Apps / GoodTides

GoodTides

Most tide apps hand you a chart and leave you to work it out. GoodTides answers the question you actually had: is the tide right for what I want to do, here, now or later today?

Why I built it

I live on the coast and I kept doing the same sum in my head. Squinting at a tide table, converting times, guessing whether the water would be far enough out by the time I got there. It's a small, repetitive problem, and small repetitive problems are what software is for. GoodTides started as an app for me, and it stayed honest because I'm the person who gets it wrong if it lies.

What it does

• Activity windows. Set what you care about, whether that's a swim, a paddle, a beach walk or getting a boat off, and see whether the window is open now and when the next one starts.
• Saved locations. Your regular spots plus wherever you are, all answering the same question at a glance.
• Every surface. Widgets, Lock Screen, Live Activities, Apple Watch complications and Siri, so most of the time you don't need to open the app at all.
• Honest data. Every prediction shows its source, how fresh it is, and which datum it uses. Cached and offline predictions say so plainly rather than pretending to be live.

What it will not do

GoodTides is for recreation and planning. It is not a navigation instrument and it must not be used to decide whether a tidal crossing, causeway or any other situation is safe. Tide predictions are astronomical estimates, and real water levels are pushed around by weather, surge and local conditions. When lives or vehicles depend on the answer, use official sources and local knowledge.

It also won't dress up uncertainty as confidence. If data is stale, offline or unavailable, the app says which, because a tide app that hides its own doubt is worse than no tide app.

Requirements

• iPhone or iPad running iOS 26 or later, with an Apple Watch app for watchOS 26 or later.
• Location access is optional. It's used to find the coast nearest you, and you can search for and save places instead.
• Free to try, with a Pro upgrade available as either a yearly subscription or a one-off lifetime purchase.

Support and privacy

The support page covers locations, permissions, offline behaviour and Pro, and the privacy policy explains exactly what is sent when the app fetches a forecast, which is less than you might expect. Anything else, email paul@paulcalver.com.

Data sources

Tide predictions come from WorldTides. Sea and weather conditions, such as waves, sea temperature and wind, come from Open-Meteo. Both are named in the app beside the data they provide, along with the time it was retrieved, and they are labelled separately so you always know which part came from where.