Comparison

Dotted vs Spot

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Dotted

Automatically maps your travel history by scanning your photos. See which countries you've visited light up on a world map and revisit past trips with a visual timeline. Share your adventures with custom cards or AirDrop entire trips to friends.

Highlights
  • Automatic country mapping from photos
  • Visual travel timeline
  • Personalized world map
  • Trip sharing features
  • Home screen widgets
  • iCloud sync across devices
Features
Read full description

Your camera roll is already a travel journal. Dotted just shows it to you, country by country. Scan your photos once and watch every country you've visited light up on a world map made of dots. No typing, no spreadsheets, no forgotten trips. Years of travel, mapped in seconds. YEARS OF TRAVEL, MAPPED IN SECONDS • See every country you've visited without typing a single name • Photos auto-grouped into trips by date and location • Forgotten that long weekend in Lisbon? Dotted finds it • Private by design: photos never leave your device WATCH YOUR WORLD FILL WITH DOTS • Your personal atlas, drawn as a dot-by-dot world map • Every country you've been to lights up • Spin the globe or flatten the map with one tap • 265 countries and territories to discover A TRAVEL DIARY THAT WRITES ITSELF • Browse every trip on a visual timeline, grouped by year • Tap any trip to revisit the photos from that time • Your wanderlust, archived SEE HOW MUCH OF THE WORLD YOU'VE EXPLORED • The exact percentage of the world you've covered • Country, continent, and year-over-year progress • Stats that make you want to book the next trip SHARE YOUR STORY • Beautiful share cards built for Instagram Stories, TikTok, and Threads • AirDrop entire trips to friends in seconds • Friends can add your shared trip to their own map with one tap YOUR MAP, ON YOUR HOME SCREEN • Widget with your travel map at every unlock • Country count and next trip countdown widgets EVERYWHERE YOU ARE • Travel data syncs via iCloud • Pick up on iPhone or Mac without missing a beat FOR EVERY KIND OF TRAVELER Weekend wanderers, backpackers, digital nomads, or anyone who wants to see how much of the world they've explored. If you've got a camera roll, Dotted works for you. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

Spot

Discover and track a wide range of real-world phenomena, from aircraft and trains to celestial bodies and natural events. Customize your map view, build a personal logbook, and receive custom alerts for nearby occurrences. Your data remains private and on-device.

Highlights
  • Live radar map
  • Customizable map layers
  • Detailed object information
  • Personal logbook and collection
  • Customizable alerts
  • Sky and astrology tracking
  • On-device data privacy
Features
Read full description

