Righto
Here's my advice: Get a dog. A real one, not a tamagochi. And take it for a two hours walk every morning. Good for you, good for the dog. No need for an electronic GPS surveillance gadget sponsored by Big Brother or the National Socialists of America (NSA).
A dog is for those who can afford to live somewhere that allows dogs, and can afford a dog, and does not work such long hours that owning a dog would be basically torturing an innocent animal. Turns out that, in my neighborhood, an apartment that allows dogs would cost an extra amount about two orders of magnitude larger than all the gadgetry, and certainly more than I can currently afford. I probably shouldn't be as annoyed at you for saying that as I am, since you had no idea you were pushing my buttons, but dammit, if you don't know that owning a pet is a privilege that cannot be enjoyed by a very large proportion of the US, then you are living in a damn bubble. And it's a privilege that I would very, very much like to have. So thank you for the advice.
Plus... a TWO HOUR WALK every MORNING? So, for the average person, let's see: get up, shower and have breakfast and such (45 minutes if you are REALLY fast), two hour dog walk, commute to work (average of 35 to 45 minutes), and be at work before 9. That means… get up between 5:15 and 5:30 AM? Then you get home at, say, 6:30, and need to be in bed by 9:30? (Oh, and don't forget the minimum half-hour dog walk in the evening, unless you're a pretty awful dog-owner or have a really nice large fenced-in yard.)
It must be nice being a gentleman of leisure, but alas, I could not even begin to describe myself that way.
As for the privacy thing: assuming you carry a phone, I can list you off many of the companies that already know where you are at all times, including probably several that you don't even know about. If you drive a car and ever cross a toll bridge, I can list at least two that probably have a pretty good idea of your movements. And the exercise apps I use do not report my location data back to their servers unless I ask them to. (No, I haven't verified this myself, although I could easily do so, given that I have an iPhone dev subscription and know how to use ssh and tcpdump/netstat.)
Given that, my privacy concerns regarding exercise apps are markedly less than those that I have regarding, say, Apple and AT&T. Among others.
