Choisissez votre pays et votre langue
ALPINE QUEST
Alpinequest is Iphigénie's cousin (and not Alpine Mag's!), except that it's available worldwide. When asked why Alpinequest, the adventurer's answer is straightforward: "to have topographic maps with GPS tracking even in the jungle." It couldn't be clearer: Alpinequest is there above all to get you out of the mess you've got yourself into, provided you've recorded the maps beforehand (as with all mapping applications, by the way).
The best thing about Alpinequest is, of course, the real-time display of your position on the map. We're delighted with this app, which works just as well in the desert as in the remote valleys of the Écrins, as we tested last winter!
To benefit from the best topographical maps, in addition to owning an Android device, you'll need to purchase the paid version of the application: AlpineQuest GPS Hiking, available for €7.99.
➕ Nice price for world maps.
➖ Relative inaccuracy of some OpenStreetMap maps (place names, for example).
CLIMBING AWAY
Climbing away is a mine of information for the hardcore climber. Whatever type of cliff or level you're looking for, this app is perfect for finding inspiration when you're out and about.
With almost 7,000 climbing sites referenced worldwide, the free version remains an easy and effective tool for discovering new spots, even if some countries are better supplied with information than others. Each virtual topo is accompanied by a reference to the local paper topo, for those who wish to go further in their knowledge of the spot, or for greater reading comfort. It should be noted that some topos can be purchased directly in digital version via the application.
The descriptions are well-filled, and the many photos and diagrams give you a good idea of the spot, without breaking the bank if you're just passing through. And, of course, it's all available offline. A must for climbing enthusiasts who'll have to get out of the gyms this year!
➕The compilation concept.
➖ Not always up to date.
FATMAP
While FATMAP started out by making a big splash with skiers and freeriders, this is no longer its sole target. In this case, the 3D map, available both online and offline, and the modeling of routes on the map, is FATMAP's ultimate tool for finding the right route. When you select a route, a menu appears with a difficulty scale (basic but indicative: easy, difficult, very difficult, extreme). You can also find out how steep the slopes are.
With FATMAP, you can plan all your outdoor adventures, track your routes and navigate on the go. Developed by local experts, the free version of the app lets you create and download itineraries, save your trips in organized guides, connect with services like Strava and explore the global library of highly detailed itineraries for over 20 activities.
With the premium version of FATMAP Explore (paid), you get more tools, such as topographic maps for different countries (France, UK, USA, Switzerland and more), live info, snow levels, personalized tools and more, so you can fully understand the terrain and make the best decisions. Explore also offers unlimited offline map downloads, so you don't need an Internet connection, and you can save your battery by using your app in airplane mode. The annual subscription costs €29.99. Check out their website.
➕Precise 3D maps and detailed itineraries.
➖ RAS.
Thanks to our partnership with FATMAP, get a 20% discount on FATMAP EXPLORE (€23.99 instead of €29.99).
IPHIGENIA
The cartographic tool par excellence, used by more and more mountaineers, both hikers and mountaineers. Why this craze? Quite simply because the application boasts the largest stock of base maps in France (and beyond).
The downside of this extensive range is that it's hard to know which way to turn when you first get to grips with it. An added bonus for winter hikers is the map of slopes above 30 degrees, which is highly effective for anticipating potential avalanche zones. In addition to detailed maps, the application offers real-time geolocation. It's impossible to get lost, unless you've run out of battery... Some people are wary of this tool, which is so practical that we'll soon forget how to find our way around on a "real" map...
The app is free to download and remains in unlimited version for 7 days. After this period, the topographic base maps (among others) are unavailable, unless you take out a subscription. This costs €14.99 per year for France, and recently, €39.99 with the SwissTopo map subscription, which is still cheaper than buying paper maps. Once a map has been consulted, it remains available in an offline version: no need to download the background map yourself, making it all the more convenient to use!
➕Any map displayed is automatically stored in the smartphone so that it can be seen even offline (with the annual subscription).
➖ Not thought for sharing.
RUN-MOTION
RunMotion Coach is a digital coaching application designed to help runners and trail runners achieve their goals.
There's a training plan tailored to each individual and a digital coach to provide advice and motivation. You can even choose your coach's temperament: positive, authoritarian or philosophical.
More than 85,000 runners use RunMotion Coach to prepare their running goals, and 88% of them succeed!
