Sofa: Downtime Organizer

A Place to Discuss Sofa

Wed, 20 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMT

I have little control over how and where people talk about Sofa. I’m perfectly happy, and lucky, for anyone to talk about Sofa in any way, shape, or form.

That being said, I would like to have an official place for people to discuss Sofa and their downtime. Not everyone is on Facebook, Twitter, or Reddit. Having a neutral place for discussions and more control is ideal.

I’m happy to announce the official Sofa forums! It’s a central place to meet other Sofa enthusiasts, discuss organization strategies, ways to enjoy your downtime, and things to read, watch, play, and listen to.

While I’ll certainly share news and updates about Sofa in the forums, that is not its primary purpose.

Even though Sofa is a private tool, the things we add to it are incredibly fun to talk about. A movie you just watched, a new podcast you found, or a simple way you’ve tweaked your routine to disconnect from work while trying to relax. This is the intent behind the community.

Why not just use Facebook or Reddit for this?

This philosophically comes down to control and ownership. Facebook and Reddit set the rules and can change them. I’d rather not become dependent on those platforms for something this important.

Forums vs Chat

Forums fit how I prefer to hang out and talk online: structured and slowly. For years, I’ve enjoyed seeing how people mod their Jeeps on JeepForum or how people travel minimally on the Tom Bihn forums. There is so much great content that is easy to search and find years later.

Contrast that with Slack and Discord. Not only are the conversations chaotic, but it’s hard to find great content buried in the river of conversations. I know it’s cool to build a community in a chat app, but I think it totally sucks. The last thing I need is another chat app to manage.

Come Join the Discussion

I’m excited about this and think it’s going to be super fun. If you enjoy using Sofa and want to learn from and talk to, others who feel the same, come join the discussion.

Sofa is Here

Fri, 11 Sep 2015 00:00:00 GMT

If you love movies and have an iPhone, then today is a good day.

Sofa has been in beta for about a year. In that time, the product has evolved and changed dramaticaly. We’ve gone through many product names, logos, builds, sketches, UI changes, API fixes, etc all while getting feedback along the way. Now, we are ready to ship.

We can’t wait for you to start using Sofa. It’s time to sit down and watch a movie! Get it for free in the App Store or learn more on our website.

Closing the Sofa Forums

Tue, 04 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Having a good idea and vision for how something will play out is one thing. Executing and seeing the results is another. The Sofa Forums launched at the end of 2020, and a year later, it’s time to shut them down.

Why Close the Forums?

There are a bunch of reasons why I’m shutting them down, but the biggest one is that the forums simply feel forced. Maybe sometime in the future when Sofa has a larger audience something like this will make sense. Now is not that time.

The second big reason is time. I work on Sofa by myself, and not full-time (I still have a day job). This means I have to be very picky with where I spend my time. Making the forums better would require more of my time. More time on the forums means less time on other things, like the app. Overall, I think Sofa will benefit by me spending my time in other ways.

I should note, closing the forums is in no way a reflection on how Sofa is doing. 2021 was Sofa’s best year so far and I have a lot planned for 2022. Sofa is doing very well 👍.

What about all the content?

I’ve exported and created an archive of all the important threads just in case they need to be referenced in the future. I have my own internal system for capturing feature requests so don’t worry about those getting lost.

When will it shut down?

I will take it offline on Monday, January 10, 2022. At that time all data will be deleted from the servers.

Thank You

For those of you who have joined and contributed, I really want to thank you. Your support was incredibly generous ❤️.

Contacting me about Sofa is still as easy as ever. If you have questions, feedback, or issues don’t hesitate to reach out via email(feedback@sofahq.com) or Twitter.

Sofa with 3D Touch

Tue, 22 Dec 2015 00:00:00 GMT

It’s been a little over two months since we released Sofa 1.0. We’ve been working hard on new features, but we’ve also been doing a lot of listening.

Luckily, people are happy to share their thoughts and ideas for what Sofa should do next. We’ve been digesting all of this feedback and slowly planning out our next steps. Sofa 1.1 is the first step in that plan.

What’s New

**3D Touch
**Now all you 6s & 6s Plus users can quickly jump to Discover, Search, or My List directly from your home screen. Cool beans.

