Where to Ski And Snowboard -

Snow apps for the iPhone

18th May 2010, by Chris Gill

The North Face snow report app

Not surprisingly, the ballooning catalogue of iPhone apps includes more than a few that are to do with skiing and ski resorts. Given that the Apple App Store is so powerless (why can’t you list apps related to skiing in order of user rating or popularity?) we thought we would attempt to identify some of the ones most worth looking at.

Note that this is not intended to be a definitive review – I’m writing this at sunny Where to Ski Towers, without the ability to try many of the features out in anger. Not only am I not in the mountains, but much of the resort info these apps might access is unavailable at present. If you choose to buy one of the non-free apps, on your own head be it.

You won’t be surprised to hear that we are planning an app of our own – focusing on choosing where to ski, naturally – and we’d be interested to hear your thoughts on key features we should be including. So we’ve started a couple of forum threads: a discussion of existing apps you like, and a discussion of what our app should offer.

There are countless skiing apps out there - even if you leave aside the many apps that deal only with North America (as I shall). So where to start? Well, the obvious place is other website reviews. I’ve looked at dozens, including one that many of you will have seen – Mark Frary’s review of apps on the Times site, including on-slope video. Worth a look if you haven’t seen it.

I’m not going to cover all kinds of apps in a single blog – that way lies digital indigestion, I think. Instead, I’ll deal with them in categories, as far as possible – for a start, apps that deliver snow reports, then apps that show you piste maps, apps that do GPS magic, apps that evaluate resorts, apps to improve your technique and so on. Of course, there will be overlaps. And there will be individual apps that impossible to categorise.

A really cool example of this last kind of app is a very unusual gadget that is only marginally related to skiing: Theodolite. How it works I have no idea, but this thing appears to be able to detect the angle at which your iPhone is being held. On-screen it shows the view through the phone’s camera, with cross hairs in the centre. Thus, you could point it down a mogul field and read off the gradient – great for nerds like us, always wanting to quantify things. The simplest version is free, and there are modestly priced luxy versions with extra gadgets.

But on to snow reports, and let’s cut to the chase. For the European skier I think the best starter kit consists of four free apps: Snow Report from the UK’s traditional favourite source of snow info, the Ski Club of GB, plus three “official” national apps. The club’s Snow Report covers all the resorts you are likely to be interested in via a smooth interface, with the information you would expect to get and a link to a webcam.

The national apps have their individual features and attractions, plus the fact that the data they present has suffered the minimum manipulation on its way to you - so the chance of errors is reduced. Ski Montagne covers French resorts; iSki Austria and Swiss Snow are somewhat self-explanatory. The only app I have found covering Italy is part of a suite called Snow Zone, and it costs £1.19. I’ll manage without that, thanks.

All of the other snow apps I have tried seem to suffer from the same basic flaw: they pull their snow data from OnTheSnow, an American snowsports website, and get a lot of user flak on the App Store for unreliable information. They are probably more reliable on North American resorts. There are two prominent free apps, both providing access to Weather Underground weather info and forecasts, as well as OnTheSnow snow: The Snow Report from The North Face has a smoother interface and more info than Snow and Ski Report by REI.

OnTheSnow info is also the basis of Snow Reports from Eddit Inc, which costs £1.19. Not sure why you would want to pay even that small sum when you can get the same info free.  Another way to spend £1.19 is on the British-made iSki (no relation to iSki Austria). But the info it presents seems rather limited in comparison to other apps, and on my iPhone at least it isn’t working well – hardly any resorts are showing in Austria, for example.

More next week on map apps.

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