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The Story of Radar

How it started

I’ve always been frustrated by how hard it is to keep track of what I’ve watched, played, and read. Notes get messy, and I almost never go back to them. If you ever decided to do more than just watch movies, using dedicated apps becomes more work than fun, esepcially having to juggle multiple for each interest you have.

That’s why we built Radar.

Radar brings everything into one place. It’s where you can save and share the things you watch, read, and play without the friction of switching apps. It’s designed so anyone can pick it up and start using it right away, with an emphasis on simplicity and enjoyment. Instead of ads or tracking, Radar centers on community: friends, recommendations, and activity you actually care about. Radar was also built with privacy at it's core, so you never need an account, and you’re always in control of your data.

What else does Radar do?

Radar does a lot. If you're curious for more details and some visuals, check out our launch post: https://justuseradar.com/newsroom/launch

How we built Radar

Built for Apple Platforms: SwiftUI + SwiftData for performance and a cohesive design system. Going native also gives us the ability to quickly scale to iPad, tvOS, and visionOS with shared code. Building native also allows us to basically do anything we want. CarPlay, Android XR, Foldables, and anything else you can think of are all on the table.
Privacy First: On-device controls and a “no-trust” mindset: encrypt before it leaves the device when possible, and keep sensitive data local by default.
A Robust Backend: We use Appwrite Cloud with Deno for everything server-side, and it’s constantly getting better. It has incredible features and great value that simply makes it an easy choice over Supabase for building something we want to scale. Appwrite gives us a rock-solid backend as our source of truth, while our native client stays lightning-fast and resilient offline.
Seamless Subscriptions: Like our backend, we use RevenueCat to manage products, offerings, and entitlements so we can focus on the product, not infrastructure. Entitlements unlock quality-of-life features (e.g., higher limits, customization, early access), Customer Center handles account management, and RevenueCat’s dashboards give us clear purchase and churn insights.

The challenges we faced (and what we learned)

Engineering Robust Syncing: We built a syncing system that never loses data and never surprises users, even when switching devices or going offline. This required mastering conflict resolution, versioning, and background processing.
Designing To Scale: We created a schema that can gracefully handle any content type (movies, books, games, etc.) without having to constantly be adjusted and overhauled every time we add another category.
Performance Optimization: We learned how to set and enforce performance budgets so the app stays buttery-smooth, even on older hardware, through aggressive caching, efficient layouts, and targeted preloading. Other recent additions include integrating Swift Data's @ModelActor as well as pushing more on Swift Concurrency features as part of Swift 6.

What we're most proud of:

Building something people love. A fast, cohesive native app that people actually enjoy using.
Privacy First. Radar's Privacy features are architectural, not just marketing. User choice and privacy are carefully considered with each new feature and update we launch.
Finally, Launch. It's been a long time coming, but I'm so incredibly proud of the team for getting to the finish line. Lots more exciting things to come!

What’s next for Radar...

Places Support: Our most reqeusted feature is on the way, soon you’ll be able to add and share places right alongside your movies, shows, books, and games.
iPad Support: Radar is coming to iPad this week, taking full advantage of the larger screen and making the experience even better across devices.
More Import Options: We’re expanding import support with Letterboxd and Goodreads, so bringing your existing library into Radar will be easier than ever.

Huge shoutout to RevenueCat and the Shipaton partners for making something like this possible. Good luck to everyone!

-matt martino