Universal Links
If you’re on iOS 9, then any Sofa link will open directly in the app. No more of that jumping to the browser nonsense.

Bug Fixes

Fixed: Movie details would crash on occasion (older devices only tho)
Fixed: Our People page couldn’t handle some artist’s impressive filmography and would just give up. But who wants that?!

As always, thanks to everyone who have been using Sofa and providing great feedback. We truely appreciate it. We have a lot more in the works, so stay tuned📺

If you haven’t downloaded Sofa, you can grab it from the App Store. You can also follow us on Twitter or Facebook.

Bringing Podcasts to Sofa

Wed, 18 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT

I’m excited to announce that you can now save podcasts to Sofa 2.4. This is another step towards making Sofa the place for remembering things to do later.

Why add podcasts?

If you look at the main job that people hire Sofa for, it’s to remember things they want to do later, outside of work. When I have time to relax, how do I want to spend that time? It’s a place where podcasts naturally fit.

If we turned that into a job story, it would look something like this:

When I learn about a podcast I’m interested in but already listen to too many podcasts, I want to save it, so I can remember to listen to it later when I have the time.

How does it work?

It works exactly like movies, tv shows, and books. You search for a podcast and save it to a list. Nice and easy.

This means you now have a dedicated place to save all those awesome podcasts you don’t have time to listen to now.

For podcasts, I am able to do a little something extra that the other content types don’t have yet. I’m able to provide links to the Apple Podcast & Overcast apps. That means, once you’re ready to start listening to a specific podcast, tap a button and open it in that app.

Can I listen to Podcasts in Sofa?

No. It’s designed to save the shows you want to listen to later.

How can I get it?

Glad you asked! Download Sofa in the App Store.

New in Sofa: Quick Add, 3D Touch, and Peek and Pop

Wed, 14 Feb 2018 00:00:00 GMT

We just released Sofa 2.3 which focuses on the speed and flexibility of adding things to your list. Go download it now!

We were hearing from people that sometimes they wanted to search for a book, movie or tv show before deciding which list it should be in. In hindsight this seems obvious, but also easy to miss. Well, now it’s here.

Add Books, Movies and TV Shows Before Selecting A List

Before, if you wanted to add something to a list, you had to first navigate to that list. While this works, there are a few situations where it becomes a barrier. Let me give you an example.

Let’s say you’re at lunch with co-workers and someone starts talking about a tv show they love. The show sounds interesting and you want to add it to Sofa. Speed is important so you can get back to the conversation. In the previous version of Sofa you would have to first choose which list to add it to, then add the show. In Sofa 2.3 you can now start by searching for the show and then add it to a list. This is a subtle, but significant change in the process of capturing inspiration quickly.

3D Touch Quick Actions

Staying on the speed train, we’ve also implemented 3D Touch Quick Actions. This is purely to speed up the process of adding new books, movies and tv shows. If you have an iPhone that supports 3D Touch (iPhone 6s and beyond), then this feature works for you. Combined with the new way to add items, this dramatically speeds up the process of capturing things for later.

Peek and Pop

Again, for the lucky iPhone users who have 3D Touch, we’ve also implemented Peek and Pop. This allows you to get a little preview of information without actually navigating to it. This can be really helpful when you want to see some info quickly. This works for lists and item details.

We are really excited for people to start enjoying this version of Sofa. Update or download it from the App Store.

Got feedback or ideas to share? We’d love to hear what you think about the new features. You can contact us on Twitter or send us an email.

Sofa 2.6: Sections and Siri Shortcuts

Tue, 04 Dec 2018 00:00:00 GMT

A few months back I did some research on how people were understanding Sofa. I learned a lot during that research, but two things stood out in particular:

Apple Notes and other notes apps are used heavily to create and maintain lists for movies, books, and more.
These notes apps are a mess. Their flexible nature led people to create lists that quickly become unintelligible.

That’s when I focused on improving the organization features of Sofa.

Sections: More Powerful Organization

You can now group lists together into Sections. For example, create a section called “Movies” to group all movie lists. You can do the same for books, podcasts, and tv shows.

What problems do Sections solve?

The number of lists people have in Sofa ranges wildy, from a few to dozens. Once you hit around 20–30 lists, it became painful to manage.

