Minigolf Score Tracker

I built a little iOS app: Minigolf Score Tracker, now available on the App Store - go check it out!

This started as tri-fold exercise:

1. I wanted to build something to think about what an AI-native SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle) looks like;
2. I wanted to learn Swift - the last time I worked on a mobile app, Swift hadn’t been invented yet;
3. and perhaps most importantly, I am always annoyed by the little paper + pencil scoresheets at minigolf courses.

So, what is it?

Minigolf Score Tracker app is exactly as the name suggests: an app to keep track of your minigolf scores. Currently, it’s pretty simple - you can:

• Create a user for yourself (and optionally, login with Apple ID)
• maintain a list of co-players/opponents
• find nearby minigolf courses, and add them to your course-catalogue
• and of course, score your games.

I’ve designed the game to work really well one-handed, and I’ve tried to minimize taps to it’s as quick and intuitive as possible to just get, score a game, and get out. You can also export your score cards, and keep longitudinal data about your scores.

I actually released the app in late October, but got busy so never noted it here. I was expecting about 7 downloads - but so far, it’s had just over 100, and for some reason MOST of them appear to be from Norway. Is minigolf really big in Norway?

What’s next?

At this point, the app is an entirely offline, local, deeply private app for just you. But I’m beginning to work on an update that will bring some additional features. IF you create an account, the next update will:

• sync your data across devices (right now if you get a new phone, you’ll lose your data)
• Be able to link your minigolf games with other users, so they can track /their/ stats too.
• I’m thinking through some model around crowd-sourced-but-centralized course-catalogue so that as other users add courses, you can see them too, and add some basic course-rating mechanisms - but that’s probably later.
• Because I want to explore Apple GameKit some, I might add some features like leaderboards via that - but it’s unclear if I can tie GameCentre things to real-world games vs iOS games. TBD!
• if I get REAL fancy - or if enough people besides myself use this app - I can see a place where I can enable the businesses to “claim” their course, or have something like a “quick-start QR Code” physically at the courses.

Download it, play more minigolf with your friends and family - and please give some feedback! I’m looking forward to the spring weather coming to get to go use it more myself!