners will have to revisit their captured hexes from time to time in order to keep them.

The app has an exciting and fresh spin on the never ending litany of fitness and tracking apps: make a game out of it! The world is divided into small (quarter-mile?) hexagons and your job is to capture as many of them as possible. I was OK with sharing the places I frequently walk at the scale of the hexagon. However, when you challenge another player's territory (which inevitably happens if you walk anywhere other people have been), they/you are alerted and can plainly see the activity trail you took during your offending walk/run/roll. It just made me feel strange and unsafe. Also, if you exercise from your home, anyone can plainly deduce where you live from your activities. But I can already hear my critics: You could stop and start activities away from your home. The truth is: You will not do this. You will just stop using the app altogether. We're already fiddling with so many apps and devices, this just isn't going to happen. It would be nice if the developer could add a geoblocking feature that lets you set a radius around where you live to exclude details about your home's precise location. Also, how is there no way to participate in the game but not allow other players to see the exact path you took? If you take the same paths all the time, this information is just freely available to anyone who has access to the app. That's just a plain security risk if you have a mind. Proceed with caution, I guess.

Discovered this app a few days ago and have already wasted far too much time looking at the map and my usual runs and thinking about how to tweak the routes to acquire more hexes. Is the app perfect? Not yet but I am optimistic that it will continue to improve. Is it worth the subscription? Maybe not, but honestly the cost is equivalent to a few cups of coffee over the course of a year. Am I addicted? Absolutely!