The excessively green interface made the app a little hard to look at, but thankfully you don’t have to see it much. The app is meant to be used while the screen is off, it works almost perfectly. Maybe it is just my preference, but the UI elements don’t seem well thought-out. The buttons look haphazardly placed without considering the proportions.
Conclusion
StepWalk Pedometer would rank a lot higher than the current rating of 4 on the Play Store if it just managed to change the main screen interface for the better. I have seen countless apps that do this and get low ratings despite working flawlessly.
The Bad
The UI could have been made a lot better. The harsh green layout could be toned down a bit to make it easier on the eyes. My main gripe is with the main screen and that alone because the graphs look stellar. The main screen, however, looks as if it was designed at the very last minute. There is no rhyme or reason to the design philosophy of the main screen. While this may not be a big deal to a lot of people, it certainly wouldn’t hurt the app to get with the times. The app also stopped registering my steps after 2 days, a simple reboot of my smartphone resolved that issue.
The Bottom Line
If you don’t intend to drool over the steps you took this week, then this app is amazing. The accuracy is not a hundred percent, but it’s not that far off either. I love the low impact running of the app a lot. The app can run potentially for days on end on your smartphone without you noticing extra battery drainage. The app also comes with handy tracking features that make the whole running thing a joy.
Installation and Boot
The app itself is extremely small and can be downloaded in a matter of seconds. You can get the app by using mobile data if you want. Getting it is a standard affair, you have to follow the link to the Google Play Store page and tap on install button. After the app is downloaded, you can launch it from the notification bar or app drawer icon. The app starts almost instantly and takes you straight to the main screen. There are no tutorials or welcome screens on this app. If the interface was a little more user-friendly it wouldn’t have mattered, but this app needed some form of an initiation screen. Thankfully there is no mandatory login for the app that is good if you just want to run.
Interface
The user interface is the biggest let down in the app. The main screen is not designed very well, and the buttons are almost all different. Usually, an app tries to follow a single design philosophy, but this one is just slapped together with a lot of different looking buttons on the main screen. There is a calculator-like counter on the top of the screen. Which is unnecessarily long, it’s not like you are going to run more than a hundred thousand steps in a session. There is also a handily placed correction feature right beside the counter. The app comes with a count button that needs to be pressed to pause the app. Even the test is not aligned to the button that makes it kind of a jarring inclusion. There is a graph that moves as you run, I don’t see the use of this because people usually turn the smartphone off while running. This feature, however, would work great with the best exercise apps for Android well especially the ones involving reps.
Features
The app is filled with great features; this is what makes it one of the best pedometer apps around. StepWalk Pedometer app comes with a calorie counter that measures the amount of calories you’ve burned running. This is not as elaborate as the calorie counter apps or the diet apps for Android, but it gives you a basic idea. Use this information with the dedicated apps to gain full benefits. Even match them with the weight loss apps to lose weight efficiently. The map feature included in the app is also great for mapping out your runs. You can send the relevant data to your friends easily. The graphs are also amazingly simple and helpful. I didn’t run that long because I have a medical condition called laziness which prohibits me from running for consecutive days. But I can already see how an avid runner would use the data collected by the app to improve.
Usage
StepWalk Pedometer app works great when you shut the screen down and go for a run. In my limited testing runs of around 20 minutes, the app worked flawlessly. The accuracy was remarkably good on this app. There was only a difference of 10 steps on one run that is quite small in my experience. You will be fine, I’m sure of that.
Permissions
I would recommend this app to those who value mapping features as well as stability in their Android pedometer apps. Are there better alternatives around? Yes there are but it shouldn’t discourage you from checking this app out. What is your go-to app for walking? Do tread the comments below.
