Trailr
Hiking App.

A cross-platform trail navigation app with offline-first maps, route recording, and community trail reporting — built for iOS and Android in 14 weeks.

Navigation that works when you're off the grid.

Trail navigation apps had a reliability problem: they required connectivity at the exact moments when hikers had none. Trailr was built from the ground up with offline-first architecture — every map, every trail, available without a signal.

We designed and built the full iOS and Android apps, the offline map tile system, and the community reporting features in 14 weeks. The app launched with 50k downloads in the first three months.

Building an offline-first mapping app that felt fast and modern, while managing the storage and sync complexities of large tile datasets on mobile devices.

Offline-first without the offline experience feeling like a compromise.

Offline maps are technically complex — tile datasets are large, storage is limited on mobile devices, and syncing needs to be seamless. We built a smart pre-caching system that downloaded the most likely routes based on a user's location history, minimising storage use without sacrificing coverage.

The UI design had to work in challenging conditions — bright sunlight, cold weather (gloves!), and stressful situations. Large touch targets, high-contrast displays, and a simplified navigation hierarchy were non-negotiable.