Hello everyone from Racetrack Notes official dev blog! If you are reading this post, you somehow became aware of the application, visited the site, were interested in, maybe clicked on the blog link for more information. So a warm welcome to you all. Let's start with a short development story.
I am a sim racer who also had IRL racing experience for a very short time. I always like to learn about the track I race on. Where is this track located, in which country or which city exactly, what are some interesting facts, what series are held on the track, what are its features for driving? I do a little research every time in different sources to find answers to my questions.
But of course, the main issue is to get to the track as soon as possible and to reach competitive lap times. For this, until now, I have been using print-out track maps that I found on the internet and taking notes on them. But no, the idea of the Racetrack Notes iPad app did not come to my mind at this point.
My profession is experience design. For a while, I started to develop digital products by learning programming. In the last year, I have chosen the Apple ecosystem and the Swift as my preferred programming language. Around this time, I started to scribble application ideas that I can do with Swift and especially SwiftUI. One of those ideas was to develop an app for the racing world I was already in. While I was thinking about what I could do with my needs in my own programming capacity, the idea of a simple yet elegant circuit/racetrack reference app came to my mind. Moreover, if I could somehow put the track maps into the application, I could easily bring the drawing and note-taking experience to the iPad, thanks to the Apple Pencil Kit.
And so that's how Racetrack Notes was born.
In order to quickly launch it and see if the idea is valid, I cut down many features (which will come in later versions) and released it with a limited number of race tracks and track maps. I hope you'll like it :)
Although I have shared it in very few places for now, the initial reactions are quite positive and show me that I am on the right "track". With Racetrack Notes, I want to offer the most practical way possible to study the track maps and improve lap times.
Currently, note taking feature is only available with the Pro subscription.
The tracks in the current version are as follows:
1- Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari (Imola Circuit)
2- Brands Hatch Circuit
3- Circuit de Barcelona Catalunya
4- Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps
5- Circuit des 24 Heures du Mans
6- Intercity Istanbul Park
7- Mount Panorama Circuit
8- Nürburgring Grand-Prix-Strecke
9- Silverstone Circuit
10- Suzuka International Racing Course
11- WeatherTech Raceway at Laguna Seca
Why 11 tracks tho? I wanted to include the Nordschleife, then there would be 12 tracks in the launch. However, I realized that it wouldn't make much sense to put the Nordschleife without the zooming and panning feature.
The main features that I plan to have in the new version are:
- At least 4 new tracks
- Highly detailed new and improved (and beautiful) track maps
- Pinch to zoom, pan, draw
According to my release plans, including these features, new version will be released around mid January. I will make some improvements with a small update in December as well.
You can access the development roadmap here.
If you are particularly interested in SimRacing (simulation racing, racing games), subscribe to my YouTube channel (Mostly in Turkish).
That's all folks for now, see you in the next post.
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