Ep 11: Building a Frontend for Gogomi
An iOS app? Oouu
Gogomi is a geospatial data pipeline I built to track my walks around Vancouver. It calculates my coverage across various neighbourhoods in the city and updates my progress after each walk. Until recently, I relied on a patchwork of modules for notifications, but it became clear I needed a more integrated solution.
Initially, I used Siri shortcuts as the channel through which I get updates from Gogomi. While they were a quick way to prototype updates for my walks, their limitations became apparent as my needs grew. I found myself manually running shortcuts to check coverage stats and separately using Gogomi’s map (on Felt’s website) to navigate unexplored roads around town. It was evident that I needed something more comprehensive—it was time to build an app 😄(😣).
Despite my initial reluctance, I explored Xcode and Swift UI. Coming from web development, I found iOS development surprisingly enjoyable, with Swift UI's intuitive syntax and real-time previews speeding up my development process.
Key Views
I designed three main views for the app:
Summary View - This page showcases my overall quest progress with a large circular progress bar, along with individual progress bars for each area in the city. I eventually figured out how to use MapKit to draw polygons representing each neighbourhood, coloured based on my walking progress.
Map View - This page displays the map of walks that Gogomi has been updating, crucial for navigation during my walks. Currently, I’m using a WebView that points to the Felt map URL.
Misc View - This page serves a testing ground for new features. It currently includes buttons for testing notifications and a basic MapKit map (showing my walk polygons as a single blob—I haven’t fully figured that part out yet)
With these views in place, I had a functional prototype ready for real-world testing. Gogomi now combines stats/progress tracking and navigation in one app!
Future Improvements
While this app significantly improves upon the Siri shortcuts approach, there's still room for growth. I'm working on:
Refining the user interface
Replacing the WebView with a native MapKit implementation for better performance and offline capabilities
Enabling background notifications to phase out Siri shortcuts entirely.
Conclusion
This project has not only enhanced Gogomi’s functionality but also expanded my development skills. As I refine the app, I’m excited about how it’ll evolve as I explore more of Vancouver.
I'm excited to showcase this at tomorrow's coworking space meetup. These fortnightly gatherings have become a great source of motivation and feedback for my projects. Who knows what new ideas this demo might spark?