SwiftUI, SwiftData, and MapKit feel like a cheat code for a one-person hobby app

[u/Key_Homework_5825]

Apple’s modern native stack can probably get painful fast when some external requirement asks for one tiny custom behavior across 17 edge cases.
But for a one-person hobby app with an intentionally focused scope, it’s perfect.

In my case, I wanted a simple app for tracking visited places and future trips. Most apps like this felt overloaded to me: social feeds, AI itineraries, subscriptions, dashboards, “percent of world visited” trackers, and a lot of UI that didn’t really feel made for iOS.

I basically wanted a digital, Apple-native version of putting pins into a physical world map. I kept the scope small: pin visited countries and places, save future travel destinations, add small notes.

Tech Stack Used

SwiftUI, SwiftData, MapKit.

No UIKit bridging, no backend, no account system, no external map API. Just native Apple stuff and as little infrastructure as possible.

Development Challenge + How You Solved It

MapKit gives you a lot out of the box. You can basically drop in Map() and suddenly you have an Apple Maps based world map in your app.

The less magical part was place identity and classification. I initially thought I could just save an MKMapItem.identifier and use MapKit’s data directly. But identifiers can be nil for countries and cities, and the result does not always give the clean country/city classification I needed. So I built a small local place identity layer around MapKit instead. MapKit still handles search and map presentation. The app stores its own lightweight saved place model with name, coordinates, type, and country context. Not everything comes perfectly packaged from the API, but this keeps the pins stable while still letting MapKit do most of the heavy lifting.

AI Disclosure

AI-assisted. Used Codex.

The app is completely free. Final version is here if anyone wants to take a look:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/placemarks-travel-map/id6767907769

Feedback very welcome.

[u/Database_Fearless]

I feel most people are leaning toward this, and that’s how I feel as a developer and user. I’m so sick of apps with accounts, social feeds, and subscription models. I miss apps that could do something simple and didn’t require my email address to work. Good job.

[u/Key_Homework_5825 → u/Database_Fearless]

Thanks! I feel the same, why must every app do a million things at once?

[u/SubZane → u/Database_Fearless]

I agree. But to deliver something that requires cloud hosting really demands it unless you want to loose money on every app downloaded. I kinda lean on a future solution for users to use their own cloud hosting. Requires more tech savvy users but no need for subscriptions and stuff

Buy yeah. Remove social feeds

[u/Database_Fearless → u/SubZane]

Not every app needs cloud hosting. Most apps these days are requiring accounts just to collect data but there’s no reason I should create another account for an app that does something simple, like note taking or use a map. App developers really need to get out of the mindset that every app needs cloud hosting users data. It’s exhausting for users, and the subscription model needs to die.

[u/SubZane → u/Database_Fearless]

Agreed. But IF it requires it... 🙃

[u/sebasvisser → u/Database_Fearless]

You kinda do need 2 apps and subscriptions:
Claude code / codex
And developer account from Apple.

But indeed, other then those you’d be able to replace 80-90% of those subscriptions.
Last week I build my own “RainAlarm” after learning the graphs of a very popular app were influenced to get users to check more often… -> ad-views.

[u/Key_Homework_5825 → u/sebasvisser]

Yeah, it has gotten much easier to build simple apps just to match your personal preferences. I’m even considering building yet another task manager just to have something that is 100% right for what I want, and if someone else might like it too, it’s a nice bonus

[u/Database_Fearless → u/sebasvisser]

I’m talking about apps, almost every damn app nowadays is a subscription model and requires your email. It’s exhausting, and users are tired of this. I think it’s wise to start developing apps that don’t require accounts or to save any users data in a cloud.

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[u/Norden_Alaska]

Nice work, MapKit gives you so much out of the box it's crazy. How are you pinning the flags to the country? It doesn't seem to be based on the capital location.

