For others curious like I was, it seems he hired a cartographer to render essentially a set of huge, nice-looking, custom map images with details like hiking trails that Apple Maps doesn't have.

So unlike Apple Maps, which is dynamically rendered, it basically shows image tiles. It allows for a nicer-looking, more detailed map, but affects things like needing separate downloads for different zoom levels, rotation, updatability.

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n8cpdx 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The use of the cartographer to generate separate designs and the technology used to render/deliver those designs are two entirely separate concerns.

His original map provider offers both vector and raster tile services: https://www.thunderforest.com/maps/outdoors/

A common pattern is to use a vector tile service + style definition directly or to generate raster tiles if those are desired.

	▲	apt-apt-apt-apt 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Good point, I assumed he was using images because his screenshots show text perfectly following the curves of rivers, which seems hard to do with dynamic rendering.

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dzogchen 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I think this may not even be possible because Apple does not give access to the Metal graphics API on Apple Watch to third-party developers.