Staying on track throughout the day is now easier than ever with our new native app and Complications for Apple Watch – available today in Things 2.8.2!

Today’s update was due a few weeks ago, but we discovered a critical bug during testing that had to be resolved by reworking part of the app. Many of you have been writing in asking for Complications over the last few weeks, so we’re happy to finally get this out to you – we hope you like it!

A Faster Native App

With watchOS 1, apps were designed to run on your iPhone, and stream over to your Apple Watch wirelessly. This could cause noticeable delays during use, and your iPhone always needed to be within range. But with watchOS 2, Apple made it possible to run apps directly on the watch, which meant we could rebuild Things as a native app.

Since the watch app now runs separately from the iPhone app, it also stores a discrete copy of your data that needs to be kept in sync – so we’ve created a special new mechanism that manages sync for these two devices over a local connection. It doesn’t matter now if your iPhone is out of range, Things for Apple Watch runs independently – and syncs up with your iPhone again when they’re close.

But the feature we think you’ll love the most is Things’ new custom Complications – tiny widgets that display pertinent information directly on the watch face.

A Complication for Every Face

When we first released Things for Apple Watch, we said that our intention was to make an app that was focused, not on task management, but on task accomplishment – a companion that would encourage you to follow through on your daily goals. With the Complications we’re releasing today, this is easier than ever. They show you what to do next – right on the watch face – and display your progress as you go.

Varying in size, color, and content, Things’ three Complications are designed to look great on any watch face you choose. In fact, why not create several different watch faces based on your context? It’s very easy to switch between them with a quick swipe.

1. The Modular watch face allows you to display Things’ largest Complication, which shows your next three upcoming to-dos.
2. Where space is limited, like on the Utility watch face, a one-line Complication shows you the very next thing you need to do.
3. Finally, Things provides a Complication that subtly shows your progress each day in a ring that looks great on any watch face.

Each Complication also acts as a shortcut – just raise your wrist, tap the watch face, and Things will open. This makes your to-dos instantly accessible, and keeps you on track as you progress through the day.

We’ve just released Things 2.8 for Mac with full compatibility for OS X El Capitan—it includes Split View support, and a nice little enhancement for drag and drop.

Multi-Tasking With Split View

The Split View feature that recently came to iPad is now also available on your Mac. Just click and hold the green zoom button in the corner of Things’ window, drag it to the left or right pane, and then choose another app for the other side. It’s great for setting up a dedicated workspace so you can focus on your events and to-dos together:

Drag & Drop With Force Touch

If you’re a Mac user with a Force Touch trackpad, today’s update brings a nice little enhancement for you. When you drag a to-do over the sidebar and want to drop it into a specific list, you can now press a little deeper on your trackpad and the list will open. With the to-do still under your cursor, you can drop it at just the right place in the list.

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Things 2.8 for El Capitan is available now as a free update for all customers. We hope you enjoy it!

Things 2.8 is out with full compatibility and great new features for iOS 9—including Slide Over, Split View, and keyboard shortcuts for iPad, and Quick Actions for the home screen on iPhone 6s.

iPad’s New Multitasking and Shortcuts

iOS 9 introduces two great new multi-tasking features for iPad: Slide Over and Split View. They allow you to access Things while working in other apps by sliding it in from the right side of your screen. Here, you can use a fully functional version of the app in a neatly condensed layout.

These two new multi-tasking modes are great for working through your Today list, taking notes while researching something online, or viewing your to-dos alongside calendar events as you plan your day. Here’s how it looks:

Things 2.8 for iPad also introduces new shortcuts for external keyboards, making it easier to navigate around the app and create new to-dos.

iPhone’s New Quick Actions

Along with general improvements for iOS 9, this update adds a nice feature for the new iPhone 6s with 3D Touch. When you tap Things’ app icon, just press down slightly and a menu will appear with our new Quick Actions. You can create a new to-do from the home screen, or jump straight into your Today list:

Things for watchOS 2

Our new native app for Apple Watch is almost ready. We intended to release it this week alongside iOS 9 and watchOS 2 but found an important bug that we need to fix. We’re working on that now and will release it as soon as it’s ready. In the meantime, the existing watch app will continue to work fine on watchOS 2.

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Things 2.8 for iPhone and iPad is available now as a free update—we hope you enjoy the new features! Things 2.8 is also coming to Mac—it’s been submitted for review and we’ll release it for OS X El Capitan next week.

The next version of Things Cloud is here—with a brand new architecture we’ve built to deliver push sync across your devices.

Three years have now passed since the launch of Things Cloud. Over these 36 months, the service has done exceptionally well. It has proven to be robust and reliable, and continues to receive fantastic feedback.

Now, as you know, we’ve been working away on Things 3. Part of this time has been invested in enhancements for Things Cloud in a project we call “Nimbus”, and this is what we’d like to talk about today.

Pushing Changes Across Devices

Shortly after Things Cloud launched, we released a feature called Local Push. It makes sync instantaneous as long as Things is open on your devices (and they’re on the same local network). But of course the app is often closed on your mobile device—so it won’t receive the push, and won’t be in sync until you manually launch the app later.

Today’s new version of Things Cloud solves this problem by sending your devices a push from the cloud (regardless of what network they’re connected to). This means that most of the time you’re in sync even before you launch the app. Here’s how it works:

1. You make a change on your Mac; this change is immediately sent to Things Cloud.
2. Things Cloud determines which of your other devices should receive the change, and asks Apple’s Push Notification Service to contact them via a push notification.
3. Apple’s notification service contacts your devices and wakes Things.
4. Things wakes in the background on these devices, requests the latest changes from Things Cloud, and integrates them. The next time you launch the app, it’s already in sync.

Note that Apple’s role in this process is only to deliver notifications, not transmit the data itself. Your data is only ever communicated between your devices and Things Cloud—just like before.

Of course, we need to be responsible about the frequency of these pushes. If we did too many, too often, there would be a lot of unnecessary traffic. So we’ve configured Nimbus for low-priority pushes that wake Things infrequently: typically, up to 10 minutes can pass until a push is received by a dormant device.

You’re already using it

Nimbus is a significant enhancement to Things Cloud—a 2.0 if you will—which enhances the “just works” experience you’ve come to expect. You don’t need to enable it, or configure any settings—you’re already using it. We hope you didn’t notice! It’s meant to be completely silent.