After Google announced an update for Google Earth this morning, which included an option to now upload KML files directly, it reminded me I hadn’t looked at Google’s Activity tracking app, My Tracks in a while. Loading it up, it appears the app got an update recently which added a great feature but removed one at the same time.
Listed under the ‘What’s New’ section of the Google Play description is the good and bad news, as you can see Google has removed sharing to other apps on the phone, but added Android Wear support :
Android Wear support is pretty cool, you start your run from your watch, then pause and stop. While you’re running you also get a card listing how far and for how long you’ve run.
The Android Wear support is interesting, you can stop and start a run from your watch, but it seems limited with the hardware currently available in that you still need your phone. The impetus for Google updating My Tracks for Android Wear is likely to be the impending launch of Android Wear smartwatches with built-in GPS, namely the Sony Smartwatch 3. With the Smartwatch 3 and an Android Wear 2.0 update, you could conceivably leave your phone at home and track your run, while listening to music stored on your watch, which is paired to your Bluetooth headset – Awesome.
The results of remove sharing with other apps on the phone’ update are not quite as bad as they could be, you can still share your KML files etc, to Google Drive and from there if you want to set the file to public and let people load it, you can. You simply can’t share it straight into other applications which is a shame – If I go for a run and can’t tweet about it, did I really go for a run?
The update is available now in Google Play, if you’ve got it installed already, you should see an update heading your way shortly.
