ViewRanger: Hike, Bike or Walk Reviews

I stumbled across ViewRanger recently when looking for a replacement to my current GPS logger. It’s pretty feature-full, while still being simple enough for most people to use. The peak identifier is excellent and makes hikes more interesting.

Some things that need improvement:

- ViewRanger requires manual syncing of your tracks and trails. Why can’t it just automatically sync its data like every other app? I’ve also run into issues where I delete routes/tracks on my device, then when I sync, it re-downloads what I deleted from the server. Very frustrating.

- Apple Watch has become very unreliable. Whenever I used to start a track, the watch would show me how much I have left. It just doesn’t do that anymore. It will show the graph for distance remaining, but it’s useless because it’s completely inaccurate and doesn’t update.

- I’m not interested at all in a social feed aspect of trail tracking. It would be nice to not have to have this front and center every time I go to the page that has my routes and tracks.

- The settings can be a bit confusing and convoluted. For example, under Settings > GPS, there is a switch for GPS on or off. I don’t know the purpose of this. GPS automatically goes on when you start making a track, why is there a separate switch here?

I am a subscriber, but will likely be canceling due to these frustrations (particularly with Apple Watch, which was not happening before).

I’ve been trying ViewRanger out in order to track the areas I walk around Gaborone Botswana. So far I am pleased with it. I’ve been able to record trails that I walk in the woods, add interest points, and add photos of interesting things to each path. It also records the time and distance of each trail. I hope to go beyond the trails I already know and walk in new places without getting lost! I feel confident that ViewRanger will help me to achieve this. My only concern is that if I accidentally swipe ViewRanger up while walking, I will loose the maps that were loaded while at home with WiFi. I do not have the ability to reload through my phone service.

I like easy to use apps which do not require a PHD to use. I have tried many different apps for outdoor activities but they were all lacking in features.

Then came this app. ViewRanger does everything I need an outdoor app to do and more. New to an area, lookup where other people have hiked and follow along. The current time ViewRanger costs a little bit of money 4,99 per year and if you think you are going to be in a poor internet place, buy and download the map. Everything is reasonably priced and you get a lot for your money.

Stop wasting time and get ViewRanger , you’ll love it!

I’ve used ViewRanger for years at home in New York and on long distance walks in Europe (Switzerland, UK, France, Austria). With the right settings it’s very accurate and doesn’t use much battery. I love the ability to draw routes ahead of time, to import and export gpx tracks, modify and save tracks, share my routes with other users, download maps for offline use including high quality free maps (eg. open cycle) as well as a wide selection of premium maps. It’s my go to app for walking and hiking throughout Europe and English speaking parts of the world.

I assumed that you could get ViewRanger and just buy the maps or routes that you want. Instead, ViewRanger is full of overlapping and incomprehensible features. For example: I want a map of the place I’m going to visit. There are two options, “Maps” and “Map shop.” When you choose “Maps,” the first thing you get is not a list of maps or a search box, but rather a big button that says “Map shop.” This brings you not to a “shop,” but a jumbled screen of icons and unexplained subscriptions, prices in cash, and prices in mysterious “credits.”
I’m sure there’s a lot of great content available, but after 10 minutes I still don’t know how to access it. So I’m just going to give up and uninstall. It’s a shame ViewRanger wasn’t designed as well as the this app website, which is great.

It’s a cheap gimmick. There are tons of free ways to do this, yet they want more than a Netflix subscription? For what? ViewRanger does all the work. If it’s for fixing bugs, that comes with the programs of all types.
ViewRanger is useless. Like I said there are free ways to trace your path. The “augmented” view is terrible, often pointing out things you don’t care about, like the next town over and is far from being accurate. It’s local “paths”, are several towns over because it’s amount is limited therefor useless. A search online will give you more info.
App runs great, well, because there isn’t much to run.
Ended free trial in a hurry. Terrible. Those who say is great, haven’t browsed the iTunes Store long enough and just know how bad this burn in their pocket is, or don’t know much about the industry of app rip offs.

I used this app last weekend in the Sierras and would never have known where the trail was due to snow cover. Then when the trail was flooded and we had to go a ways off track, the trail map was more up to date than the paper map. Great app all around and was easy kn my battery, while using tracking in airplane mode. Only thing I would add is a quick compass button to easily switch between getting a bearing and examining the map.

this app has been my go to for hiking and horse riding for several years. It is neat, clean, easy to use, with several map bases available (OpenCycle is the one that suits my needs best).

The change to Outdooractive is unhappy making. Outdooractive is fussy, has a bloat of “features” I don’t need or want, and a useless, for my needs, set of maps.

I’ve used ViewRanger for years. In the last 6 months or so I’ve encountered a persistent bug where the hiking time and calorie count reported to the Activity App from this app hikes is wrong (usually by more than half). For example, yesterday’s hike was 7 hours but the activity app only reports 2 hours. Additionally the calorie count is less than half of what it should be - it rolled back when I completed the hike. This happens when I conclude the hike (not during). It also seems to happen when I end the hike in a place without cell signal.

I like to use the GPS function and stored music in my watch to go for a run without taking my phone. I am in NYC where there are 2 heavily forested parks with many winding trails that are easy to get lost in. There is a map of one of the parks online to be downloaded to the watch but not the other. I have tried to make my own nap to save to my watch, but it is either not possible or very hard to do. I’m still trying to figure it out. If it was easy to do, I’d give ViewRanger 5 stars.