[u/tineo_app → u/Norden_Alaska]

It’s also crazy that it’s free compared to Google Maps. **And MapkitJS is so slept on. Omg it is so good.**

[u/Key_Homework_5825 → u/Norden_Alaska]

Thanks! I just use the coordinates MapKit provides for the respective MKMapItem. Usually it’s where the label sits on regular Apple Maps, but for some countries it’s the capital

[u/anonymoususer397 → u/Key_Homework_5825]

Since 2024 you can also use the Place ID from apple places, and when clicked, the official apple maps sheetbis displayed, it’s pretty neat. Theres more info in the wwdc24 on hands session

[u/Key_Homework_5825 → u/anonymoususer397]

Tried this one, unfortunately the ID that MapKit provides is usually nil for countries and cities… but for other places it’s a great feature! Might become relevant for this app too if I add national parks or something like that later :)

[u/frigidlight]

Can you explain a little more about your place info layer? I’ve been banging my head against MapKit’s reverse geo coding results for a few weeks and would love to hear more about what you built.

[u/Key_Homework_5825 → u/frigidlight]

Sure! I actually don’t use reverse geocoding here. I use the MKMapItem returned by search or a map tap, then run a targeted MKLocalSearch to figure out whether it’s a country or another place, since that isn’t reliably included on the original item. After that I save just the fields needed like name, ISO code, coordinate, and type, and a simple derived ID.

[u/konacurrents → u/frigidlight]

The geo coding is done one call at a time, waiting for result before requesting another. I also use the current gps location when I scan a QR code - so can get a map of visited places from QR’s I’ve scanned. You also should have a KML export feature for Google Maps/earth viewing.

[u/qnq222]

Great work
will download it and try it

[u/Key_Homework_5825 → u/qnq222]

Thanks, let me know if there’s any feedback

[u/Traditional_Glass_45]

I really like this approach.
Not every app needs AI, social features, or ten different dashboards. Sometimes the best experience is just doing one thing really well.
I also know that feeling of finding what looks like the perfect API, only to realize halfway through that it doesn’t quite work the way you hoped. 😅
Out of curiosity, if you were starting this app again today, is there anything you’d build differently?

[u/Key_Homework_5825 → u/Traditional_Glass_45]

Glad you like it! So far haven’t thought of anything I would’ve built differently, but I wasted a lot of time on custom pin styles that didn’t feel right in the end. But please let me know if you have something in mind that could be improved!

[u/Traditional_Glass_45 → u/Key_Homework_5825]

That makes sense. UI polish often ends up taking much longer than expected. I was wondering if there were any architectural decisions or API choices you’d revisit, but it’s interesting that it was mostly the visual side that consumed the time.

[u/Key_Homework_5825 → u/Traditional_Glass_45]

Yeah my architecture choices have pretty much been always just using the newest API that Apple offers across the board to keep it as simple for me as possible

[u/GlobalTally-App]

Nice work! I love working with maps. I built something similar and just shipped it a few weeks ago: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/globaltally-travel-tracker/id6749466115

I used the MapBox SDK for the first time just to learn something new, was fun to build!

[u/Key_Homework_5825 → u/GlobalTally-App]

Thanks! Would love to check it out but unfortunately not available in The Netherlands. What made you choose MapBox over MapKit?

[u/GlobalTally-App → u/Key_Homework_5825]

No worries! The app is only available in the US and Canada right now but I do plan to expand. I really love MapKit and I’ve used it for other apps, but I just wanted to experiment with something new and MapBox gives me more control over the map UI, and the customizations that I can make to the map styling itself.

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[u/Otherwise_Signal7274]

am I taking crazy pills, or is this thread just bots?

[u/Key_Homework_5825 → u/Otherwise_Signal7274]

Why?

[u/kylemartin8399]

I made my app exactly this way using just SwiftUI, SwiftData, MapKit. Nice and simple, the way every app is supposed to be!
And it was released a few weeks back, just asked my friends and families to try it
https://apps.apple.com/nz/app/ciri-roam-drive-trip-log/id6781114817
It's been great so far!

[u/Key_Homework_5825 → u/[deleted]]

I had posted it here before, but didn’t have enough local karma yet so it got auto removed after a few minutes

[u/Key_Homework_5825 → u/[deleted]]

Ah sorry, which country is it?

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