Based in the Alps, RunMotion has won several innovation awards (InoSport, Geofab,...) and relies on the work of coaches, top athletes and scientists.
➕ Eat local with this app made in the Alps!
➖ The addictive side of training!
METEOBLUE
One of Meteo Blue's greatest assets is its multi-model forecast visualization. Whether it's for 5, 7 or 14 days, the application (like the website) records and projects forecasts from several national and international weather models (based on different algorithms), to give you a clearer idea of the forecasts and their possible margin of error.
A comprehensive tool, Météo Blue features a history+ function to display the weather history of the last few days and weeks, and a where2go function to find the only sunny spot in a chosen radius and thus have a chance of getting through the raindrops.
In short, an application so complete that the uninitiated user will probably only use a small percentage of its possibilities.
➕The reliability and comparability of weather models.
➖ The data avalanche!
METEOCIEL
Known for being used by farmers, Meteociel is first and foremost a website with a design that is, shall we say, a little dated. But the app is much more modern. Let's face it: Meteociel is for France only. But for anyone who needs to know the weather forecast for France, the Alps or the coast, the Meteociel app has earned itself quite a reputation. Meteociel alerts you to temperature, pressure, humidity, expected rainfall, wind and thunderstorms. It's a bit like RainToday, but much more comprehensive.
Meteociel's strength lies in its ability to provide weather information for the uninitiated, but to go into the analysis of the various models for those who really want to delve into the subject... and make their own forecasts. Many models are available, and you can literally get lost in the sheer quantity of data on offer. In short, for outdoor enthusiasts who want reliable French weather, this is a really serious app.
➕ The reliability of forecasts for France.
➖The (excessive) amount of data.
NAVIONICS BOATING
It's hard to sum up an app as comprehensive as Navionics' Boating Mer et Lacs. If you're - from time to time - passionate about the coastline, the sea, whether it's paddling, surfing, canoeing, kiting, fishing or simply sailing, this app presents the best nautical charts available.
It's THE GPS on the water, with options that would make an early 20th-century sailor dream: like SonarChart shading, a function that presents a detailed rendering of the seabed and lake bottom in different shades of blue, allowing you to better pinpoint your surroundings.
Without going into detail, the app also offers advanced functions such as Autorouting Dock-to-dock for those who want to start navigating, with route suggestions based on carto data. Free trial of the app, followed by an annual subscription, which varies according to the map (Central and West Europe, €30.99/year; complete Mediterranean €19.99/year).
➕ The quality and reliability of nautical charts.
➖ Quite a lot of info in English - it'll be a good opportunity to revise!
PEAKFINDER
Attention, relaxation app! PeakFinder is the app that will make you as good as the local guidebook when it comes to knowing summits, whether you're at Everest base camp or at the top of the Aiguille du Midi cable car.
PeakFinder "knows" over 650,000 peaks: just point your smartphone at a panorama and the app recognizes the peaks, and names them. Magic, isn't it? And all the more so, since the app stores its repertoire of peaks as well as a digital model of the terrain, you don't need to be on 4G for it to work.
It is also possible to take a panoramic photo and export it with the names of the mountains on it. Viewranger's Skyline tool offers the same service.
➕The magical side of the app.
➖ Not essential, but that's its charm!
MOON PHASES
Hold the moon in your hand with this stunning 3D simulation of lunar phases and real-time data updates. Turn the moon backwards and forwards through its phases.
The application displays all the necessary information: moonrise and moonset, illumination level, name of current phase, zodiac sign, distance and age.
There's also a monthly calendar where you can see how the moon changes each month, and what the upcoming lunar phases will be. All in a pleasant interface. Knowing more about our satellite is a staple for any lover of nights out.
➕ NASA images created to show crater shadows.
➖ User friendly except for the privacy policy, so keep an eye on it.
RELIVE
Go out, track your activity, take photos... and that's all there is to it: Relive lets you create 3D videos to sublimate your activity on video, review your itinerary in 3D including your photos, and of course, share it all on social networks. In short, relive the best of your outing.
There's no limit to what you can do: just launch the GPS tractor and the Relive app does the rest, whether you're cycling, hiking or ski touring. Note that the app also works with data collected by the following applications: Suunto, Garmin Connect, Endomondo, Polar, Apple Health, and MapMyHike or MapMyRun.
