A few months ago, we’ve decided to double down our efforts on Apple platforms. Many of us at Nozbe are happy users of Macs and iOS devices, and so we wanted to bring more features, improvements and refinements to our apps there.
You might have noticed the results over the last few versions. We released one of the first apps for Apple Watch, then redesigned it just two months later. And in the lastest version, Mac users got a Today widget (just like the one we have on iOS).
But we’re just getting started. We have a ton of improvements in the pipeline. Here’s just a few examples of what we’re working on for the iOS 9 release in September:
Multi-tasking on iPad
If you’re on an iPad, you’ll love this one. In iOS 9, you can swipe your finger from the right edge of the screen to see your tasks in Nozbe. You don’t have to leave the app you’re using, go to home screen or double-tap the home button. Just swipe from the right and you can slide Nozbe over other apps. This is useful when you just want a quick glance at your priority tasks, or when you want to quickly add a task to your inbox.
It gets even better if you’re using iPad Air 2. After sliding Nozbe over, you can drag the separator to enable split view. This way, you can use Nozbe side-by-side with another app. For example, you can compose an email while looking at your notes in Nozbe.
iCloud Drive integration
We’ve been offering integrations with many popular services, such as Dropbox, Box and Evernote for a long time. In iOS 9, we’re tapping into the standard Document Picker system to enable even more of them.
Bottom line is, you’ll be able to attach files from iCloud Drive, Dropbox, Box, Microsoft OneDrive, Transmit and any other app on your device that supports this feature without any setup!
Deep links
If you ever got a link to a task or project in Nozbe from a coworker or in one of our email notifications, you know they can be slightly annoying on iOS. When you tap on them, they open app.nozbe.com
in Safari — even when you have the native app installed.
Well, no more. In iOS 9, those links will take your right to the app!
Safari view
Another little refinement. Before, tapping on external links in Nozbe would rip you out of the app and open Safari. Not a big deal, but we can do better. In iOS 9, we’ll show the new Safari view instead. This way, you’re staying inside Nozbe, but have access to the full power of Safari.
Remind me of this
This one is fun: hold down the home button for a moment to activate Siri and say “remind me of this in an hour”. Siri will create a reminder for you, as you’d expect, and inside the reminder will be a deep link to whatever you were looking at in Nozbe. You can use this, for instance, to remember to take a look at some task when you don’t want to change its due date.
Faster Apple Watch app
Together with iOS 9 comes watchOS 2. The big feature here is that the new system allows us to make our app dramatically faster. You’ll be able to use the app even when you’re not in range of your iPhone, and you’ll also be able to reply to comments right on the notification screen (without being redirected to the app first). We’re also working on a Nozbe Complication you can put on your watchface.
I hope you’ll like these new features! If there’s something you’d like to see in the upcoming versions of our iOS, Mac or Apple Watch apps, please do let us know in the comments below :)
written by Radek, VP Apple Technologies