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Onisom · Last updated 22 September 2026

Onisom is a quiet app, so most questions are about what it is deliberately not doing. Here are the common ones.

What am I actually making?

A picture. Every day you walk far enough uncovers a piece of it, and when the last piece lands the picture is yours — it moves to Pictures, where everything you have made is kept. A new journey then begins with a new picture.

Walking further in a day uncovers more than one piece: there are three rungs, and you reach as many of them as you walk. If you are walking with someone, a piece appears on the days you both walked, at the rung you both reached.

How do I walk with someone?

You invite them. Go to Settings → Together → Walk with someone, and Onisom gives you a short code to send however you like — a message, an email, out loud. They enter it under Their code on the same screen, and from then on you are making one picture together.

Onisom never matches you with a stranger and has no way to find people for you. If you invite nobody, your journey is simply your own, and it is not a lesser version — it is the same picture, made alone.

Joining someone puts away the journey you were on. You keep the picture you had made so far; it is in Pictures, and you can pick it up again whenever you like.

Do I have to open the app every day?

Ideally, yes, briefly — and this is the one thing worth knowing about how Onisom works. It reads your step count from Apple Health on iPhone, or Health Connect on Android, when you open it, not while it is closed. If a day goes by without a look, the next time you open Onisom it goes back and counts that day too — as long as that is within a few days. A day older than that cannot be counted later.

So if you walk every day but only open the app once a week, most of those days cannot count. Opening it for a moment is enough — there is nothing to start, press or finish. If Onisom notices that a day went by without a look, it will quietly say so on the journey screen.

My steps are not being counted

Onisom needs permission to read your step count — from Apple Health on iPhone, or Health Connect on Android. If you declined it, the app will tell you on the main screen and show you where to fix it — or open Settings → Not seeing your steps? at any time.

On iPhone, step permissions are not in iOS Settings — Apple keeps them in the Health app. Open Health, then go to Sharing → Apps & Services → Onisom and turn on Steps (and Walking + Running Distance, if you want to see how far you went). Onisom only ever reads from Health; it never writes to it.

Why can I not type my city?

Onisom asks you to pick your city from a list built into the app rather than type it. That list is what turns a city name into the approximate coordinates the weather lookup needs — which is how Onisom can show weather without ever asking for location permission or using GPS. If your city is not on the list, pick the nearest one that is; everything except the weather works exactly the same either way.

What does my companion see about my weather?

Only the condition — clear, rain, snow, and so on. Never your city, never your coordinates, never a temperature. You see the same about them, and only while they have opened the app recently; otherwise your screen simply shows your own sky.

Why is there no chat?

On purpose. Onisom is about knowing someone is out there, not about talking to them. There are no messages, no profiles and no feed. You invited this person, so you know who they are — and you can give them a name in Settings → Together, which is stored only on your own phone. What you never see is their step count; only whether a day was shared.

What do the numbers on the journey screen mean?

They are all about you. The card for the day shows your own step count so far and the number of steps that counts a day, and how far you have walked if you asked for that. Above it, the journey says how many days have counted so far.

You never see your companion’s numbers at all — only whether a day was shared. There are no streaks, no rings, no badges and no leaderboards, and nothing is ever compared with anyone else. Nothing can be lost: a day you miss is simply a day the picture waits.

Can I change the units, the language or the appearance?

Yes, all three, in Settings.

Units lets you pick °C or °F for the weather, and kilometres or miles for distance. Each has an Automatic option, which follows the region your phone is set to and tells you which unit that works out as. The two are separate on purpose: plenty of places read temperature in Celsius and walk in miles.

Language offers English, Español and Русский, or Match iPhone (Match system on Android) to follow your device. Onisom is written in those three; on a device set to any other language you will see that language’s system wording and English for Onisom’s own words. Choosing a language here also changes how numbers and dates are written, but it does not change your units — those follow your phone’s region, because the language you read is not necessarily the region you live in.

It also decides the language of the one notification Onisom sends, so that arrives in the language you read the app in rather than the one your phone is set to.

Appearance offers Light, Dark, or Match iPhone — Match system on Android.

What happens if I get a new phone?

Onisom has no account, sign-in or password, so your journeys and pictures belong to the phone you use it on. They cannot be moved to a new phone: on a new phone, Onisom starts again with a new journey. On iPhone, removing the app and installing it again on the same phone keeps everything. On Android, removing the app loses them. Anything left unused is deleted automatically after 90 days, as the privacy policy describes.

How do I delete my data?

In the app: Settings → Delete everything. This permanently erases your account, your city, your step history, your journeys and the pictures you kept, from your device and from our servers. It cannot be undone. See the privacy policy for exactly what is stored.

Still stuck?

Email alishersv.dev@outlook.com and describe what happened. Onisom stores no personal information, so please include your device model and operating-system version — there is nothing on our side to look you up by. If you can, include the version number from Settings → About.

Credits

City names and coordinates come from GeoNames, used under the CC BY 4.0 licence. Weather comes from Open-Meteo.