We continue to search for the best service for running enthusiasts. Earlier we reviewed Adidas miCoach, Nike+ and Sports Tracker.
As you have already understood from previous reviews, all sports-oriented services can be conditionally divided into two large categories - purely trackers and virtual trainers. The former only collect statistics, the latter in addition to this also provide specially designed training plans and recommendations. The hero of today's review — service Endomondo — belongs to the number of simple trackers, but at the same time has a number of pleasant features.
The Endomondo service was formed in November 2007 by three Danes who quit very prestigious jobs for this. In July 2009, the beta version of the site was launched, and in September 2010, the milestone of one million downloads was overcome. Currently, the application has been downloaded more than three million times, and there are about 1.3 million active users on the site. Given the narrow specifics of the service, aimed only at people engaged in physical culture, the result is not even bad.
Such a high popularity of the service is due to several important reasons. Firstly, the service positions itself not just as a tool for collecting and preserving your sports activity, but as a full-fledged social network for people who are passionate about one thing. With Endomondo, you can find friends around you or compete with complete strangers living on the other side of the planet. The friends' training feed, communication, joint events, competitions — all this provides this service at our disposal. Due to the presence of a large number of «our» people among the users, I am sure that you will not be bored.
The second reason for the popularity of Endomondo is the availability of a client for all mobile platforms and even the Java version. Thus, a wide range of models is supported, and even if you buy, for example, a new phone, you can safely continue using the service. The capabilities of the application for different phones are not the same, their differences can be viewed here.
From the point of view of collecting and presenting statistics, the service also looks very decent. Pleasant simple interface, diverse data representation, fast operation speed — using the service causes only positive emotions. You can find out more about the impressions of the Life Hacker editor from Endomondo in this article.
On my own behalf, I will add that I have also been an active user of this service for a long time. Among the strengths of the mobile client of this service, I would attribute not being demanding of the phone's resources, the ability to control the music player directly from the application and stability of operation.
If you need a sports service that supports a wide range of mobile devices and has a pronounced social orientation, then you should definitely join the large community of Endomondo users.