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The short version
We have been tightening the screws on the stuff you use every day: saved meets, the map, meet detail, menu and legal pages in the native app, accessibility, and reminder notifications. None of it is flashy headline fodder, but it is the kind of polish that makes the app feel intentional instead of “fine, I guess.”
This post is a changelog you can skim, plus an honest note on why community input matters, and a promise that Android is coming soon.
Why community input actually matters
Detroit Meets is not built in a vacuum. The best bug reports are screenshots at 11 p.m. The best product notes are “this feels weird” when you are standing in a parking lot trying to open directions. When someone says they liked something better before, that is not noise — it is signal. We have already changed course on UI when it did not land the way we hoped, and we will keep doing that.
If you use the app, you are part of the feedback loop. DMs, Instagram, telling a friend who tells me — it all ends up in the same pile. Keep it coming.
Changelog
Saved meets
- Loading placeholders now match the real saved row layout (thumbnail + meta), so the list does not jump when data arrives.
- Spacing on the saved loading state lines up with the live screen.
Map
- Empty and filtered-empty states spell out more clearly what is going on: whether nothing matches your filters, the map is still waking up, or you need location for a given mode — so you are not left guessing.
Menu
- Calendar on Menu offers Subscribe in Calendar app (
webcal://) and a Copy feed URL action for the plainhttpsfeed link, when you need to paste it somewhere that does not handlewebcallinks.
Meet detail and native navigation
- Swipe back to the feed on touch devices: swipe left from almost anywhere on meet detail, or pull in from the left edge (iOS-style). The page follows your finger while you drag, then snaps back if you do not go far enough, or slides out and returns you to home / the meet feed. Reduced motion skips the animation and navigates immediately when you commit the gesture.
- Open in Maps on meet detail uses shared link helpers so we prefer coordinates when we have them, fall back to address or venue, and pick Google Maps, Apple Maps, Waze, or Android geo in a predictable way.
- Blog, Support, Privacy, and Terms in the native shell get a consistent back path to Menu, so you are not dropped on a long page without orientation when the tab bar still says Menu.
- Blog navigation keeps web and native flows sensible (home on web, menu on native where it fits).
Accessibility
- Reduced motion is respected for hero parallax and skeleton shimmer; the app also tones down motion globally when the system asks for it.
- Reminder and maps “sheet” dialogs move focus to the first real action when they open from the keyboard, so tab order is not a trap.
Reminders after you save
- When you save a meet, the reminder prompt is back to showing whenever you save (we removed the “too soon to bother” skip that was hiding it for near-term meets).
- Local notifications were reworked to read better on the lock screen: multi-line, emoji-led lines (think countdown, time, place), with Android using a dedicated channel, inbox-style lines, and expanded “big text” body where supported, and iOS grouping reminders with a thread identifier.
- Developers: in non-production builds, the reminder sheet includes quick test notifications (immediate and ~10 seconds out) so permission and styling can be checked without waiting on a real meet time.
What we tried and rolled back
- We briefly shipped a sticky “jump to section” chip row on meet detail. Feedback said the old layout felt better, so we removed it and kept deep links to sections (
#meet-about,#location, etc.) working the usual way. That is the loop in action.
Android
An Android version is coming soon. The iOS app went first, but the goal has always been the same app experience on both platforms — saved meets, map, reminders, and the rest. We will announce it here and in the app when it is ready for install.
Thank you
If you read this far, you care about the product more than most. That matters. Download the app, save a meet, break something, tell me — and if you are on Android, thanks for your patience. We are working on it.