Pedometer++ v5.0: A Passion for the Wilderness →
source: david-smith.orgDavid Smith:
On November 4th, 2021 I was up in the Scottish Highlands doing a backpacking trip. While looking for a spot to sit and eat my lunch I happened upon this spot (56.633N, 4.965W) in the Lairig Gartain valley. The calm, surpassing beauty of this scene left me with a burning desire to get out into wilderness more.
For that trip I was using the OSMaps app for my mapping, which is fine. It did the job alright, I didn’t get lost, but I found it incredibly awkward to use for the style of hiking I do and didn’t work at all on the Apple Watch which made it cumbersome to use.
If I was going to spend more and more time in the wilderness I needed to find a better solution. A solution that suited my needs and made it easier for me to get out and explore.
So I began working on a mapping app for the Apple Watch and iPhone. This started life as a new app, wholly focused on helping me while I hike. But very quickly it became clear that this would actually work really well as an extension to Pedometer++. Which was already focused around walking activities and had Apple Watch based workout tracking.
Over the last year and a half I’ve worked on this concept and in the process pushed the boundaries of what you can do on iOS and watchOS. I didn’t want a simple, static map I wanted a fully interactive, rich experience everywhere: on your Wrist, on your Lock screen, in your Dynamic Island, and on your iPhone.
The interactive map for watchOS, and the ability to have offline maps are the two features which make this an awesome update for me. Great work David! 🍻