What has changed

The 2.6 share screen finished properly: one action that sends the picture and the message together, and links written at the product's own address.

• Share your progress shows your card and, under it, the message that goes with it — then one button, Share my progress, hands both to the share sheet in one go. Copy the message is the fallback. The separate "share the link" step and the "include my progress" switch from 2.6.0 are gone: the picture shows the figures regardless.
• Links are now written at distancegoal.bluetorch.co.uk/join. Links from 2.6.0, at www.bluetorch.co.uk, keep working.
• The card's footer carries the address, so a picture that arrives without its message still says where it came from.
• Paste a whole message from a friend and the app finds the link inside it.
• A shared link's preview in a chat now shows Distance Goal, not the publisher's consulting site.
• The Privacy screen no longer mentions the retired server or makes promises about it.

Android build 14 was first allocated to a 2.6.0 rebuild that was cancelled, then used for 2.6.1. iPhone build 11 was refused by Apple's processing because the new sharing component references the photo library without a usage description; build 12 adds two honest ones (the app never reads your photos; the share sheet can save the card to them) and is the build with Apple's reviewers. Note for Android: a phone still on 2.6.0 does not recognise the new link address, so a 2.6.1 link tapped there opens the website, which now offers "Open in Distance Goal" to get the goal into the app anyway.

The turn from carrying progress between people to sharing it outward. Buddy groups, and the only server the app ever talked to, were withdrawn; a link that recreates your goal on a friend's phone took their place.

• Buddy groups are gone: the Buddies tab, invite codes, QR codes and the consent card. Nothing of yours is kept on any server.
• Share a link with your card. Whoever opens it can start the identical goal — same target, dates, activities and route — and sees how far you had got. The link carries numbers and dates only, never a name or anything typed.
• Got a link from a friend? Tap it and the app opens on the goal, ready to start. A goal whose dates have passed is offered from today instead; a goal you already have is recognised.
• An old buddy-group invite is explained, not treated as an error.
• The app now makes no network connections at all.
• Every goal, entry and badge on a phone that had groups is kept.

Android 13 was compiled before a copy sweep, so its Privacy screen still carries two sentences about the retired server; that was known when it was uploaded and is corrected in 2.6.1. iPhone build 9 was discarded for the same reason; build 10 was uploaded but never submitted, because 2.6.1 replaced it the same day. The Play data-safety form went back to "No data collected" with this release.

The Android twin of iPhone build 8: the buddy-group fixes Apple's questions had exposed. Built and verified, then deliberately never uploaded, because buddy groups were withdrawn the next morning.

• Hiding a buddy would have taken effect immediately and been reversible.
• Reporting a name would have worked on a phone with no email app.
• A group that could not be reached would have shown what it last saw instead of going blank.

Build 12 was not reused for the next release even though Google Play never saw it: a real, signed bundle existed on disk, and a number that means one thing only is worth more than a gap. The same code is iPhone 2.5.1 build 8; it was called 2.5.2 on Android because 2.5.1 was already live there.

A one-line bug had made every buddy group look empty on every phone since the feature existed. Fixed, along with what the first days on an iPhone turned up.

• Buddy groups show their members. The figures had always reached the server; the phone was throwing away its own view of them.
• A group that looks empty says why, and a failed share is no longer silent.
• Settings has a back button on iPhone.
• The invite message no longer carries a Play Store link, since the person receiving it may not be on Android.
• iPhone build 8 also let you hide a buddy at once and undo it, report a name without an email app, and keep the last-seen list when the group could not be reached.

No Play release notes were recorded for this build; it went out on the strength of its commit message. iPhone build 8 was uploaded as the answer to Apple's questions of 4 September and was replaced by later builds before it was ever submitted. This release set the rule that two different builds never share a version name.

The group's founder could remove a member, and had to name a successor before leaving. Also the app's first day on an iPhone.

• Whoever started a group can remove someone; everyone else gets a new code and the removed person stops receiving anything new.
• A founder who leaves chooses who takes over. The last person out closes the group.
• Groups started before this version could not remove anyone, and the app said so rather than offering a control that did nothing.

Live on Google Play for less than a day before 2.5.1. On iPhone, builds 1 to 7 were all made on 3 September 2026: build 2 was rejected for a wrong encryption declaration, builds 3 and 4 crashed on launch because the Expo packages were out of step with each other, build 5 was the first to run on a phone, build 6 was never submitted, and build 7 was the first submission to Apple — held on their standard information request to a new developer, and later replaced by 2.6.1 build 12 in the same submission.

Open testing only. Two real bugs fixed, plus everything from the unreleased 2.1 and 2.2 milestones.

