It's of absolutely no use to me whatsoever BWW I just walk and be damned
A sentiment I have every sympathy with, though would, "I just walk and be blessed
", have a slightly more 'Christian' feeling. Being an ex farmer I suppose area does have more meaning to me, and the time/distance fixation that is sadly too prevalent with some, does not help in defining quality. I think I was fortunate to find the closure button in MM that gives a area value, because it has given me a good tool in adding quantifiable content in assessing a route.
The OP asks about apps and software and I hope I do not malign him, but I suspect it is primarily for navigation. Personally I have found online mapping and other resources invaluable for post-walk debriefing;
when scheming and planning on dark, dreary evenings
again a well worth while occupation.
If a few of those, who send routes to Country Walking Magazine and such like did this perhaps there might be more interesting commentary on the this past time we all love.
I recall, sitting in a little country pub, with a group of agricultural contractors at the bar, they were noisy and quite obviously getting up the nose of a rather school marmish women accompanied by a harried and subservient male, whose henpecked demeanor suggested that the matrimonial bond was his reason for being in her company. The notebooks and maps suggested compiling a route, which was confirmed when a month or so later a route in that sad before mentioned publication, appeared for that area authored by a female.
The sorry thing about this whole occasion, was that the conversation between the contractors at the bar though noisy, jocular and robust, had content in it, which certainly made me [censored] up my ears, it lead me to explore an area later that transformed my understanding of the terrain in that area.
The ladies route (if she can be called that for reducing one male to such a poor cringing specimen) was possible the plainest, bland circuit of that area that could have been chosen.
Here bing have put a tool in a piece of free software that might just help visitors to the countryside to understand the terrain that they are walking in, yes I use it to measure areas of so called privacy but the measurement aspect, shade, frost cover and whatever fresh new minds might bring to our understanding to walking may wake up more to the assets within our countryside.
P.S. For censored read a verb which tells what Snow White did to her finger, which rendered her unconscious only to recover, when she was being sexually harassed by some rich aristo.