I use it and have some opinions. If you're too cheap to buy real hardware (that would be me...) it's acceptable. But it will disappoint you sometimes.
Any iPhone app will be limited by the quality of its GPS capabilities, as Greg notes. 1st Gen iPhones need 3G to approximate geolocation, but later models have real GPS hardware.
For a long time the Strava app had a few stability issues; last summer it crashed on me several times, dumping my data in the process. They updated the app and website late last year and I haven't noticed this since. Although more than once I've thought I was recording when in fact I wasn't (so I lost a whole ride in the process). Now I make sure to watch the app for a few seconds to make sure it's recording.
The iPhone has no barometer (that I know of) so an app will have to approximate elevation changes using mapping data. Strava does this AFAICT on the server side. You'll notice a ride's total elevation gain will appear to change if you visit the ride page several times, I assume because the server is doing some voodoo on it.
Until late last year these calculations were always way off, ironically probably because their terrain data was too precise. I compared directly with MapMyRide using the same ride data:
http://www.axoplasm.com/node/624
I think they've improved this in the past six months however. I rode the RondePDX with my buddy using the iPhone app. He rode with a Garmin 500 and uploaded the data to Strava. In the end we had similar mileage but I was showing 199' more feet. (him: 7343', me: 7542'). For a device without a barometer, over a wacky route like that, 3% off is not a bad approximation.
And despite the fact that iPhones can theoretically access ANT+ hardware I don't know of any way to incorporate heart rate or cadence data so that's a serious limitation.
Paul
On May 7, 2012, at 10:09 AM, Greg Shepherd wrote:
> It's no better or worse than the other cycling apps for the iPhone.
> The biggest weakness I've found is that the sample rate is too low.
> For the open road it's fine. I wanted to map some single track but I
> just end up with a very rough polygon through the trees. :p
>
> Greg
>
> On Mon, May 7, 2012 at 9:59 AM, Ryan Francesconi wrote:
>> I used the strava app (for the iphone) for the first time yesterday.
>> Anyone have experience with the iphone version and it's precision? I'm
>> not sure of it's accuracy. Seemed off to me.
>>
>> Thanks, Ryan
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