Grouping lists into Sections improves two common tasks:

Quickly adding something to a list
Browsing lists for something to watch, read, or listen to.

For those of you with a lot of lists, I think you’re going to like Sections :)

Siri Shortcuts

Siri Shortcuts are the new hotness in iOS 12. From Apple, Shortcuts are good for “immediately performing useful actions, or for opening the app to specific screens so the user can quickly initiate tasks”. Sofa’s implementation focuses on the latter.

How it works

Siri Shortcuts for Sofa focuses on speeding up the process of adding to your lists. Now you can say “Hey Siri, add a book”, and Sofa will open to the book search screen. This allows you to bypass multiple taps just by talking to Siri.

Before you start chatting with Siri, you have to do a few things first.

First, Siri needs to be informed about the shortcut. Siri doesn’t know these exist by default. To tell Siri, you need to perform the action in Sofa.
Add a book, movie, etc in Sofa. This tells Siri about the shortcut.
Go to Settings App > Siri & Search to setup the shortcut and you should see the new Sofa Shortcut under “Suggested Shortcuts”.

The Limitations

Even though Siri Shortcuts give developers more power, there are still limitations. Ideally you would say “Hey Siri, Add the book ‘Sapiens’” and Sofa would open to the book search screen, fill in the title, perform the search, and show you the results. All triggered by your voice. From what I understand, this isn’t possible out of the box. Hopefully in future versions of iOS Apple adds the ability to do this.

What’s Next for 2019?

This will most likely be the last release of this year, but I have a lot in the pipeline for 2019.

This list is no guarantee that the feature will be developed, it’s more what I think will be worked on next year. Seriously though, plans change all the time.

Sharing of lists and items (movies, books, etc)
Improve detail pages
Search for lists and list items
Syncing and potentially an iPad app
New data sources like video games and places
Themes

If there is anything you’d like to add to our list, shoot us an email at feedback@sofahq.com.

From Free to Paid

Mon, 12 Mar 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Today I’m changing Sofa’s price from Free to $4.99. In a world were people don’t pay for apps, you may think that I’m an idiot. While very possible, there are a few good reasons to do this.

The goal is for Sofa to become a sustainable business. To do that, it needs to make money. There are many ways to potentially do this, and all have pros and cons. The rest of this post goes into some of the thinking behind the decision.

I Understand the Job-to-be-done

When I first launched Sofa 2.0, I wasn’t sure what people would hire it for. This is one of the reasons it was free. I treated it like an extended beta test. Now that 2.0 has been out for a few months, and I’ve spoken to customers, I have a good idea how and why it’s used. This is the main reason to move to a paid app.

Why not Free + Ads?

I thought about using ads during the beta, but decided against it. The main reason being how Sofa is actually used. People use Sofa to help them relax. Whether it’s picking their next book to read or a movie to watch after a long day of work. Placing ads in this flow doesn’t make people more relaxed. There is a good argument that it makes them more stressed. No ads.

Why not a Subscription?

I gave this option the most thought. While it’s always a future option, it ended up not being a good fit. In it’s current state, Sofa doesn’t lend itself to a subscription. Additionally, I’m concerned about subscription fatigue. Subscriptions are great for businesses, but too many can be overwhelming for customers.

Why a Paid App?

When you weigh all the options I outlined above, you can see how I landed here. This model is simple and used most in everyday life. I see something I like, I pay for it, and now I have it. That thing you pay for could be coffee, a backpack, or headphones. I am aware that people don’t pay for apps like they used to. What I really hear is “people don’t pay for apps they don’t think are worth it.” As long as I deeply understand the job customers have, I can develop a product worth paying for. Like building any business, this will be incredibly difficult.

I already downloaded Sofa for Free. Will I have to pay now?

Nope. If you’ve already downloaded Sofa, this price change will not affect you at all. Thanks for being an early Sofa user and enjoy the free app :)

If you haven’t downloaded Sofa yet, you can get it in the App Store. It’s a great tool for helping you remember what to watch and read.

Sofa 2018: Year In Review

Wed, 26 Dec 2018 00:00:00 GMT

I launched Sofa 2.0 in November of 2017. My focus since then has been understanding and creating the core experience of the product.

