Six Years Perfecting Maps on WatchOS

(david-smith.org)

68 points | by valzevul 2 hours ago ago

11 comments

  • thrownawaysz an hour ago

    The fact that there is no 1st party Apple made hiking and topography map on the Apple Watch is such a failure, not even on the most expensive “made for explorers” Watch Ultra. And things like gpx import is just a mere dream

    It’s a lifestyle device after all but still

  • apt-apt-apt-apt 36 minutes ago

    For others curious like I was, it seems he hired a cartographer to render essentially a set of huge, nice-looking, custom map images with details like hiking trails that Apple Maps doesn't have.

    So unlike Apple Maps, which is dynamically rendered, it basically shows image tiles. It allows for a nicer-looking, more detailed map, but affects things like needing separate downloads for different zoom levels, rotation, updatability.

    • dzogchen 10 minutes ago

      I think this may not even be possible because Apple does not give access to the Metal graphics API on Apple Watch to third-party developers.

  • arjie 6 minutes ago

    Apple Maps on WatchOS is pretty good but the usual routine is that I get on my bike with a route set and 3 minutes in the “are you working out?” screen takes over and I can’t see the maps without stopping to turn it off. Surely that screen should turn into a notification or silently record after some time without taking over the screen.

    I’m surprised to hear people at Apple work on this because surely they must encounter this issue.

    If this guys maps can somehow take the screen and hold it, I think he’s got a killer feature for me. Though I glanced at the App Store page and it wasn’t clear to me which features are subscription gated and which ones aren’t and I despise apps that won’t tell me till I’ve set everything up (it just feels so frustrating that it wasn’t clear ahead of time) so I’ll probably just endure and try to remember to start a workout manually so it won’t take over.

  • SpyCoder77 an hour ago

    As a pedometer++ user, it is amazing the attention to detail David has maintained over the years. The evolution is crazy.

    • Amorymeltzer 37 minutes ago

      He really is such a committed and dedicated developer. This here is of course a perfect example—"So… I commissioned a custom map" aka hiring a cartographer—but it was really cool how he blew up with Widgetsmith because he put in the effort with Watchsmith before, and was basically the world's expert on widgets? Couldn't happen to a better guy.

  • eckelhesten 42 minutes ago

    Let me edit this out, clearly it sounds worse in my own language than it does in English.

    • unpopularopp 36 minutes ago
    • apt-apt-apt-apt 30 minutes ago

      Let's start by banning words like 'pediatric' instead, which directly reference children and are thus more related to pedophiles. We can just call people 'doctor/dentist for small people'.

    • rogerrogerr 40 minutes ago

      We really can't afford to keep blacklisting words for reasons that have no basis in reality. We're gonna run out of words.

      (parent edited their comment - the suggestion was that "pedometer" is a bad name because of the first four letters being reminiscent of pedophiles and Epstein)

    • blairbeckwith 41 minutes ago

      I can’t believe you made me sign in just to downvote this.