Post #1795263

2026-04-29 19:51 UTC

As part of the launch of Pedometer++ v8 I&#39;m doing a series of Design Notes posts exploring the design decisions in the update. For the first one I&#39;m talking through more than 6 years of work trying to perfect mapping for watchOS. I&#39;ve tried loads of things over the years, both in terms of visual design and app architecture. Lots of design dead ends and false starts, but I&#39;ve arrived at a design which, after hundreds of miles of field testing, works and looks great. https://david-smith.org/blog/2026/04/29/maps-on-watchos/

Replies (6)

@_Davidsmith@mastodon.social 2026-04-29 20:26

Or if you don’t want to read the nearly 1500 words that watchOS maps history lesson turned into, you can just look at this wild timelapse of the journey.

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@GaryAsh@iosdev.space 2026-04-29 20:14

@_Davidsmith Love to not only see different people’s designs be to get insight on the options weighed along the way. Oh, and still miss the podcast

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@dom@iosdev.space 2026-04-30 13:19

@_Davidsmith As always, thanks for sharing! Your design notes are always an interesting read. You’ve done amazing work on Pedometer++ !

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@sinky@social.lol 2026-04-30 17:42

@_Davidsmith @ismh86 Hi David. Is it possible to share the app with my wife so she can use it too? Thank you

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@jayfm@mstdn.social 2026-05-03 06:32

@_Davidsmith thank you. Very inspiring for my own journey with watch apps!

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@_Pathuman@mastodon.social 2026-05-17 08:47

@_Davidsmith@mastodon.social This looks incredible! With the period of good weather and my ambitions to hike starting again, I start to miss this app and my Watch Ultra... I moved to Android last June to scratch the "other side" itch, but one of the issues I find is to find equal-quality apps on Android from developers that care as much as you do... Any plans to bring Pedometer++ to the Android world and maybe a Galaxy Watch Ultra? :D Keep doing what you do, you're really, really great at it!

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