Smartphone App Review: Snocru

I was skiing at Snowbird this past weekend with my oldest son and he showed me a really fun smartphone application called Snocru. I have never really thought there was much of a use for an app while skiing as the mere act of using a smartphone means you have to pull off your glove and your fingers get cold. My son proved me wrong with this one.

We got to the top of the chair where my son quickly removed his phone, took off his glove, started the app, replaced his glove, and we started skiing. We got to the bottom of the run, got on another chair and my son pulled out his phone. It had mapped our run an interactive trail map. It also told him his top speed. A typical GPS app can do that and so I wasn't too impressed. Then my son's phone started buzzing.

Snocru is another one of those social media apps that allow you to interact with other skiers at the same area. People that we didn't know saw that our top speed was just a hair under 60 miles per hour (actually 59.6). It triggered some thresholds on their phones and my son received a number of invitations to ski with others on the hill. If my son was skiing alone, he could have accepted the invitations and been kept from having to ski all by himself. Sometimes I like to ski alone but it is generally more fun to ski with others and Snocru is great for introducing you to new skiers of your same ability.

Now for the downside. GPS functions are required to plot your course on the mountain and they eat up a lot of your phone's battery. So this is one of those apps that will suck power from your phone at an alarming rate. I also find that a GPS is good at speed calculations on flat ground but are significantly off when going up and down hills. Do I believe we were skiing at 60 miles per hour? Not really as we weren't going that fast. At least it didn't seem like it. I could be wrong though.

Snocru is available for both Android and iPhones.