The iPhone X is here and Things looks great on it.
When we designed Things 3 we got rid of as much of the app’s ornamentation as possible. As a result, the app is already perfectly suited for the iPhone X’s
new edge-to-edge display – we only had to make a few small adjustments, which are available now in Things 3.2.4.
One of the changes we made for Things 3 actually turned out to be quite splendid for the iPhone X: the removal of the row of buttons along the bottom of the
screen. Because this is gone, your to-dos now flow all the way down to the bottom of the device. It kind of looks like you’re holding a piece of paper (which
is what we designed Things 3 to look like) and it feels really great in your hand. We think you’re going to love Things on iPhone X.
By the way, we’ve also released 3.2.4 for iPad, which adds some basic shortcuts for external keyboards. We hope you enjoy these updates!
We’ve just shipped Things 3.2 with three awesome new features: Direct integration with Siri, drag & drop for iPad, and link detection for third-party apps.
This update also provides full compatibility with iOS 11 and watchOS 4. Let’s take a look at how these new features work.
Siri & Things
In iOS 11, Things is directly integrated with Siri. We emphasize “direct” because we’ve actually had a Siri-to-Things feature for years – but it has
been using the Reminders app as a go-between. With Things 3.2, you can now speak directly with Things – it’s an entirely new way to interact with
your task manager.
You can speak naturally when using Things, making requests in two general categories: creating tasks and viewing lists.
Creating tasks is quite easy. Here are a few examples:
Add a task in Things.
Add “buy milk” using Things.
In Things, remind me to “buy milk”.
You can include a date or time:
In Things, remind me to “buy milk” tomorrow at 10 AM.
You can add a task directly to a list:
In Things, add “buy milk” to my “Shopping” list.
You can also view any list. Simply refer to your projects or areas by name (or part of their name).
Show my Today list in Things.
Show my “Presentation” list in Things.
This also works great for tags. So when you’re running errands in town, say:
Show my “Errand” list in Things.
You can even query the Upcoming list to see how your week is looking:
In Things, show my list for this week.
Siri saves you from having to type, and makes task management with Things effortless.
Drag & Drop
Our second feature for iOS 11 is drag and drop for iPad. It allows you to drop content into Things from other apps – either as new to-dos, or into the notes
of existing to-dos.
For example, you might want to link to emails you need to get back to later. Simply drag the email with your finger – from Mail into Things – and let go. The
new to-do will include a link to the email so you can easily open it later:
Dragging emails from Mail into Things.
To add something to an existing to-do, simply open the to-do first and then drop the dragged content into its notes. For example, you might want to add a series
of links while researching something:
Dragging links or texts from Safari into Things.
Third-Party App Links
Finally, Things 3.2 delivers one of your most-requested features: support for third-party app links! In the past, if you created a link to another app, such
as Ulysses, you would see a string of text like this:
The problem was, Things didn’t know this was a link to a file in Ulysses, so it just displayed it as plain text. But in 3.2, Things now understands
that it’s a link and makes it tappable for you:
This feature makes it possible to reference files from a myriad of other apps and then access them later with a quick tap. We haven’t tested it with every
app, so if you notice any links that don’t work as expected, please let us know.
Things 3.2 is available now as a free update for all our users – we hope you enjoy the new features! Stand by for a Mac update on September 25th, which will
bring full compatibility for macOS High Sierra.
Things 3.1 is out! It introduces repeating to-dos in projects, and improves the parsing and formatting of dates in many languages.
Repeating To-Dos in Projects
Since the release of Things 3, we’ve had loads of great feedback. One of the
features requested the most is for repeating to-dos to also work inside of projects – and now they do! It’s great for long-term projects where you
have daily or weekly tasks that need to be performed until your project is complete.
Play
To support this feature we also had to upgrade Things Cloud, so make sure you update to 3.1 on all your devices to continue syncing.
The date parser is now fluent in 7 languages
Things’ natural date parser makes setting dates and times extremely easy. For example, it converts relative terms like “in 5 weeks” or “in 35 days” into a
precise date like “August 7”.
In 3.1, the parser is now fully aware of your device’s Language & Region settings. If your system is set to a language Things is localized in, it not only understands what you type, e.g. “15 jours”, “15 días”, or “15 Tage”, but it also presents the calculated date properly
formatted: “lun. 17 juil.”, “lun, 17 jul”, “Mo. 17. Juli”, etc.
Finally, this update also adds full support for both parsing and displaying dates in Japanese. 楽しんで!
Things 3.1 is available now for Mac, iPad, iPhone, and Apple Watch.
We’ve just returned from a great week at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose – with some unforgettable memories, plans for Siri integration
in Things, and an Apple Design Award!
Apple Design Award 2017
There’s a long standing tradition at WWDC. For the past 20 years, every year, Apple hands out Apple Design Awards to honor apps with “outstanding design and
innovation”. Things had already won one of these back in 2009 when the Mac version was originally released.
Receiving such an award means a lot to us. It comes from the company we admire most and that we draw constant inspiration from. Time and again, Apple themselves
deliver “outstanding design and innovation“ on a world scale, so this award is clearly theirs to give.
So we were incredibly thrilled to learn that Things has won another Apple Design Award at this year’s WWDC for our all-new version! And it was quite the ride
winning it: we got to meet and talk to Apple’s top executives, Apple organized a meeting with press from all over the world, and they heavily promoted Things
in the App Store.
Thank you, Apple!
The award saying goodbye to California.The award in its new home, joining its sibling.
Siri Integration in iOS 11
If you watched the WWDC keynote, you might have noticed that Things was featured in the segment on Siri. We will be integrating Siri with Things for the release
of iOS 11 later this year. This means you’ll be able to dictate to-dos directly into Things, instead of going through the Reminders app.
We’ll have more to share about this feature when iOS 11 ships.
And since some people have already written in asking about this: we will also keep the existing Reminders import functionality for those of you who rely on
that for custom workflows.
