Four locally-made apps shipped new versions this week. The headliner is Fishing Guide 2.0 — the first real visual rebuild since launch. S-Tier Eats, the Trail Guide, and the Cosmica idle game all got updates in the same window. Three Woodlands field guides, one cosmic one, short rundown on each below.
1 · The Woodlands Fishing Guide — Version 2.0
The Woodlands Fishing Guide is a free iOS app with 81 lake and pond spots across the Woodlands area — from Lake Conroe down to neighborhood ponds nobody talks about. Each spot has live wind, water temperature, barometric pressure, and a catch log you keep to yourself. No signup, no accounts.
The first big version jump since launch. Fishing Guide got rebuilt from the ground up around a new Field Guide design direction — the vibe moves from “iOS utility” to “pocket almanac.”
New visual system — hand-feel typography, Field Guide color system, revised iconography
Rebuilt spot detail page — species, access notes, directions, and weather now sit together like a reference-book entry instead of stacked cards
Rebuilt weather card — Field Guide treatment with the same wind/pressure/sunrise data, more readable at a glance
9 new fields per spot — including private-access notes and contact where applicable
Animated Field Guide splash on cold launch
New app icon
The core data stays the same — 81 lakes and ponds, live conditions, catch log — now in a package that reads less like a phone screen and more like something you’d grab off a shelf before heading out.
Free, iOS. Open in the App Store ›
2 · S-Tier Eats — Version 2.8
S-Tier Eats lets you rank restaurants on a classic S/A/B/C/F tier list instead of a 5-star blur. Your personal list stays yours; the community tab rolls up what the crowd thinks of each spot. Covers 4,730+ restaurants from The Woodlands south to Atascocita. Free on iOS and Android.
Three versions have shipped since the last Dispatch — 2.6, 2.7, 2.8. The theme has been polish: cleaner map, snappier loads, and a tighter visual identity across the whole app.
Branded map clusters — pin groups now use the S-Tier purple instead of system blue, with a cleaner badge style
Unified brand-purple accent across the app (buttons, selected states, highlights)
Skeleton loaders replace spinners — no more “is it stuck?” moments while the Community board loads
Cluster jitter fix — zooming the map no longer causes clusters to drift
Animated launch splash
Catalog cleanup — 46 near-duplicate restaurants merged (4,777 → 4,730 unique spots)
Behind the scenes: admin tools for faster closure-report resolution, so stale “permanently closed” flags clear faster
3 · Woodlands Trail Guide — Version 1.7
Woodlands Trail Guide is a free iOS field guide to every named trail in The Woodlands Township — 1,564 segments, 206 miles, nine villages, two nature preserves. Plan a route by distance, time, path type, and loop vs. out-and-back. No signup, no tracking.
A small follow-up to the big v1.6 refresh.
Animated splash on first-launch loading — the app no longer boots to a white screen while the trail graph parses
That’s it for 1.7. The visual refresh work from 1.6 (Fraunces display face, branded map clusters, opaque route card, achievements with progress bars, Township data refresh) is all still landing with users who are only now updating.
Free, iOS. Open in the App Store ›
4 · Switching gears — Cosmica 3.1
Here’s the one that isn’t from The Woodlands.
Cosmica is a relaxed iOS idle game. Start with a backyard telescope, grow through seven cosmic tiers to Dyson Swarms and Multiverse Receivers, and Big Bang-prestige for permanent multipliers. Free with optional IAPs.
Cosmica — the idle space game that quietly pays for everything else — just shipped v3.1 today. The headline additions:
Time Warp — compress offline hours into on-screen production (never sells nothing — if your reactors can’t produce, Time Warp waits)
Late-game Auto-Big-Bang — set a prestige threshold and let the universe cycle itself
Visible tier progress bar — see how close you are to the next cosmic tier without doing the math
Progress-scaled shard packs — pricing scales with where you are in the game, not a flat offer
Supporter Pack — a new one-tap unlock for anyone who’s hit S-tier generosity
And from the 3.0.5 interim release: animated Big Bang splash, bundle offer when the Automation trial ends, post-purchase rating prompt.
Full honesty, repeat from last time: Cosmica is the one quietly keeping the Woodlands apps free, ad-light, and signup-free. If “a relaxed space game with a cosmic tree and generators” sounds appealing, the Everything Bundle is the single biggest reason this newsletter can exist at all.
Free with optional IAPs, iOS. Open Cosmica in the App Store ›