A couple of fairly major changes have recently happened with Nokia’s Sports Tracker application, which might actually benefit those who like and use the application in the long term.  A while ago, Nokia sold the application off to a new company (which does appear to be staffed by some ex-Nokia people) and they have established a new website and a new application.  Right now, you can’t use the full service in the way you could with the old Nokia based solution, but it’s coming.

As of 30 June 2010, Nokia will shut down the old Sports Tracker website.  However, you can pre-register at the new website, and there’s an option to import your journeys and records from Nokia.  Right now, you can’t view them, or do anything else with the website, but it will come.

The new team have released new versions of Sports Tracker for both S60 3rd and 5th Edition, and although these will in time have the capability to upload your details to allowed them to be viewed and shared on the website, again, this needs the website to be fully functional.

However, good news; at one point, Nokia offered one phone with a bundle of a Heart Rate Monitor (via Bluetooth).  At the time, everybody pointed out that it would be good if the heart rate monitor was also available to those who already had that phone (or any other supported phone); well, although Nokia never managed it, Sports Tracking Technologies have done so, and have this week created an online store where you can buy a heart rate monitor for €69.90 + delivery (they accept PayPal as well as credit cards), although shipments won’t start until 1st July, so even if you order today, you’ll have to wait a couple of weeks for it to arrive.

From a personal viewpoint, I note this version uses OpenStreetMap for the maps, and I think that’s a wise (if only short term) approach. The Nokia solution used maps which had to be downloaded (even though many devices had local Ovi Maps installations); although towards the end, it did at least share this download map cache with Nokia FriendView.  I think moving to OpenStreetMap is a good idea, as it reduces any costs of providing commercial mapping, although I do hope that in time Sports Tracking Technologies are able to link into the Ovi Maps SDK and use the maps where present on the device.

It’s nice to see this application being developed further and the support of a heart rate monitor will make the whole solution more attractive to many sports enthusiasts; however, if you have ever used the old Sports Tracker website don’t forget you need to register and import your old information within the next week.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010 at 5:42 pm and is filed under Gadgets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.