The premium version of the app, Relive Club, lets you adjust video speed, import old activities and turn them into videos, add music, add more photos (up to 50) or create 3D videos from activities over 12 hours long. In short, even in its free version, Relive is a great app for capturing a great outing on your watch or smartphone, and sharing it afterwards.
➕ The intuitive side of the app.
The ability to add friends who participated in your video release.
➖ Relive no longer integrates Strava into third-party apps managed by it for the time being (this was the case until last July).
SPOTYRIDE
Spotyride is the application that brings together more than 1,500 water sports spots worldwide, geolocated on a single map. Whether you're a fan of surfing or wakeboarding, you'll find all the information you need on this app, as well as information on associations and other organizations working on lakes and offering their services.
Even if the tool is still perfectible, Spotyride remains a great way for riders to find a spot nearby or on the planet in just 3 clicks.
➕ Geolocation of nautical spots.
➖ The card perfectible and/or slow to load.
SPORTIHOME
The pitch? In three words: Sportihome is the 1st spot guide and accommodation booking site for outdoor enthusiasts. Whether you're looking for accommodation in the mountains, near a cliff, a mountain bike spot or in the heart of the Alps. Sportihome brings together outdoor spots identified as such by the community and offers from professionals and private individuals who provide rental accommodation close to these spots.
But it's not just about sorting accommodation: Sportihome also offers the possibility of selecting accommodation "at the foot of the slopes", "slopes within walking distance" (nuance!) or "gondolas within walking distance", for example. Sportihome sets itself apart by offering rentals with outdoor equipment provided by guests: mountain bikes, snowshoes, SUPs, canoes... etc.
Finally, the app offers a Stay Share Play label, with three levels of service: Stay for accommodation only, Share for tips and information on the outdoor activities you'd like to enjoy, and Play for sharing sports outings with your hosts or guests. In short, it's fresh, and no doubt in vogue next summer with the Franco-French refocusing of vacations...
➕ Friendly spirit for a Made in France hosting platform.
➖ It still lacks spots.
STAR WALK 2 FREE
Who hasn't dreamed of spending a dream bivouac under the Milky Way? Sleeping under the stars means admiring the stars before sleeping! And what's the name of that beautiful constellation right above your tent? The geolocation app will tell you. Just point your smartphone at the sky, and miraculously, you'll know how to name the stars. Starwalk does all this, and more. For example, you'll be able to watch a 3D model of breathtaking celestial bodies (as an integrated purchase), the same ones that are right in front of your eyes a few thousand light-years away... A great way to spend an evening outdoors this summer. We love it!
➕ The app's visual effects, like the time machine!
➖ Advertising, unless you invest in the full version.
STRAVA
A must-have for (almost) all runners and (all) cyclists, this California-based app has built up a huge community. Downloading Strava is a bit like joining a club where everyone shares the same passion: effort. In fact, Strava means "to strive to do something relentlessly" in Swedish.
An app for those who like to shoot the breeze on roads and trails. Highly performance-oriented, the Strava system operates as a network between its members, who congratulate each other with Kudos, the equivalent of Facebook's blue thumbs. A true social network for sportsmen and women, Strava is super-efficient for recording your GPS tracks. On the other hand, Strava's rather simple map backgrounds make it particularly useful on well-defined trails and tracks. Off-road enthusiasts and wild boar racers beware!
In the mountains, Strava is aimed more at hikers/trailers/summer cyclists. The application, linked to a website where you can also consult your profile and performances, is free to use. Enthusiasts will be tempted by paid extensions to enable Strava to analyze your performance with a view to pushing back your limits, or to use the Beacon function to share your position with friends and family when you're out training on your own. This premium offer, called Strava Summit, costs €5 per month.
➕ We like to shoot the breeze on our favorite segment, aka our favorite dry climb.
➖ We don't like the fact that we're 247th this year in the same segment.
SUN SURVEYOR LITE
Here's an app that looks technical, but turns out to be super-useful! Sun Surveyor Lite lets you visualize the position and times of sunrise and sunset, as well as its trajectory with a 3D compass; Sun Surveyor Lite is useful for location scouting in photography and video: if you want to know when to shoot that great sequence on a beach in Corsica or when the sun will set over the Aiguilles de Bavella, Sun Surveyor will tell you! But it can be useful beyond the image: you want to know if that bivouac on that slope will be sunny in the morning? Sun Surveyor gives you the answer.
