What crazy times these are. We have had a blog post for almost every major preview version of Things. We have posts about our design process. We even have posts about plagiators. But there is no post about the release of Things 1.0. What is going on here?

After the Things 1.0 release on January 6th, 2009, we immediately got ourselves busy doing a 1.0.1 update. Those of you who became dependent on the grouped Today list style know why adding a little option in 1.0.1 couldn’t allow for any delay.

We also promptly released Things 1.3.1 for the iPhone and iPod touch as - due to a bug - 1.3 infamously missed all translations. Of course, we didn't stop there. The 1.3.2 update, which quite significantly improves syncing, has already hit the App Store. There are still some issues remaining and we are hard at work on those.

After big releases it is always a good idea to concentrate on analysing and fixing user reported issues. The next desktop release - Things 1.0.2 - is almost finished. We have fixed a dozen bugs and will be releasing it soon. And rest assured that 1.0.3 is already in the pipeline. :)

But there is even more going on behind the scenes. While cranking out updates is probably quite an appropriate thing to do for a software company, it is sometimes even better to spend some time on accelerating the development speed. It is still a bit early to go into the details, suffice it to say for the moment, that we were able to attract some quite impressive software engineering talent and experience. Stay tuned for more updates on this front.

That being said, we would like to close this post with some pictures from Macworld Expo 2009. The expo was a huge success for us. Our booth was surrounded by large crowds of people all day long. It was so good to finally meet at least some of you.

One of the highlights was certainly winning the Macworld Best of Show award. Head over to TUAW to watch our very own Michael Simmons sitting amongst the The Mac Observer and iPhone Alley awards while searching for words to express his feelings.

The following pictures might not be a completely accurate depiction of reality :). But they certainly tell something about how huge the event felt to us.

Now, if it's all right with you, we have some updates to finish. :)

For those of you making the journey to the Moscone Center in San Francisco come January, we invite you to stop by our kiosk located in the Mac Developer Pavilion (booth #1438).

That's right, Cultured Code will be exhibiting at Macworld Expo 2009!

The Mac Developer Pavilion is located in the South Hall, right behind Apple's booth. After you're done checking out whatever coolness Apple releases at Macworld, stop by and say hello. Christian, Werner, and I will be on hand to give you a demo and chat about Things.

For us, what's so exciting about Macworld is that it represents the first major milestone for Things desktop. In case you missed the announcement, Things 1.0 will be released on January 6, 2009 --- a product my team has been working on for over a year.

Over the next few weeks, we'll be hard at work finishing up the final features for the 1.0 release. We'll also be working on some really cool accompanying details, including screencasts and a really cool print ad.

ProTip #1: If you want a free exhibit hall pass for Macworld Expo 2009, be one of the first 100 people to click here. UPDATE: They're all gone. Hopefully you'll still come to Macworld and stop by our booth to say hello! ;) UPDATE 2: We have another 100 free expo only passes available, so click here and get 'em while they last! UPDATE 3: They're all gone. We're looking forward to meeting all 200+ of you at Macworld Expo 2009!

ProTip #2: If you want to receive a 15% discount on select Macworld Expo conference programs, click here. There is no limit to the number of users who take advantage of this discount.

Even though Halloween was yesterday, we still have a treat for you! An updated preview release of Things which includes a feature many of you have been asking for: global searching.

That's right — now you can search for anything, anywhere.

Global searching makes selecting a specific search type even more powerful. Confine your searches to only find items with certain criteria, like a specific tag. Simply click the magnifying glass icon in the search field and change your search preference. You can focus your search by only titles, notes, or tags, or search for all of these properties.

This way it is now possible to list all items with a certain tag!

If you're observant, you will notice a new icon in the toolbar when search results are displayed. This new button will show the selected task in its original list. For example, let's say you have an item which is part of a project. Clicking "Show in List" will display the project, highlight the item and even scroll to it if it is not already visible.

Of course, an update wouldn't be complete without a little polish. We've made it so the selected due date button's color now follows the Appearance settings in System Preferences. As you would expect, select Aqua or Graphite and Things will do the right thing.

As you can probably tell, Things development is accelerating as we get closer to our official release at Macworld Expo 2009. We are all very hard at work to make the official release worthy of the 1.0 moniker, and there are still more updates to come. Keep following our blog for continued updates and thanks as always for your kind words and encouraging support. :)

You might have noticed that in one specific regard the iPhone version of Things was one step ahead of the desktop version: sorting by due dates. This changed today.

Aside from bug fixes and refinements, Things 0.9.5 allows you to filter and sort any list by due date. Similar to how the tag bar works, the due date filter button is only shown when needed; that is, when the given list contains items that actually have a due date.

When filtering your Next list for example, to-dos without a due date are hidden. The remaining ones are sorted by date and grouped into sections like Next Week, November, or 2009, making it easy for you to keep track of them.