As a casual runner myself, it was always frustrating not having a simple tool that could track and record my runs. A lot of apps in the marketplace felt bloated in terms of features, outdated in UI, and often came at a steep price tag. How could I appeal to the average user who wanted just the essentials?
Thus the idea for Solo Running was born. I chose the name because of the individualistic nature of the app and also my work process - just a single developer.
While progress moved at a snail's pace initially, I quickly learned how to get around many of the technical problems I faced, such as generating route snapshots, saving custom pins, and displaying weekly run statistics. The biggest challenge, though, was making sure that the user experience was mostly smooth and predictable. I probably went through dozens of iterations and manual testing before I settled on my final designs.
The end result is a product that while an MVP, has the core functionalities that I was always looking for in a personal running app. More stuff will be coming in the near future and will be announced here on the site as I develop.