Six years of iterating on a watchOS map app — without using MapKit

Indie developer David Smith documents his six-year effort to build wrist-based mapping into Pedometer++, culminating in version 8. The journey began with server-rendered map images on early watchOS, moved to a fully SwiftUI-native custom rendering engine in 2021 (chosen because SwiftUI is the only option for watchOS apps and widgets), and went through years of UI experiments balancing pannable maps against workout metrics on a one-handed, tiny screen.

The final design layers metrics over the top-left of a full-bleed map, with a tap entering a dedicated browse mode — a layout proposed by designer Rafa Conde after Smith hit a rut. To suit watchOS 26’s Liquid Glass aesthetic, he commissioned cartographer Andy Allen to produce a custom basemap with higher contrast and saturation, plus a true dark-mode variant tuned for arm’s-length legibility.

Smith deliberately avoided MapKit, which on watchOS is locked to dark mode, offers limited overlay and animation control, and has sparse trail/topographic coverage in many regions where his custom tiles render rich detail. The piece is a useful case study in platform-constrained product design and in when rolling your own beats adopting the first-party SDK.