Show HN: My iPhone app for mapping pins
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/share-theres/id1438481654?ls...
It's not like Yelp or the built-in map searches because it's centered around the pins more than the themes. I got the idea on a trip to New York. I just wanted to draw a box on the map within a small 2-block area to see what's there--like recommended pizza places, for example, or to see all the recommended places of any theme, but only within that box. All the other map/social/share apps keep expanding the boundary, showing you things far beyond the constraints. This one works exactly the way I always wished the Google map and the Apple map (and Yelp) would work.
You can also keep the "pinsets" stored locally; I find it handy to use for things like where I parked my car, or where I started a walk. You can send a map pin to someone in the form of a URL, which means you can send it from iPhone to Android or to a desktop computer in a text message. I know the maps have ways to do this, but I see so many people who struggle with it; they resort to sending a screen capture of the pin's location. It seemed a clear indicator that the map's UI is overly cluttered and confusing to people.
The backend uses CloudKit storage, so hopefully it will remain free for me to operate. (This is just a hobby project; I'm not trying to turn it into a business or anything.)
Being left-handed, I was proud of my UI feature that lets you swipe the buttons to the left, instead of being stuck with them on the right (always an annoyance of the Gmail app). I also agree with Don Norman when he says that features shouldn't be hidden away and only discoverable by accident, so I think my "stacked-behind" buttons was a good solution to this; the buttons don't take up space, but you can see that they're there.
Thanks for checking it out! It was fun to write.