Strava has released two new product updates to its stated user base of around 90 million athletes. These are aimed at enabling more privacy and flexibility for users.
The company notes that athletes will have more control within the app for better customization/personalization and privacy.
Editing activities
This new feature release offers new map choices – Personalized Stat Maps – for subscribers only. Data-driven polylines can now be selected and previewed on the Save & Edit screens (e.g., heart rate, pace, elevation, etc).
- Elevation features were previously triggered by the use of hashtags like #elevationmap, but can now be previewed and selected in the app.
- ‘Featured Maps’ including the BLM map treatment and standard map are free for all athletes.
- Stats visibility is also a new free feature. Here, biometric data (calories, heart rate) + pace and power can be kept private.
- Another free feature is Private notes. This is an additional notes section that will only be seen by the uploading athlete, keeping self reflections separate from their public story. This was reportedly a popular request from athlete surveys.
Users can find the new features:
- On mobile in the top right corner when viewing activity.
- On the web via the pencil icon on the left side of screen when viewing activity.
Map visibility
In an additional update, athletes will be able to control the visibility of their map. Controls can be applied as default settings (to all activity uploads) or applied to individual activities – hiding up to 1 mile at either the start or end of the activity, or completely hiding the workout map altogether.
Athletes will have three ways in which they can hide their location in their privacy controls under ‘additional controls’ which will apply to all activities:
- Hide up to 1 mile (1600m) from the start/end at a specific location (current); hiding address applies to all activities past/future
- Hide up to 1 mile from the start/end no matter where they are (new); only applies to future uploads
- Hide map completely for all activities (new); only applies to future uploads. This will also be hidden from the Global Heatmap and will not be visible anywhere on Strava.
To give confidence that their choices have been implemented, athletes will be able to see what is hidden on their maps when viewing their own activities.
Parts of the activity that are shown to just the user (e.g. start and end points) will be grey and what is shown to others will be orange.
