Geo Measure for Mac 3.0: the Mac-only edition now runs the same code as Geo Measure

Geo Measure has been on the Mac twice over. There is Geo Measure itself, the app that runs on iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Vision Pro from one purchase, which got its 3.0 rewrite this month. And there is Geo Measure for Mac, the app I put on the Mac App Store in 2013, when a Mac app was its own product on its own record. Apple picked it as a Best New App that year, and people have kept buying it since, which I am grateful for, because for the last few years it was the one that stood still: version 1.3, one shape per file, the old maths, and no way to delete a point.

That is over. Geo Measure for Mac is now built from the same code as Geo Measure 3.0. Same documents, same panel, same menus, same maths. The version number jumps from 1.3 to 3.0.1 to say so, and the update is free for everyone who owns the app.

What that brings to the Mac

Central Park with three shapes in one document on the Mac: the park as an area, Fifth Avenue as a distance and the reservoir as a circle, each with its number in the panel

Several shapes in one file, each with a name and a colour and its number in the list, with the totals at the bottom. A circle as a third kind of shape. Delete a point from its callout, drag a pin with a loupe, bend an edge around a curve, and undo every one of those with ⌘Z. Type a coordinate to place a point exactly. Every point listed with its coordinates and the length and bearing of the leg to the next one. Export to GeoJSON, KML, CSV, GPX, a PNG or a PDF report; import GeoJSON, KML and GPX by dropping the file on the map. Areas and distances on the WGS84 ellipsoid, checked against GeographicLib, shown to four significant figures. Menus with shortcuts, documents in windows with autosave and versions. And the app is now in English, German, French, Spanish and Japanese, where it used to be three of those.

Your old files open

The points list on the Mac: coordinates in decimal degrees with the length and bearing of each leg, beside the LaGuardia outline

Every .measure file the Mac app has written since 2013 opens as it always did; the reader knows that shape as well as the new one. New documents are GeoJSON with a version number, and they open in Geo Measure on the phone too, if you have it.

Which one should you buy?

Either. From this version on they are the same app with the same features, and they will get the same updates at the same time. If you want it on your iPhone or iPad as well, buy Geo Measure: one purchase covers all four platforms. If you only want the Mac, or you already own Geo Measure for Mac, this one is yours, and nobody needs both. Either is one purchase, with no account and no subscription.