Spot is a spotter's logbook for everything that moves. Planes overhead, trains and buses going past, ships offshore, tagged wildlife, the ISS at dusk. See what is around you, bank what you catch, and build a collection. THE MAP Aircraft, with helicopters, military, emergency and privacy-flagged flights called out. Trains, buses and ships. Airports. The ISS and upcoming rocket launches. Earthquakes, wildfires, lightning and severe weather. Road incidents, roadwork and events. Tagged sharks from OCEARCH. Landmarks. Confirmed ALPR camera locations from public OpenStreetMap data. Flight restriction zones. Tonight's sky objects on real geography. RADAR SCOPE The same contacts on a plan position scope centred on you. Range rings, a rotating sweep, phosphor afterglow and colour coded blips. Pinch to set the range, 2 km to 500 km. SENSOR Your own movement, from the phone's GPS, barometer and accelerometer. Live speed on a dial, altitude, climb rate, g-force, heading and position. All on the device, so it works in a tunnel, on a train, or in airplane mode. Choose mph, km/h or knots. JOURNEYS Hit record, put the phone in your pocket, and Spot writes the whole trip down: route, speed, altitude, climb and g-force. It keeps going with the screen off and pauses itself when you stop. Every journey lands on a globe you can spin, each mode in its own colour Replay a trip with a time scrubber, or watch a long flight play back on the globe Lay your live stats over video you filmed on the trip and save it to Photos Export any journey as a GPX file LIVE ACTIVITIES Pin a flight and follow it on the Dynamic Island and Lock Screen: position, altitude, speed and arrival. Start a nearby radar and watch the count of aircraft around you change. A recording journey gets its own Live Activity with a stop button. SPOTDEX Every kind you have caught, laid out like a dex. Dex numbers, first and last seen, flyover tallies, notes and photos. Uncaught entries stay silhouettes until you find them. BADGES Over a hundred badges across milestones, logbook, craft, places, photos, habits, flyovers, watchers and journeys. FOG OF WORLD The ground you have walked is cleared from a fog layer over the map. Fold the world into a globe, see the countries and cities you have set foot in, and climb the explorer ranks. Journeys clear fog as you travel. SKY AND SPACE What is up tonight from where you are: the Moon and its phase, planets, bright stars, meteor showers and comets, with rise and set times and a watchlist. Then the solar system in 3D, with the ISS on its live orbit. SPOTTER AR Hold the phone up and Spot overlays nearby aircraft and the ISS on the real sky, so you know which light you are looking at. ALERTS A tracked plane or train passing overhead. Emergency squawks nearby. Rare aircraft and special callsigns. The ISS overhead or due. Earthquakes, wildfires, lightning and severe weather near you. Launch countdowns. Entering a flight restriction zone. A followed shark surfacing again. A watched wildfire growing, contained, or out. PRIVACY Location stays on the device. One tap on the kill switch shuts down every GPS read across the app, and a blur option hides your exact pin for screenshots. Nothing is posted anywhere unless you share it. WORKS OFFLINE The Sensor readout, journey recording, Fog of World, the globe, the sky chart and your whole logbook all run with no connection. ICLOUD Sightings, photos, badges, fog, follows, watchlist and journeys sync through your own private iCloud database. You choose what carries. SHORTCUTS AND WIDGETS Widgets for your pins and the radar. Siri shortcuts to pin a flight, start a radar, or ask what is overhead. SPOT PRO Spotting, pinning, the logbook, badges, Fog of World, the sky chart, Sensor and Journeys are free. Spot Pro adds the server backed feeds and their alerts, monthly. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula

Screenshots

Dotted4 screens
Spot4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is review sentiment: Spot at 89% against Dotted's 0%. Spot also leads on rating (4.2 vs 3.0) and ratings volume (9 vs 2). On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Dotted sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per 7 days and Spot sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $0.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Spot holds the better App Store score, 4.2 against 3.0. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 2 and 9 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 0% of Dotted's written reviews are positive against 89% of Spot's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Dotted ships an update weekly, Spot every 5 days. Both last shipped on November 5, 2026.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
Dotted versus Spot: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterDottedSpot
PriceFreeFree
Rating3.0 (2 ratings)4.2 (9 ratings) — better
Positive reviews0.0% of reviews88.9% of reviews — better
Number of ratings29 — better
Update frequencyWeeklyEvery 5 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFreemiumFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS18.017.2 — better
Further details — not scored
Size33 MB62 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperINNCODER ASWilliam Whitehouse

Customer experience

Dotted

All ratings2 ratings
Positive50.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative50.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive0.0%
Neutral100.0%
Negative0.0%

Spot

All ratings8 ratings
Positive75.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative25.0%
Written reviews9 reviews
Positive88.9%
Neutral0.0%
Negative11.1%

In-app purchases

3 purchases

Dotted

Subscriptions2
  • Weekly Pro$1.997 Days
  • Yearly Pro3 Days trial$11.991 Year
One-time1
  • Lifetime Plan$24.99
1 purchases

Spot

Subscriptions1
  • Spot Pro$0.991 Month

Questions

Is Dotted free?
Dotted is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Spot free?
Spot is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Dotted or Spot?
Spot is rated higher. Dotted averages 3.0 out of 5 from 2 ratings, while Spot averages 4.2 from 9 ratings.
Do Dotted or Spot have ads?
Neither Dotted nor Spot shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Dotted or Spot?
Dotted ships an update weekly, and Spot every 5 days. Most recently, Dotted was updated on November 5, 2026 and Spot on November 5, 2026.

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