MyTracks was a
Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking application that ran on
Android. The application used a device's GPS capabilities to collect data, allowing real-time review of path, speed, distance, and elevation. Later, this data could be saved to
Google Maps
Google Maps is a web mapping platform and consumer application offered by Google. It offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, 360° interactive panorama, interactive panoramic views of streets (Google Street View, Street View ...
,
Google Fusion Tables
Google Fusion Tables was a web service provided by Google for data management. Fusion tables can be used for gathering, visualising and sharing data tables. Data are stored in multiple tables that Internet users can view and download.
The web s ...
, or
Google Docs
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and shared with
Google+
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,
Facebook
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, or
Twitter
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. The application also allowed a user to record annotations along the path, hear periodic voice announcements of progress, and sync with select third-party bio-metric sensors.
In 2016, Google announced that MyTracks would be deprecated and no longer available in the
Google Play Store
Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android operating sy ...
.
An in-app popup alerted users that MyTracks would stop working on April 30, 2016;
History
The application made its debut on February 12, 2009 under a closed license.
A year later on March 28, 2010,
Google
Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
announced the
open-sourcing
Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Open ...
of the application, stating that "The
collective intelligence
Collective intelligence (CI) is shared or group intelligence (GI) that Emergence, emerges from the collaboration, collective efforts, and competition of many individuals and appears in consensus decision making. The term appears in sociobiology ...
of the development community will create a more powerful, more intuitive, more useful, and more robust My Tracks." The first major re-haul of the application came on July 13, 2012 when Google released version 2.0. This introduced a new interface, support for playing back data in
Google Earth for Android, improved charts, and additional statistics. In 2014 the developers announced on the google code project site that My Tracks would no longer developed in the open and that the source code would be removed. The last open source version was 2.0.5 released in August 2013.
Reception
In September 2013, the
Google Play Store
Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android operating sy ...
listed the application as being installed on 10,000,000 – 50,000,000 devices, with an overall rating of 4.4/5 from over 80,000 reviews.
CNET gave the application 4/5 stars, praising its "Chart, Statistics, and satellite playback" and ability to pause recordings but criticized it for an "unattractive interface" and lack of "athletic-specific features". PCWorld awarded MyTracks 5/5 stars, stating "this app is just about perfect. It is intuitive to use and very stable."
Forks
OpenTracks is an open-source fork launched in 2020.
External links
Former Development SiteOpenTracks
References
{{Android
Android (operating system) software