I read a great article on Scott Jurek by Gizmodo lately with the crux being the smartphone -iPhone in this case - being the 'ultimate tool'. Part about smartphones below:
Full article here
Do you agree? Personally, I can't imagine running without my phone now.
Did you bring a phone with you?
I did. I was using an iPhone 6, and it was my camera, it was my communication device. It seems weird, if you’d have asked me 15 years ago if I’d bring a phone on a run I’d be like, heck no, I’d never do that. But it does anything, and it allowed me to pull up the map the GPS was sending out. The phone is the ultimate tool. It became my music player, and I’d have it playing from the speaker, not headphones, so I could hear rattlesnakes rattling or bears crawling through the woods. I would try to do a few updates on social media with it while I was on the mountain— I actually had better service than my wife, who was on dirt roads or in small towns, because I’d be on a mountain ridge getting a cell signal.
The technology can really enhance the outdoor experience, you just want to make sure you use it in a fashion that doesn’t disconnect you from the total experience.
Full article here
Do you agree? Personally, I can't imagine running without my phone now.