Add It Up - Counter

by Jeff (March 4, 2024)

This is the story of how Add It Up was created. Sometime ago, my daughter and I wanted to run a mini marathon. Each year in Louisville, KY as part of the Kentucky Derby Festival, one of the bigger events was the miniMarathon. I was training over the winter and often had to run inside at a local YMCA. Luckily they had a track, but it was quite small and it was super easy to lose track of your lap count.

So I made a quick app call Count Things. It really only did this one task of providing a simple counter that was super easy to press on each lap. This remained basically the same for years. But with advanced in iOS, watchOS and new watch hardware, I had some features that needed to get out.

I struggled with changing Count Things or starting a new app. In the end, I wanted so much more for this app it made sense to start fresh. So Add It Up - Counter was born.

This new app was going to take advantage of all those updates to Apple Watch, iOS and watchOS since I released Count Things. I wanted to add features like multiple counters, charts and analytics. But I also wanted the app to remain easy to use, concise and focused on counting.

Add It Up - Counter has the following features.

  • Counters - You can create an unlimited number of counters with a name and background color.
  • Charts, Charts Charts - Each counter will display a bar chart to show counts from today, this week and this year. You can also easily toggle the chart by tapping to show yesterday and last week.
  • Goal - You can set a daily goal for each counter. If you are trying to get in 100oz of water each day, set a goal and keep track. I track water by entering the number of 20oz water bottles I drink. This makes my goal to be 5 bottles and it makes for an easy to read chart.
  • Counter View - This is the primary way you enter your counts. Just tap the screen to increase. You can also remove the last count by pressing the "-" button. This screen also has a feature of showing the total number of count, counts for this week or counts for today. This provides the flexibility to count many different types of events.
  • Counter List - This screen shows all you counters with each total. You can sort this screen using the sort button at the top left. You can sort by name or last count update date. The counter list also allows quickly adding counts by swiping right on the name. Just swipe and add +1. You can also swipe left on the screen to reset the counter to zero or erase the counter completely.
  • About Screen - This is available at the bottom of your counters and provides a concise description of the apps and its features.

Examples of things to count with Add It Up - Counter

Start counting things like salads, walks, sport stats, art projects, bird watching, gym visits, golf strokes, books read, happy moments, dog walks, house chores and anything else you can come up with.

I have been using the app recently to track my habits (bad and good). It is motivational to make the charts improve when trying to change a habit.

Download on the App Store now. (Apple Watch Only)