All features / Connected
iCloud Sync.
Your data, everywhere.
Record a workout on the Watch. Review it on your iPhone over coffee. Plan tomorrow's route on iPad while you ice your knees. Same workouts, same segments, same goals, no extra account to maintain.
Why iCloud, not our own cloud
A lot of fitness apps build their own account system, their own cloud, their own sync infrastructure. That comes with a cost: you sign up, you remember a password, you trust them with all your data, and if they go away tomorrow, so does your training history.
PeakPulse takes a different approach: your workouts live in your iCloud account. We're a tenant on Apple's infrastructure, not the landlord of your data. If you ever leave PeakPulse — for any reason — your data is yours to export and take with you.
The simplest sync is the one you don't have to set up.
What syncs, and how
PeakPulse uses two different sync paths depending on the kind of data — both go through your iCloud account.
The watch-to-phone handoff
Apple Watch recording is standalone — you don't need your phone with you. After the workout, the watch passes the recording to your phone via the standard WatchConnectivity framework, where it lands in PeakPulse and then syncs through iCloud to your other devices. Even if your watch finishes the workout before the phone is in range, the handoff is reliable and the recording is preserved.
If your watch dies before handoff (say, on a long backcountry day), the in-progress recording is checkpointed locally on the watch. When you charge and reopen, PeakPulse on the watch offers to recover and pass through.
Privacy and ownership
Common questions
Do I need to be a paid iCloud subscriber?
No. PeakPulse's data fits well within the free 5 GB iCloud allowance for typical users, and CloudKit private database storage is provided to apps free of charge by Apple — it doesn't count against your photo storage. If you have iCloud at all (free or paid), you have what you need.
What happens if I'm signed out of iCloud?
PeakPulse still works perfectly on the device — recordings go to local storage. They just don't sync to your other devices. Sign in to iCloud and the local recordings flow up to your library.
How long does first sync take?
Settings sync in seconds. Workouts depend on your library size — a year of trail running with full GPS tracks is typically tens of megabytes, syncs in a few minutes on Wi-Fi. After that, incremental syncs are near-instant.
Can I share workouts between two Apple IDs (mine and my partner's)?
iCloud private data is per-account, so direct sync between two accounts isn't possible. For sharing, we use Beacon for live workouts and Shareable Cards or Strava upload for completed ones — both work across separate Apple IDs.
What if I have a CloudKit sync error?
The most common cause is a temporary network issue — PeakPulse retries automatically. If a sync error persists, the app surfaces a clear message with a "diagnose" option that can run a repair pass. Your local recordings are never at risk; they live on-device first, sync second.