Throughout 2018 I’ve shipped updates, conducted research, and introduced many new features. I thought it might be fun to take a look back at what was accomplished in 2018.

The Features

Podcasts in Sofa

Podcasts

I had gotten multiple requests for this since launch. I was initially confused because why not add podcasts to your podcast player of choice? After some research I learned that people wanted a place to save podcasts that they weren’t ready to listen to yet. This is a job that current podcasts apps don’t do well, and a perfect fit for Sofa.

Sofa Quick List

Quick List

Speed is important when adding a book or movie to Sofa. You don’t always have time to decided which list the book should be in. Quick List is a place where you can capture things you want to organize later. If you’re familiar with “Getting Things Done (GTD)”, this is similar to the “Inbox” model.

New visual design for Sofa

New Visual Design

As a brand, Sofa is new to me. It takes time to get a feel for the personality and style of a brand. The new visual design shows a slightly deeper understanding of what the brand is: comfortable, friendly, practical. This is something that will never stop evolving.

Sections in Sofa

Sections

One of Sofa’s big powers is organization. Sections take this to the next level and help people with a lot of lists. They allow you to group lists together, in any way that makes sense to you. For example, you could have a section for all of your movie lists called “Movies”.

Small UX Improvements

As expected, I shipped a bunch of smaller tweaks and improvements. This comes from people’s feedback and my own use.

**Added item search to the home screen
**In v2.2, you had to decide which list you wanted to add to before adding something. This made the “adding” process much slower than it needed to be. You can now add an item from almost anywhere in the app.

**3D Touch and Peek/Pop
**This is just a nice experience for iPhones that have 3D Touch…and easy to implement :)

**Moving Items Between Lists
**It’s not uncommon for people to change a list name, delete lists, etc. In those times you may want to move items from one list to another. Sounds simple, but can be tricky.

Conducting Research

Research is a must for any product or service you’re working on. Research can sound like a super expensive or time-sucking endeavor, but I can assure you it’s not.

In this specific example, I conducted a more focused research effort. I wanted to know how the Sofa App Store page was communicating its message. I used Usertesting.com to find people and facilitate the sessions. I learned a lot from it and will be doing many more in the future.

Going to WWDC

I was lucky enough to go to WWDC this year as well. The company I work for, Think Company, has a training budget for each employee which I was able to use for this trip. I am eternally grateful.

I’m not usually someone who enjoys conferences. The small-talk and large crowds can be exhausting. WWDC was not like that at all. I had a very real “these are my people” moment. I learned SO much from the sessions and talking to Apple engineers, designers, and App Store folks.

Again, I’m incredibly lucky to have experienced this. If you ever have the opportunity, do it.

Work Nights

Sofa is not my full time gig. I work for Think Company as a Senior Experience Designer. Balancing a full time job and this project can be tricky at times. Over the past year, I’ve found a system that works well for me, my wife, and cat.

One thing to know is that I’m a workaholic. With no constraints, I will fill up my free time with work. This isn’t good, and is actually one of the drivers behind me creating Sofa. I don’t want work to dominate my life.

My wife had the idea of “work nights”. It’s dedicated days and times for me to work on Sofa, every Monday and Wednesday night. I can use this time to work on new features, marketing, thinking, research, and writing blog posts like this.

Work nights have resulted in more time spent hanging with my wife, less burnout, better moods, and I actually get just as much done. The number of hours you spend on something doesn’t necessarily improve the outcomes. I’ve found the constraints of work nights give me the focus to work on the right things.

Bilbo Baggins

Free to Paid and Back Again

Sofa 2.0 was originally a free app. There wasn’t any deep thought into this. I simply wanted to ship and have people use it. It was only after the rush of shipping that I started to think deeper about how to make money.

As you know, there are a lot of ways to make money from apps: paid upfront, subscriptions, in app purchases, advertising, etc. When thinking about these options, I was balancing the feasibility and level of effort to implement. I started with a paid up front app given it was the easy to explain and implement.

In February, I changed the pricing of Sofa from free to $4.99. Over the six months that Sofa was a paid app I learned a few things:

$4.99 is seen as “expensive” when it comes to apps
Even if someone was truly interested in Sofa, the price instantly turned them away
Even friends and family balked at me charging money. This was quite the paradox since they wanted me to succeed, but found $5 too much of an investment.

