Kinetic vs Arc Timeline: An Honest Comparison

Choose Arc Timeline if you want the most detailed location history you can get on an iPhone. Choose Kinetic if you want your whole day (steps, places, walks, drives, workouts and sleep) logged automatically in one simple timeline. Both skip the account and keep your data on your phone. They're built for slightly different people.

Full disclosure: we make Kinetic. We've tried to be fair. Every Arc fact below comes from Arc's own App Store listing, checked in October 2026 (App Store). Apps change fast, so check the listing before you decide.

Which should you choose, Kinetic or Arc Timeline?

Quick guide:

• Pick Arc if you're a location-history enthusiast who wants to correct every segment, export GPX, ask questions like "hours of cycling per week this month", and keep your history for decades.
• Pick Kinetic if you want a calm daily overview of how much you moved, where you went and how you slept, using the health data your iPhone and Apple Watch already collect.
• Coming from Google Timeline? Either works. Our Google Timeline alternative guide covers saving your old data first.

How do Kinetic and Arc compare at a glance?

Arc details: App Store listing and release notes, checked October 2026. Kinetic details: kinetic.site and our privacy policy.

What is Arc Timeline best at?

Arc is the specialist. If location history is your hobby, it's hard to beat:

• Activity detection. It distinguishes 20+ ways of moving, from walking to trains, buses and planes, and its learning engine adapts to you over time (App Store).
• Data portability. JSON and GPX export, scheduled automatic exports to iCloud Drive, and GPX import for old routes (release notes).
• Power-user search. Recent versions answer questions like "longest trips this year" or "hours of cycling per week this month", and add Shortcuts actions such as "When Was I Last At" (release notes).
• A long track record. Arc's developer has been at this for years, and some App Store reviewers say they've used Arc for over a decade (App Store reviews).

Honest caveats from the same listing: Arc Timeline 4 is a fairly new rebuild. It shows 3.9 stars from a small number of ratings, and some long-time users reported trouble migrating from the older app, which the developer responded to (App Store). Frequent updates since then have targeted migration and reliability.

What is Kinetic best at?

Kinetic answers a broader question: how did my day actually go?

• One timeline for the whole day. Steps, places, walks, drives, rides, workouts and sleep, shown as a timeline with summary bubbles. You don't start or stop anything.
• Built on Apple Health. Kinetic reads sleep, workouts and heart rate from Apple Health (read-only; it never writes to Health). So it works with what your iPhone and Apple Watch already collect.
• Simple by design. Less tinkering, more "glance and go." That's a strength if you want a habit, and a weakness if you want to edit every GPS segment.
• Battery manners. Background location pauses when you settle somewhere and switches off in Low Power Mode.

Where Kinetic is behind, being honest: it's brand new and has no track record yet. It also won't match Arc's depth for location nerds: fewer activity types, and none of Arc's years of refinement. And Kinetic has no export and no search: you can't save your history as a file, and you can't search past days. If either matters to you, Arc wins outright.

How do they compare on privacy?

They're closer than marketing usually admits, and both are a big step up from ad-funded trackers. (We explained what changed in automatic trackers and why.)

• Neither needs an account.
• Both store data on your device with optional or default backup to your own iCloud.
• Arc's privacy label lists purchases, identifiers and diagnostics as data not linked to you (App Store).
• Kinetic: we never see your health or location data. There are no ads, and we'll never sell your data. Apple Maps receives location to draw maps and look up place names. Details are in our privacy policy.

Want to check for yourself? Here's how to check what any app collects.

How much do Kinetic and Arc cost?

Prices in USD from the App Store, checked October 2026. They may differ by country and change over time. Arc's listing doesn't state the trial length.

If you plan to use an app for 5+ years, Arc's lifetime option could work out cheaper than any subscription. That's worth doing the math on.

Can you use both?

Yes. They don't conflict. Some people may want Arc's deep location archive alongside Kinetic's daily activity view. Expect a bit more battery use with two background location apps.

What's the verdict?

• Location-history power user: Arc Timeline.
• "Just show me my day" (activity, places and sleep together): Kinetic.
• Budget-minded: Kinetic's first year costs nothing; Arc's lifetime option is the long-term play.
• Privacy: both are strong. Read each privacy label and policy rather than taking anyone's word for it, ours included.

Kinetic arrives on the App Store Nov 3, with your first year free.

Sources

• Arc Timeline 4, App Store listing, release notes, in-app purchase prices and privacy label (checked October 2026): https://apps.apple.com/us/app/arc-timeline-4/id6740688708
• Arc Timeline terms (linked from the listing): https://www.bigpaua.com/arcapp/terms
• Kinetic privacy policy: https://kinetic.site/privacy