Ato: Walking Trace

Ato (アト, Japanese for "trace" or "footprint") is a quiet, unhurried walking app.

RECORD A WALK Open it and Ato draws the path you walk as a single line, with distance, time and pace. Lock the screen, put the phone in your pocket — it keeps recording quietly, and the Live Activity on your lock screen shows how far you have come.

MY TRACES The places you have walked are counted as tiles. Walking the same street again never adds one — only going somewhere new does. See how many tiles you have lit, how much ground you have covered, and what percentage of each district you have walked: "Da'an District 13.6%".

RANKS Seven tiers, from Couch Potato to Legendary Walker. Your rank comes from your daily average over the last seven days and is recalculated every time you open the app — so it reflects the walker you are now, not a lifetime total. It goes up, and it can go down. Distance at walking pace counts fully; riding counts 30%. The walk to the station still counts, but rank is earned on foot.

CITY EXPLORATION CHESTS Every kilometre on foot earns a chest holding a random keepsake badge. There are eleven to collect, and when you go out changes what you find — larks in the early morning, dusk in the evening. Collect five of the same badge and you can wear it as an avatar frame. (All free. There are no in-app purchases.)

HISTORY AND MONTHLY RECAP Every walk is kept: this week, this month, lifetime distance, milestone badges, and a monthly recap you can open at the end of the month. When a walk ends you can turn the route into a card and share it.

MEET UP WITH FRIENDS Shopping separately? Open a meet-up room and send the code or link — one tap and they are in. See each other's position and distance on the map, drop a meeting point, send a quick signal ("I'm here!"). Your lock screen shows how far away they are.

FRIENDS Add friends with a friend code and see who is walking or meeting up right now. Friends are sorted by rank; tap one to see their totals, coverage and badges. Cheer their latest walk with kudos. With three friends, your whole week counts ×1.5. (You can see each other's numbers — but never each other's routes. That stays private.)

REMINDERS Optional daily notifications: a gentle nudge in the morning, and at night how far to walk tomorrow to reach the next rank. Both can be turned off at any time.

SIGN IN WITH APPLE (OPTIONAL) You can record walks, see your history and coverage without an account. Sign in and your walks are backed up to your own private cloud space, so a new phone keeps everything — and friend features become available.

ANONYMOUS CROWD HEATMAP Curious which area is busy right now? The heatmap shows how many people are walking nearby, completely anonymously: your position is blurred into a coarse grid cell on your device before it is ever sent, so others see density, never you.

PRIVACY • No forced sign-up; Sign in with Apple is your choice • Location is used only while recording a walk or sharing in a room, and stops when you finish • Location sharing happens only in rooms you chose to join • Your walking routes are yours alone — friends cannot see them • Avatar photos are visible only to friends you have both added, and can be removed anytime • Heatmap data is anonymised and cannot be traced back to a person • Walks live on your phone; signed in, they are also stored where only you can reach them • Sign out or delete your account and all cloud data from inside the app, anytime • We do not sell data, show ads, track you, or sell anything in the app

Tell us anything through "Feedback" inside the app.

Walk slowly. Leave today's trace.