I'm Greg, and I build Snowmate - a ski and snowboard app for iPhone. A lot of what goes into a tracking app turns out to be genuinely interesting once you start pulling it apart: why your phone knows exactly where you are but is surprisingly vague about how high you are, why vertical descent describes a day better than distance does, and what actually drains your battery on a cold chairlift.
These guides are my notes on all of that. They're written for skiers and snowboarders rather than developers, they're not sales pages (I'll mention Snowmate where it's relevant and otherwise leave it alone), and I'd rather tell you honestly when another app does something better than mine. New ones go up through the off-season.
-
How to Track Your Ski & Snowboard Runs on iPhone
The practical starting point: what your iPhone can record on its own, how to keep tracking alive in a pocket all day, and what to do about cold weather and battery drain.
-
How Accurate Is iPhone GPS for Skiing? A Developer Deep Dive
Horizontal position is good to a few metres. Altitude can wander by ten or fifteen while you stand perfectly still - here's why the two numbers are so different, and which one you can trust.
-
Best Ski Tracking App for iPhone in 2026: An Honest Comparison
A comparison written by someone with an obvious conflict of interest, declared up front. Where Slopes wins on analytics, where Snowmate fits, and how to pick based on what you actually want out of a season.
-
How to Measure Vertical Descent Skiing (and Why It Matters More Than Distance)
Vertical descent is the quiet number that captures a ski day. What it means, why the barometric altimeter measures it far better than GPS, and how your phone totals it without you touching anything.