Back when I was in Lebanon and tried Sports Tracker, I saw a big blue’ish screen behind my movement tracking and assumed that there should be maps there, that I couldn’t see because I was offline or because there were obviously no maps of Lebanon. When I came to France, I tried Sports Tracker again and saw that blue’ish screen again… “WHAT?” I thought, a tracking application that doesn’t show you where you are, but shows you how you’ve moved?! That’s ridiculous!
Apparently, Ykä Huhtala and Jussi Kaasinen from the Sports Tracker team thought the same, and yesterday they released an “intermediate test version” of the application, version 1.82, which is currently only available in English and brings some overall improvements, as well as a major new feature: Navteq Maps. The new option does not use the Nokia Maps files you have on your handset, but downloads a simpler version of them, over the air. They are then apparently temporarily stored on your memory card, since a memory card is required for the function to work, as well as a Sports Tracker account.
I really do hope that the team works on an integration with Nokia Maps, as it is absolutely ridiculous to download maps that you already have on your handset, and it requires you to have an unlimited data plan to back you up. Nonetheless, the addition of the maps is a good step forward. I just tried it, and to the app’s defense, map downloads were blazing fast and worked very well in the small and the large mode. You can also zoom in and zoom out of the maps. Sports Tracker is available for S60 3rd Edition FP1 (N95, N82, E71, E66…) and FP2 devices (6220 Classic, N78, N96…).
So, you no longer have to wonder what street you’re in or where you really are compared to your start point. You’re no longer limited to the roads you know, but can fully explore new paths without having to open Nokia Maps at the same time and keep flicking between both. Nokia Sports Tracker is now what I thought it was months ago. Great.
