Nike+ GPS Review

Nike just released Nike+ GPS, their new iPhone application. I love competition, so I took it for a few runs to compare it to Runmeter. Disclosure: I’m one of the developers of Runmeter, but I’m an engineer, and the truth is my goal. If you see anything incorrect here, please write to us at email hidden; JavaScript is required and I will update it.

Here is a competitive matrix, summarizing all the features of Runmeter and Nike+ GPS against other popular running apps.

To learn more about Nike+ GPS, I took four short runs. You can see them all here on the Nike site, because I have switched their default privacy setting to be more open. (Props to Nike for a respectful privacy default. )

After launching Nike+ GPS, you see a screen with your overall distance total, plus other overall stats. In addition, there are three tabs: Home, History, and Settings.

To start a run, you choose “Start a Run”, then one of “Basic”, “Time”, or “Distance”, and then decide whether you’re doing the run indoors or outdoors. That unveils a strength of the app, the ability to measure running on a treadmill using the iPhone accelerometer. Then one more tap and you are off and running. A simple display shows distance, pace, and elapsed time, along with a stop/start button.

A small icon in the corner views a map. Oddly, when you tap Done after viewing the map, it stops the stopwatch. (Maybe they thought you were not running any longer.) The map is simple, it just shows your path, but I do like its ability to color the path with a green-to-red scale indicating your slowest to fastest pace.

Compared to Runmeter, though, Nike+ required a lot of tapping and choosing to get started. With Runmeter, you just launch the app and tap Start, rather than the four taps it takes to get going with Nike+ GPS. And more importantly, Runmeter has remote control ability, so you can use your earphone remote to start and stop the app while your iPhone is stowed away. With Nike+ GPS, I had to start it, then fumble with my iPhone for 10 seconds putting it into my running belt before I could run. At stop lights and at the finish, I had to go through the same fumbling to get it out of my belt so I could stop the app. With our new stop detection capability, you could even forget to stop and start at a stoplight, and Runmeter will not count that time.

Upon finishing, the voice of Lance Armstrong congratulated me on finishing my first run. (Thanks, Lance, but it was only 0.37 miles!) Paula Radcliffe congratulated me after another run, presumably nodding her approval.

I was especially interested in seeing how Nike+ helps you compete against yourself, because we had spent a lot of effort making this possible in Runmeter. The competition capabilities in Nike+ GPS are limited, and a little odd, too. One set of options allows you to compete against your very last run’s stats (distance, time, pace). Another option allows you to try to beat your record of farthest, longest, fastest 1k, or fastest 1 mile runs. Nothing more. While you are running, there is no way to get feedback to know if you are on track to beat your virtual competition. You only hear time, distance, and pace.

In Runmeter, by simply running a route multiple times, you automatically get your best, median, and worst runs for that route competing with you on a map, and also announced as a you run. If you run different routes, say one that is hilly, you can still compete against prior runs even for routes that are inherently slower. I always listen for the announcement to saying whether I’m faster than my median run for my hilly routes here in San Francisco, and it makes me run faster. You can’t do any of these things with Nike+ GPS.

Nike+ GPS doesn’t have a calendar. The history tab, shown to the right here, can’t even show 3 complete rows of runs, all just to display a distance and a couple of icons. I like the wet table visual style just like the next guy, but Nike+ GPS could be improved by considerably tightening up the user interface.

Syncing with the Nikeplus.com site was simple, I just signed up and it automatically synced when my runs finished. The Nikeplus.com site itself is beautiful, though a little slow to load, sometimes by design.
Graphs take five seconds to draw so a little running man animation is shown. It does not include a calendar, just a list of runs in your history. But Nikeplus.com’s goal setting and coaching plans are a big plus of the system.

While the competitive matrix gives the fine grain detail, here are the top 10 biggest missing items from Nike+ GPS:

Ability to stop and start using the earphone remote.
Automatic stop detection.
A calendar and model that keeps all your runs on the device.
Ghost running against previous runs, not just your very last run.
Configurable announcements.
Sending Twitter, Facebook, and Email announcements on the beginning of runs, including a link to map so your friends and family can know where you are.
Export capabilities of ANY kind. (You can check in any time you want, but you may never leave.)
Ability to edit any of the data you put into nikeplus.com. (You can only delete, or change notes, or feeling or weather icons.)
Real-time feedback about whether you are exceeding (or not exceeding) your goals or virtual competition while you are a running.
Ability to support any other activity besides running. (Triathletes beware.)

My bottom line: Nike+ GPS is a well-designed entry-level running application, likely intended by Nike to drive more users to the Nikeplus.com site, where they will see promotions for Nike products. If you are a serious runner or triathlete, a more powerful application like Runmeter would be a better investment of your money and more importantly, your time.

Lastly, one word of caution: The inability of NikePlus.com to export any of your data means that when you start with their system, you are committed forever. We believe your data should belong to you, and that is why Runmeter supports both summary and detailed exports of your data, in standard GPX, KML, and CSV formats.

September 7, 2010 at 10:14 pm | Uncategorized