{"id":136198,"date":"2024-07-11T14:59:27","date_gmt":"2024-07-11T14:59:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/developer.apple.com\/news\/?id=3m0ht22s"},"modified":"2024-07-11T14:59:27","modified_gmt":"2024-07-11T14:59:27","slug":"behind-the-design-how-gentler-streak-approaches-fitness-with-humanity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2024\/07\/11\/behind-the-design-how-gentler-streak-approaches-fitness-with-humanity\/","title":{"rendered":"Behind the Design: How Gentler Streak approaches fitness with \u201chumanity\u201c"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"inline-article-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/behind-the-design-how-gentler-streak-approaches-fitness-with-humanity.jpg\" data-img-dark=\"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/behind-the-design-how-gentler-streak-approaches-fitness-with-humanity.jpg\" data-hires=\"false\" alt=\"A photo of six members of the Gentler Streak team sitting on a couch in front of a white wall with yellow abstract designs.\"><\/div>\n<p><em>Gentler Streak<\/em> is a different kind of fitness tracker. In fact, to hear cofounder and CEO Katarina Lotric\u030c tell it, it\u2019s not really a fitness tracker at all. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe think of it more as a lifestyle app,\u201d says Lotric\u030c, from the team\u2019s home office in Kranj, Slovenia. \u201cWe want it to feel like a compass, a reminder to get moving, no matter what that means for you,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"sosumi margin-top-small\">ADA FACT SHEET<\/p>\n<div class=\"inline-article-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/behind-the-design-how-gentler-streak-approaches-fitness-with-humanity-1.jpg\" data-img-dark=\"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/behind-the-design-how-gentler-streak-approaches-fitness-with-humanity-1.jpg\" data-hires=\"false\" alt=\"A screenshot of Gentler Streak\u2019s \u201cGo Gentler\u201d page, which suggests optimal workouts for a user\u2019s day.\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"typography-caption\">\n<p>The app\u2019s \u201cGo Gentler\u201d page suggests optimal workouts for a user\u2019s day.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h3>Gentler Streak<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Winner:<\/strong> Social Impact<\/li>\n<li><strong>Team:<\/strong> Gentler Stories d.o.o., Slovenia<\/li>\n<li><strong>Available on:<\/strong> iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch<\/li>\n<li><strong>Team size:<\/strong> 8<\/li>\n<li><strong>Previous accolades:<\/strong> Apple Watch App of the Year (2022), Apple Design Award finalist (Visuals and graphics, 2023)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/apps.apple.com\/us\/app\/gentler-streak-workout-tracker\/id1576857102\" class=\"icon icon-after icon-chevronright\">Download Gentler Streak from the App Store<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/gentler.app\" class=\"icon icon-after icon-chevronright\">Learn more about Gentler Streak<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/developer.apple.com\/design\/awards\/\" class=\"icon icon-after icon-chevronright\">Meet the 2024 Apple Design Award winners<\/a><\/p>\n<p>That last part is key. True to its name, the Apple Design Award-winning <em>Gentler Streak<\/em> takes a friendlier approach to fitness. Instead of focusing on performance \u2014 on the bigger, faster, and stronger \u2014 <em>Gentler Streak<\/em> meets people where they are, presenting workout suggestions, statistics, and encouragement for all skill levels.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA lot of mainstream fitness apps can seem to be about pushing all the time,\u201d Lotric\u030c says. \u201cBut for a lot of people, that isn\u2019t the reality. Everyone has different demands and capabilities on different days. We thought, \u2018Can we create a tool to help anyone know where they\u2019re at on any given day, and guide them to a sustainably active lifestyle?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"article-quote\">\n<p>If a 15-minute walk is what your body can do at that moment, that\u2019s great.<\/p>\n<p><cite><\/p>\n<p>Katarina Lotric\u030c, CEO and cofounder of Gentler Stories<\/p>\n<p><\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>To reach those goals, Lotric\u030c and her Gentler Stories cofounders \u2014 UI\/UX designer Andrej Mihelic\u030c, senior developer Luka Ore\u0161nik, and CTO and iOS developer Jasna Krmelj \u2014 created an app powered by an optimistic and encouraging vibe that considers physical fitness and mental well-being equally. <\/p>\n<p>Fitness and workout data (collected from HealthKit) is presented in a colorful, approachable design. The app\u2019s core functions are available for free; a subscription unlocks premium features. And an abstract mascot named Yorhart (sound it out) adds to the light touch. \u201cYorhart helps you establish a relationship with the app and with yourself, because it\u2019s what your heart would be telling you,\u201d Lotric\u030c says. <\/p>\n<div class=\"inline-article-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/behind-the-design-how-gentler-streak-approaches-fitness-with-humanity-2.jpg\" data-img-dark=\"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/behind-the-design-how-gentler-streak-approaches-fitness-with-humanity-2.jpg\" data-hires=\"false\" alt=\"A screenshot from Gentler Streak, in which the app\u2019s mascot, Yorhart, is seen over a line graph indicating that a person\u2019s needs and capabilities are being met perfectly.\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"typography-caption\">\n<p>Good news from Yorhart: This user\u2019s needs and capabilities are being met perfectly.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>It\u2019s working: In addition to the 2024 Apple Design Award for Social Impact, <em>Gentler Streak<\/em> was named 2022 Apple Watch App of the Year. What\u2019s more, it has an award-winning ancestor: Lotri\u010d and Ore\u0161nik won an Apple Design Award in 2017 for <em>Lake: Coloring Book for Adults<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The trio used the success of <em>Lake<\/em> to learn more about navigating the industry. But something else was happening during that time: The team, all athletes, began revisiting their own relationships with fitness. Lotric\u030c suffered an injury that kept her from running for months and affected her mental health; she writes about her experiences in <em>Gentler Streak\u2019s<\/em> editorial section. Mihelic\u030c had a different issue. \u201cMy problem wasn\u2019t that I lacked motivation,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was that I worked out too much. I needed something that let me know when it was enough.