Moves app (see article, another) was the first true automatic activity tracker for the smartphone. It was launched in 2013 and run until late 2018, when Facebook (which had acquired Moves in 2014) closed it. Being one of the founders of Moves, it was a priority for me to implement the importing of Moves data to the Time Atlas app. Before it was closed, it was possibly to export your data. Hope you did it (look for file “moves_export.zip” in your archives)! It is really interesting to look at your own data after all those years.
Time Atlas also adds some crucial functionality that Moves lacked. For example, you can now add notes to your events, see photos of your place visits or movements, and explore your data in map. For example, here is high level map of a Coast-to-coast roadtrip I did with my wife, dad and brother back in 2013:
And of course, now I can go to see any of the details by zooming on the map or looking through my timeline. And I really enjoy adding notes to the photos and events, as I still can remember them quite vividly. It is a bit of an eerie feeling to see your life in so close detail after over 10 years.
Of course, most of my timeline is just my daily life, and nothing that special. But I can imagine it will be fun to show it to my children when they grow older to see how my life was when I was working in London or Silicon Valley, in addition to of course the fun outings and trips we did.
It is striking to also see how much the phone camera quality has improved since those days. Especially pictures in dark are often really poor quality.
Last, it is also fun to pick up some funny moments from one’s life and write notes about them!
To import your data from Moves, open the Time Atlas app, go to Settings (top right button), and you will find the Moves import. Depending on the size of your data, it can take a few minutes to import.
For those looking for a replacement of the Moves app, you have found it !