Purchased ViewRanger years ago but only started trying to use it lately. I was using a different trail app that has since gone out of business.
My problem with ViewRanger (used twice so far) is that it starts and stops recording a track whenever it feels like it. We’ll get done doing a 5 mile ride on the trails and when we get back ViewRanger says we rode 200 yards for 2 minutes or something similar.
I admit it may be user error for now because I just began using it. But you keep asking for a review so here it is.

I saw it had good reviews, so purchased it, but have been frustrated by the user interface, which seems to have no rhyme nor reason to it. I wouldn’t have written it this way. It’s difficult to make it do what you want, and does surprising things. Information pops up out of nowhere.

I suppose eventually I’ll figure it out, and hopefully like it as much as the other reviewers, but this is not as easy to use as similar apps like AllTrails ir GAIA.

I’m a paying subscriber. I like many features of this, but it needs some serious work. Wayyyy to much emphasis on the social interaction. I really doubt that many people are using that. We do these activities to get away from people. The POIs need folders! GAIA gps had that, and right now I kinda wish I had stayed with them for that. I want to categorize my POIs. There are a lot of nice features which are great. But it needs some focus on water trails also, canoeing and kayaking.

I’ve been using ViewRanger for a number of years and still feel it has no equal, the usability, capability & downloadable maps are unbeatable and have proven themselves time and time again. AR functionality is quite cool & Apple Watch app has far more usable functions than other apps. Keep up the great work devs!

I love ViewRanger with its ability to link to the Apple Watch. It not only shows your progress, but also links into Activities and counts as exercise. The online version allows you to easily create trails that you can then publish for everyone to use. My only wish is that more people in my area would use ViewRanger that way more trails are already published.

This is a great tool for outdoor adventures. I use it mostly for off-roading. It is great for planning routes ahead of time as well as tracking where you have been and then turning that track into a route. You can edit out your mistakes easily. And share your route with others.

Updated review: changing to 4 stars. Developer responded quickly to feedback (thank you!) and I’m now able to export routes with maps easily.

Old review: Where’s the “export map to watch” button or option?! Is this buried somewhere? I would expect it to be fairly obvious, but it is not. Giving up, may try again in a future update. Hopefully they make ViewRanger more intuitive...

ViewRanger rocks! I’ve logged 100’s of trail and backcountry miles with this app. It has never let me down or gotten me lost. It works with out cell phone coverage and if you download a map prior to heading into the backcountry, it’s imagery is excellent! I highly recommend this app! It is a tool that I never go adventuring without!
Happy adventuring!!
Josh- Southern Utah

My first experience with a hiking app and so far, I'm very pleased. I've recorded tracks and made my own routes and I've also downloaded existing routes from the Internet. The help files are a bit cumbersome, but after spending a few hours over several days, I feel I've got a good handle on this nifty app!

1. App can't find any locations. You search for an address, and a message pop-up reads "Location not found!" 2. I can't find the mountain peak identifier anywhere within ViewRanger. 3. User interface extremely unfriendly and confusing. 4. You have to click through three pages of BS offers before you can even get into ViewRanger . 5. Moreover, my rule of thumb for apps is if I can't figure them out in 10 minutes, they're history. Not even close in this case. 6. Thank goodness I didn't pay for this jive app. Deleted.

I stumbled across ViewRanger recently when looking for a replacement to my current GPS logger. I’ve found it to be very feature-full, while still being simple enough for most people to use. The user experience appears to be pretty well thought out. The peak identifier is awesome.

I would like to see some more stat options on the Apple Watch, such as heart rate. Speaking of that, the heart rate statistic is very finicky on the phone. When adding it to the stat screen, it will say Apple Watch not available, even though it is. During a recorded activity, it will sometimes show the heart rate as a static number, sometimes not at all. This doesn’t make any sense because it’s supposed to be recording the activity as an exercise, so should be sampling the heart rate continuously.

Another issue is integration with Apple Health and not reporting workouts from a recorded track. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. I’ve had a workout from a hike show up in Apple Health, then disappear. The Apple Health permissions are all set correctly.

I will likely look for another solution due to the above couple issues. I need reliability, and when data is missing that’s a big problem for me.

Have tried using ViewRanger several times with my Apple Watch and I continuously get the message “unable to connect to iPhone. To record a track, keep your phone on you. I have my phone in the same hand. Apparently my watch and phone cannot find each other.

I have only used ViewRanger once on a 3-day hike in unfamiliar woods so I am SURE that I didn’t use ViewRanger to its full capacity. It worked seamlessly with my Apple Watch 3.

I would remind you to turn off WiFi and cellular, it sounds obvious but I forgot WiFi on my watch and it died in 1 day.

I look forward to trying this out again.

I have well over 100 apps and this is the 1st review I have been driven to write. I have this on my iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch. I have tracked several routes and the accuracy on the watch is ludicrous. I finally checked it on my phone and it looks close, but the watch is off at least a decimal and maybe 20% on the significant digits. I bought it to walk the Camino Portugues. I can’t get it to do anything for me. Can’t figure out how to download maps. I have wasted hours and no longer know what I want to do - just do something.