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"article-quote\">\n<p>Statistics are just numbers. Without knowing how to interpret them, they are meaningless.<\/p>\n<p><cite><\/p>\n<p>Katarina Lotric\u030c, CEO and cofounder of Gentler Stories<\/p>\n<p><\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>As a way to reset, Mihelic\u030c put together an internal app, a simple utility that encouraged him to move but also allowed time for recuperation. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t very gentle,\u201d he laughs. \u201cBut the core idea was more or less the same. It guided but it didn\u2019t push. And it wasn\u2019t based on numbers; it was more explanatory.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Over time, the group began using Mihelic\u030c\u2019s app. \u201cWe saw right away that it was sticky,\u201d says Lotric\u030c. \u201cI came back to it daily, and it was just this basic prototype. After a while, we realized, \u2018Well, this works and is built, to an extent. Why don\u2019t we see if there\u2019s anything here?\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n<div class=\"inline-article-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/behind-the-design-how-gentler-streak-approaches-fitness-with-humanity-3.jpg\" data-img-dark=\"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/behind-the-design-how-gentler-streak-approaches-fitness-with-humanity-3.jpg\" data-hires=\"false\" alt=\"A screenshot from Gentler Streak, showing a series of bar graphs that chart a person\u2019s workout history over a single month.\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"typography-caption\">\n<p><em>Gentler Streak<\/em> pulls workout information from HealthKit and presents it in simple, easy-to-understand charts. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>That\u2019s when Lotric\u030c, Ore\u0161nik, and Krmelj split from <em>Lake<\/em> to create Gentler Stories with Mihelic\u030c. &#8220;I wanted in because I loved the idea behind the whole company,\u201d Krmelj says. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t just about the app. I really like the app. But I really believed in this idea about mental well-being.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Early users believed it too: The team found that initial TestFlight audience members returned at a stronger rate than expected. \u201cOur open and return rates were high enough that we kept thinking, \u201cAre these numbers even real?\u2019\u201d laughs Lotric\u030c. The team found that those early users responded strongly to the \u201cgentler\u201d side, the approachable repositioning of statistics.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe weren\u2019t primarily addressing the audience that most fitness apps seemed to target,\u201d says Lotri\u010d. \u201cWe focused on everyone else, the people who maybe didn\u2019t feel like they belonged in a gym. Statistics are just numbers. Without knowing how to interpret them, they are meaningless. We wanted to change that and focus on the humanity.\u201d By fall of 2021, <em>Gentler Streak<\/em> was ready for prime time.<\/p>\n<div class=\"inline-article-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/behind-the-design-how-gentler-streak-approaches-fitness-with-humanity-4.jpg\" data-img-dark=\"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/behind-the-design-how-gentler-streak-approaches-fitness-with-humanity-4.jpg\" data-hires=\"false\" alt=\"Three screenshots from Apple Watch that show Gentler Streak on watchOS. \"><\/p>\n<div class=\"typography-caption\">\n<p><em>Gentler Streak<\/em> on Apple Watch brings encouragement closer than ever before.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Today\u2019s version of the app follows the same strategy of Mihelic\u030c\u2019s original prototype. Built largely in UIKit, its health data is smartly organized, the design is friendly and consistent, and features like its Monthly Summary view \u2014 which shows how you\u2019re doing in relation to your history \u2014 focus less on comparison and more on progress, whatever that may mean. \u201cIf a 15-minute walk is what your body can do at that moment, that\u2019s great,\u201d Lotric\u030c says. \u201cThat how we make people feel represented.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The app\u2019s social impact continues to grow. In the spring of 2024, <em>Gentler Streak<\/em> added support for Japanese, Korean, and traditional and simplified Chinese languages; previous updates added support for French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Brazilian Portuguese. <\/p>\n<p>And those crucial features \u2014 fitness tracking, workout suggestions, metrics, and activity recaps \u2014 will remain available to everyone. \u201cThat goes with the Gentler Stories philosophy,\u201d says Lotric\u030c. \u201cWe\u2019re bootstrapped, but at the same time we know that not everyone is in a position to support us. We still want to be a tool that helps people stay healthy not just for the first two weeks of the year or the summer, but all year long.\u201d <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/developer.apple.com\/design\/awards\/\" class=\"icon icon-after icon-chevronright\">Meet the 2024 Apple Design Award winners<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"sosumi margin-top-small\"><em>Behind the Design is a series that explores design practices and philosophies from finalists and winners of the Apple Design Awards. In each story, we go behind the screens with the developers and designers of these award-winning apps and games to discover how they brought their remarkable creations to life.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gentler Streak is a different kind of fitness tracker. In fact, to hear cofounder and CEO Katarina Lotric\u030c tell it, it\u2019s not really a fitness tracker at all. \u201cWe think of it more as a lifestyle app,\u201d says Lotric\u030c, from the team\u2019s home office in Kranj, Slovenia. \u201cWe want it to feel like a compass, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136199,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-136198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apple-developer-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}