Walking to the Moon • In App Review 2026

An iPhone app that turns your steps into a walk to the Moon

Walking to the Moon’s Today screen shows the step count, voyager on a diorama, and current stage card.
Role
Product Design, Brand Identity, Product Direction
Timeline
July 2026 to September 2026
Team
Solo
Tools
SwiftUI, HealthKit, Firebase, SwiftData, Figma, AI-assisted development
Live
In App Review
TestFlight builds between July and the App Review submission
47
External testers walking with it before launch
8
Automated tests passing on the build sent to Apple
1,329

An iPhone app that turns your daily steps into a walk to the Moon. There are 459 drawn stops on the way. Apple has been reviewing it since September 23, 2026.

I made it alone: every choice, the look, and every screen. AI wrote most of the code.

Problem

Getting the numbers right makes the app feel worse on day one.

The Moon is 512 million steps away. A great day of walking barely moves the bar.

The easy fix is to fake it. Shrink the goal, puff up the numbers, show a crowd that isn't real. So I made one rule first: the app never makes your number look bigger than it is.

With a made-up goal, the bar looks full. With the real Moon, it's 2.52%.

Research

Other step apps were honest or fun. I wanted both.

Step counters tell the truth, but they're boring. Step games are fun, but they stretch their numbers.

Honest numbers have one problem: the first big goal is months away. So I added 459 real stops on the way, and the next one is always close.

The Atlas trail shows the current diorama, dashed route, and locked stage 304.
The trail. Every stop is a real distance.

Process

My progress bar shows 2.52%, and I don't fake crowds.

The old bar looked full, but it wasn't measuring the real trip. I changed it to show the real distance. My 12.9 million steps are just 2.52 percent of the way.

Each stop shows how many people reached it. I only count people the app can really see. If nobody is there yet, it says so.

The real bar stops at 2.52 percent.
Stage 304 says “No astronauts have reached this stage yet” and cites the distance calculation source.
No fake crowd. An empty stop says so.

Process

I kept old steps off the leaderboard, then undid my own rule.

You can bring years of old steps in from Apple Health. I worried longtime iPhone users would always win, so the leaderboard only counted new steps.

That backfired. My Moon said 12.9 million steps, but friends saw 12,591 and thought I was new. The daily, weekly and monthly boards were already fair. So on August 27, I undid my rule.

Before, I saw 12,934,544 and friends saw 12,591. Now we see the same.

Final Design

Only seven step counts and two dates of health data leave your phone.

Your step history stays on your phone. You don't need an account. If you turn on friends, only those few numbers get sent. I wrote that list right into the code.

Swift source for ProgressPublishRequest and HistoryBaselinePublishRequest, each under a comment calling it the complete allowlist, with the seven step counts and two day fields highlighted and bookkeeping fields grayed.
The real code. Pink is every bit of health data that can leave.

Reflection

Apple is still reviewing it. Next time, I'd find testers sooner.

Eight testers is a small start. Launch will show if honest numbers keep people walking. More testers, sooner, might have caught my leaderboard mistake.

Public documents

The pages the app is required to publish.