Behind the Design: Any Distance

Workout tracking has ne'er looked — oregon felt — similar it does successful Any Distance.

“We’re gathering thing for everyone, not conscionable athletes,” says Luke Beard, the Atlanta-based decorator who created this Swift app with technologist Daniel Kuntz. “We’re not athletically inclined people. We’re benignant of dorks! I privation to discontinue and instrumentality photos successful Iceland 1 day. Dan wants to discontinue and play euphony successful the desert. We’re not looking to spell to the Olympics, but we bash privation to unrecorded long, steadfast lives.”

Their app is simply a design-forward fittingness tracker and societal web that delivers workout stats successful beauteous and shareable formats — dynamic charts and graphs, animated 3D maps, AR experiences, and gorgeous cards — that tin integrate photos. It draws heavy connected SF Symbols — arsenic Beard cheekily puts it, “SF Symbols is the azygous top publication to plan Apple has ever made.” It offers elegant in-app collectibles and an in-house societal web aimed astatine connecting radical with a tiny ellipse of friends. And its sanction is besides its philosophy: Any Distance counts, not conscionable a aquatics oregon motorcycle ride, but a walking meeting, stroller run, oregon its astir fashionable option, a canine walk.

Any Distance is heavy powered by Apple tools and technologies. It uses ARKit for rendering routes, HealthKit for workout data, Metal rendering for what Kuntz calls the “gradient inheritance swirly thing,” SceneKit for rendering, MapKit, Apple Watch integration, and more. It besides demonstrates Any Distance's committedness to privacy. "Your information is each successful HealthKit; we don’t store it unless you station it to your friends,” Beard says. “We don’t fto you stock a map. Route clipping (in which the opening and extremity of your routes are trimmed from nationalist view) is connected by default.” And radical tin take precisely what information they privation to stock with friends by simply tapping the oculus icon nether each metric.

SF Symbols is the azygous top publication to plan Apple has ever made.

Beard conceived of the thought for Any Distance during the pandemic, erstwhile his manner wasn’t rather arsenic steadfast arsenic helium would person liked. To shingle himself retired of his funk, helium began going connected agelong walks, posting photos of his journeys on the way. “I’m a chronic oversharer,” laughs Beard, “and a lensman astatine heart. And I was getting bully feedback.” Eventually, helium started designing templates for his societal media posts. “Honestly, it was conscionable a photograph successful a disguise — the oval that’s present 1 of our main marque characteristics — with the way and stats successful a amusive font. But radical would ask, ‘What app is making those?’”

By this point, he’d already connected with Daniel Kuntz, a programmer and instrumentalist who already had a fewer titles connected the App Store. “As a developer, I’m often asked, ‘Hey, tin you marque this app?’ And I’m ever like, ‘Nah,’” says Kuntz. “In this case, Luke had it each fleshed out. He had iOS components and a Sketch file. It was elemental and wide and truly cool.”

This year, the squad besides plans to adhd much unorthodox enactment options similar trick-or-treating. “Eventually we privation to signifier radical motorcycle rides oregon radical canine walks,” says Beard. “The past fewer years person accelerated the loneliness epidemic truthful much, and we deliberation moving retired oregon being progressive unneurotic is the caller hanging out. It doesn’t substance if you’re walking fractional a mile, taking a stroller locomotion with your kid, oregon walking with a cane — determination should beryllium a abstraction for you.”

Download Any Distance from the App Store

Behind the Design is simply a bid that explores plan practices and philosophies from each of the winners of the Apple Design Awards. In each story, we spell down the screens with the developers and designers of these award-winning apps and games to observe however they brought their singular creations to life.

Explore much of the 2023 Behind the Design series