‘Trail Triage’

The long running trail running podcast ‘Trail Runner Nation’ launches an app for iOS and Android:

Trail running continues to grow at an annual double-digit pace, bringing enthusiasts from a wide variety of sports and interests. To welcome everyone in true trail runner ethos, and ensure they achieve whatever aspirations they seek, safely, we’ve built a simple, FREE, mobile app.

I downloaded the app and took it for a spin, and while I’m clearly not the target demographic here – this app is meant for new-comers to the sport – I don’t quite understand what the app is meant to be or do.

On first launch you gotta submit your email address – which is a clever way of harvesting emails – but then you’re presented with a dozen+ buttons of common ailment “chafing, bleeding, muscle cramps” etc, and each button leads to a single page with a summary of symptoms, a single sentence of solutions and what to avoid. That’s it. That’s the whole app. It’s like a blog post wrapped into an app form. Yes, the app has the advantage that this information is available offline, like in the backcountry away from cell coverage, but to go through all the hassle to get an app into the Apple App Store (Android is coming), for just over a dozen paragraphs of texts feels a bit… overkill? It’s free, so I don’t want to look the gift horse in the mouth, but I am reading the marketing page for it and I am trying to figure out if there’s more coming and this is just the beta launch or if I am missing something here?