Rolling out now on iPhone, Apple Watch, Android and Wear OS. Update from the App Store or Google Play to get it.
HiiKER now has a proper hiking compass: tap your coordinates and you get your position in every format, a what3words address, and which way to turn for a bearing you’ve set. You can also import any route file in one go, see heart rate zones, pace and steps on your recordings, and watch your flyover stop at the places you took photos.
🧭 A hiking compass, one tap from the map
Tap the coordinates on the bar across the top of the map and HiiKER opens a full-screen compass. A live heading turns with your phone. Underneath it is everything you’d want to read out to someone, or write down, about where you’re standing.
- Your position in every format: decimal degrees, degrees-minutes-seconds and UTM, plus your national grid (OS® grid references in Britain, the Irish Grid in Ireland). Tap any of them to copy it
- A what3words address for the 3-metre square you’re standing in. It’s the quickest way to tell mountain rescue exactly where you are
- Walk on a bearing. Long-press anywhere on the map and choose “Set compass bearing”, and the compass marks that direction on its ring. It tells you how far to turn left or right, and says “On course” when you’re pointing the right way
- Share your location: all of it in one message, with a link that opens on a map
📂 Import GPX, KML, FIT and more, several files at once
Bringing routes in from another app used to mean one GPX at a time, from a few different places in the app. Now there’s one Import files screen, and it takes GPX, KML, KMZ, GeoJSON, FIT and TCX files, or a whole ZIP of them.
- Pick one file or a whole batch. Each one shows on a map before anything is saved
- It knows what each file is. A track with times becomes a recording, a route becomes a planned hike, and a set of points becomes your waypoints. You can change any of them before you import
- Waypoint files come in as a group, or as a planned hike that joins the points up
- Find it behind the new Import files button at the top of the Home screen, as well as in your lists and the map options
🔗 You can also merge recordings. Walked a route in pieces, or paused and restarted by mistake? Pick up to five of your recordings and HiiKER joins them into one walk, in time order. You can send the originals to the bin while you’re at it.
❤️ Heart rate zones, pace and steps on every recording
Last update brought your average, max and min heart rate home from your watch. Now the recording overview draws the whole walk: heart rate, pace and step graphs, and how long you spent in each heart rate zone. The stats cards swipe, so the map stays in view while you look through them.
📸 Photo stops in your 3D flyover
Your recording’s flyover now pauses where you took photos. It shows each photo on the map, then flies on. Photos taken close together are grouped into one stop, as a short slideshow. Free accounts get up to 10 photos in a flyover and PRO up to 100, and PRO+ members can switch photos off when they share.
A photo needs its location to find its place on the route. HiiKER now keeps the time and place a photo was taken when you add it, so new photos will slot straight in.
💾 Download every hike in an area
Going somewhere new and not sure which walk you’ll do? Explore has a Download button now. Frame the area on the map and HiiKER downloads up to 50 of its hikes as one list, ready for when the signal drops.
- Tap a cluster on the Explore map and its hikes appear as cards you can swipe through, with each one’s route highlighted on the map
- Failed downloads tell you why, with a Retry button on each one and Retry all at the top
- Downloading a big list no longer repeats the same message for every hike in it
⌚ Compass mode on your watch
On Apple Watch and Wear OS, tap the location button on the map once to centre on yourself, and again to switch on compass mode. The map then turns with you, so what’s ahead on the map is what’s ahead of you on the hill. It updates about once a second to go easy on your battery.
- A small crosshair marks the centre of the map
- Tap an offline download on your watch and the map opens on that area, in the map style you downloaded
✨ Also in this update
- “On this map”: the Maps button now shows which points of interest, overlays and hikes you have switched on, and clears them in two taps, with Undo
- Plan to opens the planner on your destination and asks where you’re starting from
- Completed hikes are a list now, beside Favourites in your hike lists
- Share a hike trailer from the hike’s own share screen. Flyovers and trailers you share carry a link that opens for whoever you send them to, and WhatsApp gets the video itself
- Turn-by-turn asks where you’re heading when a route starts and finishes in the same place, and says “metres” and “feet” in full
- Auto-align horizon is a simple on/off in the Peak Viewer‘s options
- Edit hike details saves straight away, photos included
- Better battery life while recording, from a calmer map on the recording screen
- 🤖 Search results show each hike’s elevation gain and estimated time
- 🤖 Exporting a GPX opens the share sheet, so you can send the file straight on
As always, this update is shaped by your feedback, so keep it coming. Happy hiking! ⛰️