Better still, the Time Cursor function lets you view events over the course of a day, or a year to see days getting longer and shorter, as well as changes in the sun's trajectory.
An app for the outdoor geek or control freak photographer, but one that can also come in handy for the more creative among you. The premium version (€8.49) features augmented reality with the camera - sun and moon as they pass behind a building, for example - and offline use of the app.
➕ The geeky outdoor app for shooting sunrises and sunsets.
➖ The sometimes difficult calibration of the compass.
VIEWRANGER
Rather easy to access, Viewranger is one of those polymorphous applications, halfway between a mapping tool and an exploration aid. In several clearly defined steps, Viewranger lets you select an existing route according to activity, distance and desired difficulty. In this tab, it is also possible to find and download routes shared by other users. Once downloaded, the route appears on the map. This app is also one of the few (the only one?) to allow you to import a route created at home, from a base map on your computer.
Another useful feature is the two-click option to start recording your route, which will be saved and plotted on the map as you go along. Once you've completed your run or hike, press "stop" to stop tracking and retrieve all your statistics (distance, altitude difference, speed, etc.), also available in graph form. The Premium version offers a number of additional tools, including the Buddy Beacon, an app function that lets you privately share your current position with family and friends.
In addition, you'll have the Skyline function, which uses the phone's camera to identify landscape features, peaks or villages, up to more than 30 km away. Viewranger Premium (€4.99) also includes 3D route overviews. Viewranger offers a range of packages that add country-specific map subscriptions to the Premium tools: France, Great Britain, USA, New Zealand, Canada, Netherlands, Belgium, with an annual subscription of €19.99 for mapping a country like France, for example. Once you've subscribed, you'll be able to consult unlimited "national" maps in offline mode, accessible on smartphones, tablets and smartwatches.
➕ Abundant cartography at different budget levels.
Easy export of GPS tracks to your computer.
➖ Rando-oriented "only".
VISO RANDO, FOR YOUR HIKES IN FRANCE
Unlike the other mapping apps presented here, VisoRando doesn't present the map first. And with good reason: the aim of this app is to help you search and find hiking itineraries, rather than to provide a multitude of background maps.
Conceived as a true discovery guide, VisoRando's watchword is to help you discover the world and its paths. Maps are of course available and can be downloaded from the app, once the itinerary has been chosen from the menu. The menu offers a multitude of itineraries based on criteria such as location, mode of travel (on foot, skis, horseback, bike, snowshoes), desired length of hike and difficulty.
The subscription, via the application, provides unlimited access to IGN maps for France for the chosen duration (3 months or 1 year). It also allows you to use the application with the maps in offline mode, as the OpenStreetMap map base is free worldwide. The price is €11.99 for 3 months and €18.99 for 1 year.
➕ The library of 16,000 hikes in France (and many more elsewhere).
➖ Continued use of GPS in the background, which, like other apps, reduces battery life.
WHYMPR
Whympr (pronounced Whymper, after an English mountaineer of the Golden Age) is an information hub for mountain enthusiasts, from hiking to mountaineering, ski touring and climbing. Whympr clearly has a community vocation, with the aim of helping you prepare your outings, before sharing them with as many people as possible.
The basic app is free and provides access to over 240,000 route descriptions. The idea behind the app is to bring together and harmonize several online sources of information, such as the Camptocamp community topos site. Whympr is intended to be the Swiss Army knife for mountaineers looking for the maximum amount of information on a particular route or sector. The idea, of course, is to share your information when you return from an outing.
Finally, you can save your outings to memory. The paid premium version offers offline access, summit weather, 3D mapping and filtering. In addition, you can purchase maps such as the IGN in France and professional topos, individually or in packs.
➕ A neat, intuitive design and interface, unique for mountaineers.
➖ Topos a bit cluttered at times, you have to be precise in what you're looking for.
WINDGURU LITE
Windguru works in a similar way to windguru.cz, retaining only the essential information: wind forecasts, live reports and wind maps. For kite enthusiasts, windguru is a must.
Note that windguru web version is in fact a PWA (progressive web app), i.e. an app that installs on your smartphone without going through a store: we advise all fans to prefer this version of windguru to the windguru Lite app in the Google Play Store.
➕ Forecast reliability.
➖ We like the Lite version less than the original.
