01
Feature overload
The popular apps keep growing: feeds, challenges, coaching offers, ads. You open the app to log a set and first have to get past everything else.
Our own product · iOS app
Your own training program, a set logged in two taps, strength charts and all of your body progress in one app.
The whole app in five tabs. Every screen does one thing, and the number on it is the largest element.
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Home
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Workout
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Exercise
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Strength
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Weight
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Photos
Context
Your program, every set and all of your progress in one app
Simple Gym is where the training program, every set, the strength curves, body weight, measurements and photos live together. You bring your plan, the app turns it into a log and keeps track of the progress from the first session on.
Who it is for
Anyone who already has a plan: an experienced lifter, someone a year into training, or a beginner working from a program they were given. Bring the plan and the app turns it into a log and a chart in the first session.
What you get
A program assembled from your training days and your exercises. A set that logs in two taps. A rest timer that starts itself. Strength charts with an estimated max. And one place that also holds your weight, measurements and photos.
Why we built it
For an agency, releasing its own product is the only honest test. We went through the whole loop: the product decisions, the design system, the code, the backend, App Store review, subscriptions and privacy compliance. That is the experience a client gets on their project.
Workout apps grow until they get in the way
02
Logging asks for too much
The gap between sets is short. If logging means a modal, a search and several confirmations, the workout gets written up afterwards, or not at all.
03
Data scattered across apps
Workouts in one app, weight in another, measurements in notes, photos in the camera roll. Nobody sees the whole picture, because it never comes together anywhere.
04
No clear answer on progress
A log on its own is just a list of numbers. Without a chart that compares months, you cannot tell whether strength is rising, flat or falling.
What the app can do
Everything that was built, by area. Most of it works for free, and Premium opens the full graph history, the rest timer, carry over, rep guidance, notes, unlimited measurements and photos, custom configuration and an ad free app.
Program
A training week assembled from your own plan.
- Training days of your own choosing
- Its own exercise list for each day
- Set counts and rep targets per exercise
- A goal: muscle, strength or both
- The weekly goal and its progress on the home screen
- Rebuild the program at any time
Exercises
A library where a movement is recognised by its picture.
- 114 exercises with descriptions
- Target and supporting muscles, pattern, equipment
- Two drawn positions with the working muscle lit
- Search by name, muscle or equipment
- Your own exercises with your own description and equipment Premium
- A note on an exercise, waiting at the next session Premium
Logging a workout
Everything between the first set and the last.
- A set logged in two taps
- Warm ups and drop sets marked apart
- Added weight, reduced weight or body weight
- Swap an exercise with suggestions from the library
- Past sessions kept and repeatable
- A rest timer that rings once you match your last rest Premium
- Values carried over from last time Premium
- Two step logging that counts only the rest Premium
- Editing a finished workout Premium
Progress
Whether strength is rising, flat or falling.
- Best weight, total volume and the estimated max
- A trend per exercise, and the ones used most
- A week by week consistency map
- The weekly streak and the best streak
- Personal records as they happen
- A notice when progress stalls or drops
- Full history: 3 and 6 months, a year, all time and a custom range Premium
- A rep cue for when to add or lower weight Premium
Body
The part a strength chart does not show.
- Weight logged on a scale, not a keyboard
- Measurements: chest, arms, waist, thighs
- The weight and measurement trend on a chart
- Your own measurement areas Premium
- Progress photos: front, side, back
- Before and now side by side, any two comparable
- Your own angles and pinning Premium
- Encrypted on the device, backed up to your private iCloud Premium
Account and friends
The data follows the person, not the device.
- Sign in with Apple, Google or email
- Sync across devices
- A username, and friends you add yourself
- A friend's sessions and their latest records
- A choice of who can see your training history
- Notifications: training time, comebacks, plateaus, body check ins
- Account and data deletion inside the app
Four screens up close
The log, the strength chart, the body data and the photos: where the app spends most of its time.
A set in two taps
The workout screen is a list, not a form. Weight and reps sit in the row, warm ups and drop sets are marked apart, and the rest timer starts by itself once a set is confirmed. An exercise can be swapped on the spot, with equivalents suggested from the library.
- The timer starts on confirmation
- Swaps with suggestions
- History, and repeat it
Progress, plateau or decline
Every set lands on a chart: best weight, total volume and the estimated one rep max the app works out from weight and reps. If the number stops climbing or starts falling, the app says so at once, in time to adjust the plan.
- Three metrics per exercise
- Ranges up to all time
- A notice on a plateau or a drop
Weight and measurements
Weight goes in on a scale: a thumb drags the ruler and the number is done. Measurements live in the same place for chest, arms, waist and thighs, and you can add your own areas. Both appear on a chart beside the strength data, so a change in bodyweight can be read against the training.
- Thumb driven input
- Four areas, plus your own
- The trend on a chart
Photos side by side
The photos sit side by side, the first against the latest, and any two can be compared. The angles are front, side and back, and you can add your own. Photos are encrypted on the device and stay there; a backup, if switched on, goes to your own private iCloud.
- Before and now side by side
- Three angles, plus your own
- Encrypted on the device
An exercise you can recognise by its picture
The drawings exist so a movement is recognised at a glance while logging, and so it is visible which muscle is working. The library holds 114 exercises with descriptions, 36 of them with two drawn positions.
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Conventional deadlift
Start position
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Conventional deadlift
End position
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Barbell row
Start position
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Barbell row
End position
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Back squat
Start position
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Back squat
Bottom position
Execution
How it is built
The decisions that set how the app feels in the hand and how long it stays maintainable.
Design
A dark interface with one accent colour and one primary action per screen. Colour, type, spacing and motion live in code as tokens, and the screens are covered by snapshot tests at three size classes.
The app
SwiftUI on iOS 17 with state through @Observable. The calculations, the estimated max and the weekly streak among them, live in a separate pure Swift module with no UI dependency, so they are tested in seconds without a simulator.
The backend
A Laravel REST API is the single source of truth; the device keeps a cache and an offline write queue. Sign in works with Apple, Google or email, and the data follows the person to another device.
Privacy
Progress photos and custom exercise images are encrypted and stay on the device. Analytics start switched off and only turn on after the person agrees, and the App Store privacy label matches what is actually collected.
The route to the App Store
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1
One job
The first decision was a single job: the log, the tracking and a clear picture of progress. It set everything else, because every feature after it was measured against that job and only shipped if it made it stronger.
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2
Design as a system
Tokens, then components, then screens. Every screen was checked against one question: what does a person do here first, and in how many taps?
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3
Engineering
The SwiftUI app and the Laravel API. The calculations carry gold master tests, so a change in the maths behind the charts cannot slip through quietly.
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4
The content
114 exercise descriptions and 72 drawn positions. The longest stretch, because each description has to be written in plain language rather than copied in.
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5
Release
App Store review, subscriptions, the privacy label and the consent flow. The app went live on the App Store in July 2026.
The app in numbers
Numbers about the product, not promises about outcomes. The app is new, so we are not showing user metrics here.
44
Capabilities across six areas
Exactly the number listed on this page, from assembling a program to deleting an account.
114
Exercises with descriptions
36 of them with two drawn positions and the working muscle lit.
0
Photos on our server
Progress photos are encrypted on the device and stay there.
