Stride App Review | tom guide

April 11, 2022April 11, 2022 dmb

Stride App Review | tom guide" title="Stride App Review | tom guide" />

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I love a bit of competition – I suspect a pretty high percentage of runners do, at least those who use phrases like “personal best” and repeatedly enter races. After all, it's always good to have a reason to strive. But it's also great to have competition that has nothing to do with speed – something that creates more of a level playing field – and that's where Stride comes in.

Stride is essentially a territory capture game. Open the app and activate your location, and the map around your location is divided into hexagonal blocks, each representing about 60m in diameter in the current world. These are called hexes, and the object of the game is to capture as many of them as possible. If you pass a spell – which you can do by running or walking – you own it – until someone takes it from you. The owner is the person who has passed that hex the most times, regardless of their speed. Whereas many of best running apps focus more on speed and duration, in Stride you can still gain territory as long as you visit it enough. If your route is a loop, you will also claim all blocks in the middle of that loop. Ready to download? Read our Stride app review first.

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Stride App Review: Free vs Paid

You can play Stride right away without a subscription, but detailed leaderboards are only available in the paid version. In my area, for example, I can see leaderboards for “International”, my London borough area, and London in general – but not any of the adjacent boroughs I might want to target. Other features in the top class version include “top class reactions” that let you congratulate your friends and taunt your rivals. You can also customize the style of the map and place a badge on your profile.

Given that Stride is still establishing territory, and in some areas it may not have as many users, whether these options really pay off may depend on your own location and how many players you have around you. You have a one-month free trial option, which is a pretty generous amount of time to really play around with the app and see if you get hooked. But after that it's £34.99 / $ 44.99 per year.

(Image credit: Guia do Futuro/Tom)

Stride App Review: Interface and Features

When you look at the Stride map before you set off, you can see the different hexes – or groups of them – and who their champions are by username and profile picture, which you can click for more details. In my area, a few names are dominating the hexagons, which suggests there's some way to go before the app gets enough users to warrant the paid version, at least in those parts. But it's part of the game's appeal that you can see all of this before you go, so you can think about what you're aiming for. This makes it not only a workout inducer, but also a good strategic challenge.

Getting started is simple – just tap start and go. If you consult the map while transferring, you can actually target specific hexes. If anything, it encourages you to slow down a bit and have fun running around the side streets and capturing extra pieces that aren't too far off your route but require a little excursion. Some, of course, may already be the firmly established territory of their local rivals, so one visit won't cut it, but it's easy to just tap a hex and see who owns it now and how many visits they've made. Green is your territory, blues and purples are your rivals, yellow means you're tied for control of that hex with the same number of visits as another user, and gray means no one has visited that hex yet. However, ecu would say that none of this is entirely clear at first, so a good key or notes on color coding up front would be helpful.

Stride is designed – as the name suggests – for on-foot activities, so you can't sneak up on your bike or into your car and sweep. However – and this is a nice inclusive feature – it does have a wheelchair user option. The map is shared with local racers - there's no private run option as the game just wouldn't work that way - so there's always someone to play or plot devilishly. The more people you have using it locally, the more competitive the gameplay will be, but it's still very rewarding to pick up unclaimed parts too.

But this also raises one of the problems with the game – if you compete with local hikers or runners, they can obviously see your routes. It would be nice if there was a way to add a geoblocking feature to set a radius around your house (like you can for example in Strava) for those who are concerned about privacy. If this aspect is well flagged at the registration stage, you can also choose a fake name and an anonymous profile picture.

Stride can be integrated with your Garmin account as well as Apple Well being. However, I found importing activities from these connected apps to be quite abnormal and inconsistent, and the game is best played using the app itself on your phone.

screenshot of Stride - one of the best running apps

(Image credit: Guia do Futuro/Tom)

Stride app review: Smartwatch apps

Stride has an Apple Watch app, but I confess I've never been able to get it to work. It probably doesn't help that "Stride" is a pretty common name for exercise classes and apps, so searching for "stride" and "apple watch" for help isn't very helpful. Again, it looks like this is an early iteration that needs bugs and bugs ironed out before it's useful. Although, to be honest, given the size of the Apple Watch's screen, it's also hard to see how squinting at tiny hexagons on your map would be very useful. This is really a “phone is best” app.

With Stride, you can play as a lone wolf or join a gang or alliance. For that, you need an alliance code - but it's not clear how you get one of those or from whom, unless you already have a current life friend playing. You can, however, create one of your own, and then lure your own friends into the game. And it doesn't have to be competitive with your teammates - teaming up would be great if there are a lot of players in your area, because you can really strategize to capture territory together in a multipronged attack on your rival's hexes.

Stride app review: Verdict

I really love the idea of Stride, and the way it rewards consistency and strategy over speed. It got me thinking a lot more about the routes I take – simple exits and backtracks are a waste of using Stride when the loops are more profitable. I also like the fact that speed is totally irrelevant to how good you can be at the game.

But the reality is that the game still seems to be in a relatively early stage and needs more users (at least in my area) and more development and updates. Right now it's extremely promising - but it's not worth the rather high subscription fee.

While it's completely different from most popular running apps, there are gameplay elements that work better with others – for example, Strava's Native Legend offers a reward for visiting a certain segment or stretch of road more often, regardless of pace.

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