The majority of our walks are available as guided walks for Android phones (or tablets), and we are steadily working through making the remainder available. See our apps page for the current list of which walks are available as apps. Each walk also contains a link to the app in the top-right corner if it's available for the walk.
Phone models
Any phone running Android 2 or above should be OK for running the iWalk apps. Map scrolling is smoother on newer faster phones, but we regularly use an old HTC Desire C for testing and it works fine. Note there is a bug in the Android 4.2 operating system that may cause the very occasional drawing glitch when panning or zooming the map, but if you just pan or zoom a bit more, it should redraw fine. Hopefully Google will fix it in 4.3 as it's affecting a lot of other apps on 4.2.
Installing the apps
If you have a QR scanning app installed you can zap the QR code (either from the web pages on the screen of your PC or a printout) to get the app on your phone. QRdroid is a good free QR scanning app if you don't already have one. Alternatively you can click through to Google Play on your PC and get the app and it will automatically download onto your phone when it next has an internet connection.
Not running out of battery
The last thing you want is your phone battery to run out half way around a walk, taking with it your directions for how to get back to your car. So apart from the obvious of starting with a fully charged battery, this section contains some tips on how to prevent that ever happening.
External batteries
If you don't already have one, we recommend getting an external USB battery for your phone. It will come to the rescue whenever your phone battery starts to run out and will fit in a small coat pocket or rucksack side pocket. They are also ideal for long car, train or plane journeys or even very long meetings if you don't have access to mains power or a USB charger to hand. They pack a lot of power into a small space: you can typically recharge your phone several times from a fully charged battery.
This one is good value for money, being one of the cheapest and most compact and delivers up to 2A which should charge the most power hungry phones and tablets:
Power saving tips
There are also a few things you can do to limit the amount of power your phone guzzles:
- Switch off WiFi and Bluetooth before setting out on the walk as these use lots of battery power. This more than doubles the battery life on my HTC Desire C.
- Dim your screen as much as possible since this is a significant drain on the battery, although for viewing outside you'll need it brighter than for inside. Auto-brightness seems to work reasonably well outdoors.
- During the walk, switch the screen off (usually by pressing the power button) during long stretches between directions. The iWalk apps will continue to run in the background even when your screen is turned off, and will still beep/vibrate when there's a new direction to follow.
Disabling the screen lock
To make it easier to switch your screen on and off quickly without having to do a fiddly swipe or unlock sequence each time, you can install a free app to temporarily disable your screen lock during your walk, so that pressing the power button takes you straight back into the app.
This one seems to work well and includes a desktop widget to switch on/off the lock without needing to run the app each time.
Protecting your phone from the elements
A waterproof case will not only keep your phone dry if it rains or you take it paddling but also keep any sand, dust or picnic off it during a walk. This one is guaranteed waterproof and is very durable (we regularly take it to sea):