Outdooractive 4+

Handy app for hiking

I have recently tried out a few walking apps and I liked View Ranger the best. I then saw that they were merging with Outdooractive so I thought I’d give it a try. I used the app in real time today on a walk and I thought it was good.

I like how you don’t have to have your phone unlocked the whole time as you can scroll down on the lock screen and see how long you have left to walk and other information. It originally had km but I quickly changed to miles in the settings. I liked how you could take photos of your route and it saved at that point on the map. I had a try of the Skyline feature which showed the names of the landmarks as you hover your camera over them. My only niggle with this is that is showed some landmarks that were miles away and I wanted to just save a photo of the interesting points I could see in front of me. Perhaps there is a way to narrow the distance on this feature. Also, I liked how when I went off track, the voice in the app alerted me while my phone was locked in my pocket.

Overall, I am happy with it but I have given four stars for now; I had to do quite a bit or research on the website to understand how to use it and I still feel like I have a lot to learn. It is also hard to edit routes that you search for as you have to export and import them again to do simple edits.

Better than it used to be

I was a Viewranger user and loved it - I just could not get to grips with this app; the interface was not intuitive and everything was such hard work. I kept it on my phone only because that was the only way to access the OS maps I had paid for with Viewranger. Recently started hiking again again and I’ve been surprised how easy this has been to use. I have created plans, turned them into routes and navigated along them to create tracks. One thing I’ve loved which is actually BETTER than Viewranger is how the app knows to plan a route along the available walking paths. ViewRanger could only deal with straight lines so you had to place a point at every single little turn in the path and make sure you got every point exactly in the right place. This will just follow the path in between 2 points so it is much faster and more accurate. Today I was camping with no phone signal and was able to follow my route on the map even offline. Offline it doesn’t know you are following the route and doesn’t tell you if you go off it, but at least you can see it and just pay attention to keep following it. Taking off one star because every single time I open the app I have to close the page asking if I want to upgrade to Pro and it’s annoying.

Developer Response ,

Hi Kirtens, thank you for your review and for giving the Outdooractive app another chance! We are always looking to improve the experience for our users, and really appreciate this feedback. If there is anything additional we can look into or that you would like to see in the app, please contact us at service@outdooractive.com.

Awesome application!

I’ve been genuinely confused by some of the reviews I’ve read on here; not that I think the people who wrote them are wrong, I just think they’re comparing apples and pears when looking back at previous apps and being unhappy that some features might be different or missing. I used to use Strava to map my walks and Komoot to plan them. Outdoor Active is tailored to hiking, biking and the great outdoors so I find the information and data points used are perfect for those activities. It appears to be accurate, is easy to use, and the fact that the maps used to plan my walks are aware of all the footpaths and so on is a huge help! On other apps you have to create 200 waypoints to keep the route honest, OA is far more efficient and will automatically choose the most direct route utilising paths that are relevant to the activity you’re doing - i.e. footpaths for walking, bridle ways for cycling, etc. Other highlights are “As-The-Crow-Flies” which allows you to override the auto-routing by choosing a straight line if needed (handy when crossing a gate or boundary), and also reversing your route, importing a gpx, and even highlighting on the route where your photos were taken! It’s ace, and at £27/year, it’s a fair price too!

Developer Response ,

Hi Lord Bage, thank you very much for your review! We are glad the Outdooractive app has been a helpful tool for your outdoor adventures!