The capabilities of the latest phones are pretty amazing. I’ve been using a Blackberry for work but recently I got an iPhone for a project. In many ways I’m not sure I like it any better than the Blackberry. The large touch screen is definitely very nice but it’s heavier and draws so much power it barely holds a charge for the duration of the day. The Blackberry on the other hand could go for days, even with Bluetooth on.

But after playing with it a bit, I’m finding the iPhone has some very interesting apps that take advantage of it’s more advanced capabilities. The phone has GPS built in and I found this free app called Runkeeper. The idea is that you start it when you go for a run/walk/ride and it keeps track of where you’ve been as well as speed and altitude. These are capabilities that have been in devices like the Garmin GPS’es for quite some time. But having it in your phone is definitely handy.

I gave it a try on the bike ride I did this morning. It was a ride I do often. Once you’re done and ‘stop’ the recording, you can upload the results to the related web site. There you can look at the stats and a map. I snagged an image of the display below. Very cool!