How Viewpoint works offline
Viewpoint is built to work in the field — on a clifftop, in a forest, anywhere a signal drops. It is offline-first: your device holds the real copy of your data, and the network is only ever used to back it up and sync it.
Works fully offline
- Capturing a spot — location, the auto-stamped sun position, and your notes are saved on the device immediately.
- Browsing your library — every spot, photo, note, and saved map you’ve captured is available with no connection.
- Editing — renaming spots, editing notes, organising maps.
- The planning tools — sun, moon, and Milky Way calculations run entirely on your device.
Your spots and their pins always show on the map, online or not — they live on your device. The map imagery underneath them is a separate thing; see The map itself below.
A capture made offline is not lost — it is saved locally immediately. If you’ve signed in, it’s also queued and syncs to the cloud automatically the next time you have a connection; as a guest it simply stays on your device until you choose to sign in.
Needs a connection
- Forecasts — cloud-cover and weather forecasts are live data; they refresh when you are online and show the last known values otherwise.
- Syncing between devices, and cloud backup.
- Photo upload — by default photos upload on Wi-Fi only, to spare your mobile data. This is configurable in Settings.
- The map imagery — see below.
The map itself
Viewpoint’s map is Apple Maps, which streams its imagery from Apple’s servers as you pan and zoom. Unlike your data, that imagery is not stored for offline use:
- Your spots and pins always show — they live on your device, so they appear whether you’re online or not.
- The map underneath them needs a connection. If you arrive somewhere new with no signal, your pins can sit on a blank background until you’re online again.
- A “download this area for offline use” option — the way Google Maps and similar apps work — isn’t available yet. It’s something we’re looking into; it has not shipped.
We’re spelling this out because “offline-first” is core to Viewpoint, and today that promise covers your data — your spots, photos, notes, and plans — not the map imagery itself. If your trips take you beyond cellular coverage, plan around that for now.
Sync, briefly
Sync applies once you’ve signed in. When you come back online, Viewpoint syncs in the background — you do not have to do anything. If two devices edited the same spot while offline, the most recent edit wins. (As a guest there’s nothing to sync; your data lives only on this device.)
You will never be signed out for being offline. A dropped connection or an expired token does not log you out or hide your data — your captures stay on the device and on screen.