Polarsteps - Travel Tracker 4+

The best I’ve tried

Like most people I enjoy taking (lots) of photos on my holidays but then end up with them saved in iPhoto which is like stuffing them into a shoe box. I tried a few alternative journal apps so as to give them some organisation and meaning but found they all had faults. Polarsteps doesn’t charge a subscription (yet), is easy to add steps and add photos to those steps and has a superior website for the desktop which is a lot easier to work with.
My only quibbles are; no dedicated iPad app; drag and drop would make photo attachments easier on the desktop; photos are displayed vertically on the desktop which means a lot of scrolling to get to the next step and the map never zooms in fully as I scroll. Minor stuff but irritating.
Overall I do recommend Polarsteps.

Good but Riddled with Flaws

I’ve just used the app for a 52 day trip. 1. Why can’t the app record your steps accurately like Wikiloc? It recorded 60kms less than my husbands Wikiloc which recorded every km. Unfortunately it doesn’t allow you to update the distance if it’s incorrect. 2. I had to constantly synchronise the app while walking otherwise I got long flight lines (yes, I did follow ALL your connection recommendations). 3. The map is very poor at finding places. THE BOOK I ordered the book which looks really good BUT what a frustrating site. 1. I used the laptop for a bigger screen view but it’s default setting is really small so the book doesn’t fill the screen for a better view. 2. You cannot make the slightest edit without the whole book having to reload -very annoying. 3. The photo size is set so I couldn’t have 4 photos of equal size on one page (it defaulted to 2 bigger and 2 small wasting page space) 4. You can’t adjust the photo. I had to edit the photo in my phone photo app, guessing how much I wanted the photo moved up/down and then reload back onto Polarsteps hoping it was correct. I did this so many times. 5.You cannot read the writing you wrote of your journey when viewing the book and can only edit it if you go back into your phone. The back/forth to phone/laptop is very time consuming. This has the potential to be such a fantastic app, I just wish the makers would sort all the above flaws.

Developer Response ,

Thanks for your review and for your constructive comments. We are always looking to improve our app and we value your feedback. Could you share and/or elaborate on your feedback a bit by sending an email to our Support Team at support@polarsteps.com? Hopefully, this way they can help you out or pass this feedback on to our product team for improvements in the future. Thanks! 🙌🏼

My first review ever, ever!

EDIT. Thank you to the developers for the reply. I’ve now found out how to add the steps it missed through your help and am changing my review of the app due to being mistaken and kindly being helped by you guys. I’m going to leave the other half still here incase anyone else has the problem. It is a good app and would be nice if I didn’t have to add them myself but all in all if I can add it with a couple of clicks on my phone I am more than happy. Thank you!

I’m currently backpacking around south east Asia and my friend recommended me this app as it keeps track of where you go and you can save it all, and that sounded really cool to me. It’s currently not tracked half of my trip so far! You can’t manually add anywhere if it does do this (not know exactly where you are or have been), I’m 80km from where it says I currently am. I had quite high hopes for this app as it seems to work fine for my friend but it is a serious let down to say the least. Would be good if they made an update where you could manually add places incase it doesn’t track you correctly so you can rectify it and it wouldn’t be an issue at all but by the end of my trip I doubt I’ll remember every place I have been and that’s a huge shame (that’s why this appeared to be a great idea).

Developer Response ,

Hi there, Thanks for your review and sorry to hear about these issues. Have you checked these tips to improve the accuracy of your Travel Tracker: https://support.polarsteps.com/article/113-my-travel-tracker-doesnt-track-whats-wrong. It is possible to manually add a location to your trip. You can add a step manually or add a suggested step and change the location manually: "Edit step" button > Tap on the blue pencil that is shown on the map to edit the location of the step >
Select the location manually on the map or with the search feature > Hit "Done". Please feel free to send an email to support@polarsteps.com if you have any more questions. We'll gladly help you with these questions. Thanks!