Begin an expedition before walking.
City Ink records only after you explicitly start. Grant location access, wait for a position fix, then walk outdoors with the expedition active.
City Ink Support
Put one foot beyond the known.
Practical help for starting an expedition, painting new ground, reading your atlas, and keeping a private iCloud backup.
New ground earns the ink.
Your path is drawn continuously, while the score emphasizes route cells you have not already covered.
Your atlas can follow you.
When iCloud is available, City Ink saves a private backup after completed expeditions and whenever you choose Back Up Now.
Start an expedition
Open Explore and choose Start Expedition. The first run asks for location permission. City Ink needs precise location while an expedition is active so it can draw a useful path and distinguish new ground from streets you have already walked.
A clear view of the sky produces the best results. Tall buildings, tunnels, indoor spaces, and dense tree cover can reduce GPS accuracy or make the route briefly drift.
Plan an optional route
Choose Plan a Rewarded Route on Explore. City Ink asks Apple MapKit for pedestrian directions from your current location. Use the slider to choose 0–5 miles or kilometers in 0.5-unit steps. City Ink searches several directions and Apple Maps route alternatives to form a loop first. If the loop is shorter than the target, the remaining distance becomes an out-and-back finishing segment after the loop returns to your starting point. A pure out-and-back is used when MapKit cannot form a viable loop. If a search fails, Search wider rotates the search to try different streets. Pick a suggestion to show its dashed guide, or close the planner and wander freely.
Suggestions require Apple map connectivity when they are generated. They are never mandatory and changing course never reduces points. City Ink does not use an LLM or send the request through a Y Corp Technologies route server.
Choose miles or kilometers
City Ink shows distances in miles by default. Open Settings and use Distance Units to switch every live, saved, Atlas, and planner distance to kilometers. The choice is stored locally and included in your private iCloud backup when backup is available.
Pause, resume, finish, and cancel
Pause when you stop for an extended break. Resume to continue the same expedition. Finish saves the route and updates totals immediately without an Undo step. Cancel asks for confirmation and discards the current unsaved route. When Apple map data is available, a finished field note also saves a static street-map preview with the cleaned route and any claimed areas overlaid. City Ink keeps an active-session checkpoint so an interrupted walk can be recovered after the app relaunches. During an active background walk, iOS may show a blue location indicator that opens City Ink when tapped. The indicator ends when you Pause, Finish, Cancel, or force-close the app; an interrupted walk reopens paused and does not collect location again until you choose Resume.
How finished routes are cleaned
During an expedition, City Ink evaluates location accuracy and movement on the iPhone. Low-quality fixes and reliably stationary drift are not added to the gameplay route, and uncertain movement must be confirmed by a consistent following fix. This happens automatically with the existing location permission. The accepted walking route is the source for distance, new ground, and points. After Finish, City Ink keeps meaningful turns and route gaps and stores a compact display line. It may ask Apple MapKit for nearby pedestrian paths and accepts street alignment only when it stays close to the recorded trace. If that request fails or disagrees, the local display line remains and your score never changes.
Fog, claimed areas, favorites, and deletion
Unvisited map areas stay dark. Saved and active routes reveal bright corridors as you explore. A new expedition can close a sufficiently large boundary by itself or complete the missing section of a boundary formed by earlier walks. After Finish, City Ink adds the cleaned route to an on-device tiled walking network, calculates new qualifying areas once, and stores their geometry for future map views. Panning does not rebuild the network or repeat loop detection. Explore draws only nearby saved routes and claims, then uses aggregated exploration areas at distant zoom levels. A claimed field note displays Area Claimed. In Atlas, use the star to keep favorite expeditions first, or open the actions menu to delete one. Deletion requires confirmation and recalculates explored ground and claims from the field notes that remain.
How ink and points work
Total distance measures the usable GPS path. Painted distance measures continuous travel through small geographic cells that were not already present in your atlas. Rewalking a familiar street still appears in the current expedition, but it may add little or no new painted distance.
Every usable meter walked earns one point. Completing the selected planner route earns 10% additional points. Completion checks walked distance, the route corridor, and the ending area on the iPhone. An incomplete suggestion receives the normal one-point-per-meter score with no penalty. Closing a physical loop claims its area visually but grants the 10% bonus only when the selected planner suggestion was also completed.
Location is not updating
Confirm that Location Services are on and City Ink has the access shown in iPhone Settings. Move outdoors, disable Airplane Mode if it prevents GPS assistance, and wait briefly for a better fix. Low Power Mode and force-quitting the app can limit background updates.
Offline use
Expeditions, scoring, route drawing, history, and atlas totals work from local app storage. No Y Corp Technologies account or developer-operated server is required. Apple map detail may vary with connectivity and map data already available on the device. Generating a new loop-first or fallback out-and-back suggestion and optional post-walk street alignment require Apple MapKit connectivity. A static field-note preview may be generated later when you open an older expedition and Apple map data becomes available, but the walk mechanics and saved progress remain local.
Private iCloud backup
Sign in to iCloud on the iPhone, open Settings in City Ink, and check the Private iCloud Backup card. A backup is attempted after Finish saves and after favorite or delete changes. Back Up Now lets you request one immediately. If the phone is offline, iCloud can synchronize the document later when connectivity returns.
Restore replaces the current local atlas and expedition history with the available backup. Review the confirmation carefully before continuing. Y Corp Technologies cannot view, download, or restore that private iCloud document for you.
Battery and walking safety
Continuous GPS use can reduce battery life. Start with a charged iPhone on longer walks, pause when appropriate, and follow local signs and traffic rules. Do not interact with the app while crossing streets or whenever attention to the environment is required.
Contact support
If something is not working as expected, email mannykin333@gmail.com. Include the City Ink version, iPhone model, iOS version, and the step that failed. Do not send route screenshots or precise location details unless they are necessary and you choose to do so.
Email support ↗Privacy
City Ink has no advertising, analytics, tracking, or developer account system. Read the City Ink privacy policy for complete details about location, local storage, and iCloud.
Last updated
July 27, 2026