During Apple’s promotion of Things for iOS last week, the apps climbed the charts to #1, racking up over three million downloads along the way. This is a fantastic
number. We want to say a big Welcome to all our new users—there have never been so many people using Things!
We’re pleased to say that Things Cloud has handled the considerable surge in traffic flawlessly. There’s no better way to test
the merits of a cloud service than to have it scale so quickly, and it’s great to know that Things Cloud has the chops.
Things for Mac also rose to #1 in the Mac App Store in many countries. We had planned to keep it on sale for just the week, but decided to extend it so that
anyone still using the trial has time to take advantage of the deal—get it before Friday, December 5th and save 30%.
This promotion has now ended.
Apple’s promotion has driven a lot of traffic to our website, and we were excited to see that over half a million people have already read the Getting Started guide since last week. If you’re new to Things, it’s a great place to start.
We’ve now turned our attention back to Things 2.6 for iPhone and iPad, which includes the new Today Widget for Notification Center. That update is now in alpha and we hope to be able to submit it to the App Store soon.
As a special gift for Thanksgiving, Apple has chosen Things for iPhone and iPad as their Free App of the Week—a worldwide promotion that makes both apps free
for everyone, for the first time ever. This is a fantastic opportunity to get your hands on these award-winning productivity apps.
All three versions of Things have recentlybeenupdated with a fresh new design, and had great new features added for iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite—such
as the Add to Things extension for creating to-dos from other apps, support for Handoff across all your devices, background refresh, support for the
iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, and a Today Widget for OS X.
Only the iOS apps are being promoted by Apple this week, but that doesn’t mean we can’t help you get the Mac app, too! So this week only, you can get 30% off Things for Mac as well.
This promotion has now ended.
Getting Started with Things
Things provides a world-class sync service that keeps all your devices up-to-date. It’s fast, reliable, and entirely free. Once
you’ve installed the app, just go into the settings, turn it on, and create an account. Be sure to log into the same account on your other devices, and all
your projects and to-dos will instantly sync between them.
As you begin using the apps, you’ll find that they are designed to be very light-weight and easy to use—getting organized with Things is fun. To get you started,
we’ve prepared a short guide on how to get the most out of Things.
Of course, you can also find information about the apps on our support page, and our support team is always here to help with any other
questions you might have.
Spread the Word
We hope you’ll find a lot of benefit from using Things. If you think your family or friends might also like the apps, be sure to let them know about this promotion
before Friday, November 28—that’s when it ends!
We’ve just released Things 2.5 for iPad. It’s a major update that includes a fresh new design, a new app icon, Handoff support, background refresh, and a convenient
new “Add to Things” extension. There is also an update out today for iPhone with a few improvements.
We’ve been getting a lot of positive feedback from everyone on our recent redesigns of Things for Mac and for iPhone—thanks a lot! We hope you’ll also like today’s update for iPad. Let’s have a
look at what’s new in this release.
A Quick Tour
Things 2.5 for iPad is a refinement of the existing interface. Everything has been finely tuned with new custom artwork. You can see the transformation here:
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Old
You’ll also notice that we’ve traded the metaphorical project booklets for a normal list view. While this makes the design a little less playful, it’s far
more functional and makes it easier to manage your projects.
This update also includes a nice improvement to navigation: when you’re holding your iPad in portrait, you can swipe in from the left to reveal your lists
and quickly change to another view. This replaces the old popover from the previous version, and makes navigation a lot more intuitive.
Finally, we’ve built in a feature Apple calls background refresh. The app will now automatically update your to-dos in the background; i.e., it will generate your repeating tasks, move scheduled and due items into Today, sync with Things Cloud, and update the
app’s badge on your homescreen.
The New “Add to Things” Extension
The new “Add to Things” extension is definitely one of the best new features in Things 2.5. By closely integrating with system sharing, it now makes it easier
than ever to get new to-dos into your inbox—a link to a website, a GPS location from a map, contact details from your address book—pretty much anything.
The new extension allows you to send to-dos to Things from other apps.
This feature is now available on iPad, iPhone and Mac. Any apps on your devices that support extensions can send to-dos into Things with just a tap. And, of
course, Things Cloud will pass them seamlessly to your other devices in the background.
Handoff on All Devices
We already added Handoff support to Mac and iPhone a few weeks ago, so today’s release for iPad makes the ensemble complete. It doesn’t matter now which device
you’re on, you can immediately pull up the same project or area on another device with just a swipe.
Two months ago we set out to revitalize all three of our apps. With the great new features, usability improvements, and custom design work in Things 2.5, these
are the best apps we’ve ever shipped.
Next, we’ll finish our work on Things 2.6 for iOS, which will introduce the Today Widget for iPhone and iPad. Stay tuned!
OS X Yosemite is here, and with it, an awesome update to Things for Mac—including an all-new Today Widget, Handoff support, and an “Add to Things” extension.
We’ve also released an iPhone update, which adds support for Handoff with your Mac.
Refreshed UI
Things for Mac receives a fresh coat of paint today; you’ll notice subtle visual refinements throughout the app—including new icons for the sidebar and preferences,
new designs for the toolbar and tag filter bar, and tweaked windows for quick entry and tag management.
New
Old
It looks perfect on OS X Yosemite—but it’s the great new features that really make today’s update shine. Let’s have a look at what’s new.
Today Widget for Mac
Things’ unique Today list—which shows you all of your tasks for the day—is now built directly into the OS X Notification Center. With a quick two-finger swipe
on the trackpad, you can reveal your to-dos while working in any other app, and mark them complete as you go:
This is a major boost for productivity; you don’t have to switch back to Things any more to see what’s next, your to-dos are always just a swipe away. And
because they’re listed alongside your calendar events, it’s the perfect place to get an overview of your day.
Handoff for Mac & iPhone
By utilizing Yosemite’s new Handoff technology, Things now allows you to switch context between
devices seamlessly. When you’re reviewing a project on your Mac, for example, and need to head off to a meeting with your iPhone, just swipe up Things’ icon
from the lockscreen and you’ll be taken directly into the same project.
This is a great time-saving shortcut that turns Things into a single, unified experience across your devices.
“Add to Things” Extension for Mac
Things for Mac has a great feature called Quick Entry, which allows you
to send to-dos into Things while working in other apps. Today’s update makes it even better by adding a new extension that integrates it directly into Yosemite’s
share sheet:
This new integration means you can do things that were previously impossible with Quick Entry. Integration with Maps is a great example: if you need to run
an errand at a particular address, you can look it up on your Mac, Add to Things, and save the location in your to-do.
When you’re out later, running errands with your iPhone, you’ll know exactly where to go.
There are already many uses for this new extension, but it will become even more useful in the coming weeks as other apps begin to add standard sharing in
Yosemite. We look forward to seeing what’s possible!
Our plan next is to update Things for iPad with all the great features that have come to iPhone in the last few weeks, and we’re also working on a Today Widget
for both iPhone and iPad. We’ll let you know as soon as those updates are ready.