• A goal set to particular activities no longer ignores them. The activity chips used to start fully selected, so choosing Walking turned it off and the goal counted everything except what you picked. Picking now starts from none, the goal shows what it counts, and an entry that does not count says which goal nearly matched and why.
• A buddy group's shared goal can be changed, as the app had always promised.
• Starter goals: begin in one tap.
• Invites you can tap, and QR codes.
• Tap any number — a diary day, the Logged tile, Per day needed, the ring — to see what it is made of.
• Health Connect distance and a hand-logged walk of the same outing no longer double-count.
• Reminders for a goal that is ending and a streak at risk.
• Auto-tracking says something when activity types are refused, and Disconnect confirms first.

Never promoted to production; 2.5.0 overtook it.

Open testing for a few hours. A usability pass over screens that had never had one found four more things worth fixing, so 2.3.1 replaced it the same evening.

• See 2.3.1, which contains everything in this build.

This is the build that moved the version counter out of Expo's servers into the project itself. The remote counter was holding 5 while 7 was live on Play; the next remote build would have produced 6 and been rejected on upload. The 2.1 and 2.2 milestones were never released on their own; they shipped inside 2.3.

Buddy groups arrived, and with them everything from the unshipped 1.7 and 1.8. Live on Google Play from 3 August 2026 until 3 September.

• Buddy groups: share a code with a few people and see each other's progress. No accounts, no usernames, no directory. Progress was sealed on the phone before it left, and the server that carried it could not read it.
• Journeys, progress cards, go-again, the month diary, badges, export and backup, and seven more activity types — all of 1.7 and 1.8, arriving at once.
• Health Connect distance could reach a group only with per-source consent.

The cost, stated at the time: the "No data collected" badge on Google Play went for everyone, because the store's form is per app, not per feature. It came back with 2.6.0.

Built and held; never uploaded. Everything in it reached people inside 2.0.0 the same weekend.

• Journeys: a goal started from a challenge shows where along the real route you have got to — the place just passed, its note, and how far to the next. Twelve routes, from a marathon to the Great Wall of China. No maps, no GPS, nothing downloaded.
• Share a progress card: a square picture of your goal, drawn on the phone and shown to you before it goes anywhere.
• What next: a finished goal offers the same again, 10% further, or the next challenge up.
• Export as a spreadsheet, day totals, plain text, a formatted report, Markdown, or a full backup — and restore a backup on a new phone. A restore only ever adds.

GPS track formats (GPX, TCX, FIT) were deliberately not offered: the app stores a date and a distance, and a track file would have to invent the rest.

Never built. The build service had used its free monthly allowance, but had already taken the next build number before it failed. The work reached people inside 2.0.0.

• A month diary: swipe left from the ring for a month at a glance, each day shaded by how close it came to the pace that finishes your goal.
• Badges for lifetime distance and streaks, plus make-your-own. Once earned, never taken back.
• Seven more activity types, eleven in all.
• Reminders stopped nagging when Health Connect had already recorded the walk.
• The screen rotates.

The first version confirmed live on Google Play, and the only one there until 2.0.0 in August.

• With Health Connect on, the app can tell a walk from a ride by matching distance to exercise sessions, and lets you label the ones it cannot.
• Auto-tracked distance shows up per activity in the ring and the stats.
• The privacy policy and the store's Health Connect justification were corrected: both had understated what is read.

No release notes were recorded for this or any earlier version.

Development milestone. Whether it was uploaded, and under which build number, is not recorded.

• Fixed a serious under-count: the History view of Health Connect distance read only the first page of records.
• One card per source app, with a plain-English line on how the distance was recorded.
• Exclude a source app you do not trust, and ignore automatically recorded background distance.
• Pull to refresh in History.

Build number 3 belongs to one of 1.3, 1.4 or 1.5 and no record says which. That is the gap this page exists to prevent.

Development milestone.

• An optional reminder about a day after your last entry. Off by default, and entirely on the phone.
• Pre-made challenges to start a goal from.
• Per-activity caps on how much of a goal one activity may fill.

Development milestone.

• Optional, read-only Health Connect: the app reads distance totals to fill in your progress. Never steps, never a route.
• Android 8 or newer required from here on.

The first version that was built as a store bundle. Not recorded as reaching production; most likely internal testing and sideloading.

• Any number of goals, at once or back to back, each with its own name, target, dates and activities.
• One log of entries: each counts towards every goal it fits, and you can leave any goal out of any entry.
• Deleting a goal never deletes your entries.

Build 1 was a preview made before the app had its final package name; build 2 is the same version rebuilt after it did.

Development milestone.

• The progress ring is split by activity type.
• Kilometres or miles, as a display setting.
• A line under the ring that puts your distance in real-world terms.

One goal, a ring, a history. Never built.

• Set a distance goal, log each walk, ride or run, and watch the ring fill.