Paid upfront wasn’t working, and over six months I made less than $150. It was time to make a change. In August I changed Sofa back to a free app. I have ideas and plans for making money in other ways, but the core app will most likely stay free.

2019 Plans

2018 was focused on understanding and building the core experience of Sofa. 2019 will be focused on doubling down on that understanding.

What is the core experience?

The main job that people hire Sofa for is capturing ideas for how to spend their downtime. If we turned this into a jobs-to-be-done story or “job story”, it would look like this:

When I come across a way to spend my downtime, I want to capture it , so I can remember to enjoy it in the future.

Figuring out what features to prioritize is much easier when you understand the job-to-be-done.

What’s on the agenda for 2019?

Add more data types

Music
Videos games
Maybe more…

Improve organization

Reorder items in your list
Search your lists
Improvements to Activity

Make your data even more secure

Export your data
Sync

As always, plans can change. Don’t be surprised if this list looks different in a few months.

https://giphy.com/gifs/IcGkqdUmYLFGE/html5

Thank You

I want to end this with a sincere thank you. Thank you to anyone who uses Sofa, watched the dumb YouTube videos I make, read a blog post, or sent feedback on Twitter or in real life. There is an over-abundance of noise in the world and that anyone pays attention to anything I do is truly humbling.

Thank you for a great year!

What’s New in Sofa 2.5

Tue, 17 Jul 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Sofa 2.5 is a BIG release.

2.5 addresses a lot of issues I’ve been hearing over of the past few months. Some of the issues I’ve been aware of for a while, and needed time to think them through.

I also did a ton of refactoring with how views present, dismiss, and the logic behind it. Remember, I’m a designer who’s only been writing Swift code for about a year. I still have a lot to learn :)

New Look & Feel

The first thing you’ll notice is the new design. As I spend more time with the Sofa brand, I’m getting a better idea of how to represent it. New icons, dark menus, and tactile buttons add a lot of fun and personality to the app.

I’ve also spent time refining the animations and taptic feedback. As you open menus and tap buttons, you’ll have a much more consistent experience.

Improvements for People with A Lot of Lists

When Sofa first launched, I wasn’t sure how many lists people would create. I now know that the number of lists can range from a few to over a hundred. Yes…over a hundred 😳. I panicked for a few seconds when I found this out. I had not designed Sofa to handle that scale.

Sofa 2.5 starts to address this in a small way. List images are now smaller which means you can see more lists on the screen at once, almost double. They are also now sorted alphabetically, instead of by creation date. This design works pretty well for a few and many lists. I’m working on ways to make the app scale even better for people with a lot of lists. More soon.

Quick List

Creating and saving things to lists is something people do with Sofa all the time. But sometimes I want to save something without having to organize it yet.

For example, let’s say you’re at breakfast with a friend and enjoying the conversation. You start talking about podcasts and they mention a new one they started listening to. It sounds interesting and you don’t want to forget it. Your job at this point is to remember the podcast as fast as possible. You also want to do this while disrupting the conversation as little as possible. This is where Quick List comes in.

Before, you would have to decide which list you want to save that new podcast to. As the number of lists grow, this can take longer than you’d like. Remember, you’re here to enjoy breakfast with your friend, not fiddle around on your phone.

Quick List is a place to put things you’re not ready to organize yet. You can go back to your Quick List at any time and move the podcast to a list of your choosing. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

Activity

Activity has been a part of Sofa since the the 2.0 release. Funny enough, few people knew that. The problem was how you navigated to it.

Before, there was an Activity icon in the top left of the navigation bar. Few tapped on it and there was general confusion around what activity was for.

Activity now has a prominent place on the home screen. It also has a stronger connection when you mark items as “complete”.

For people who like to track progress of books read or movies watched, this is a welcome improvement.

Recap

That’s it for Sofa 2.5. This was a tough update, but worth every minute spent on it. We have a new look & feel, Quick List and improved activity. If you already have Sofa, go download the update. If you don’t have Sofa, go get it in the App Store.

A More Well-Rounded Sofa Experience

Mon, 08 Jun 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Back in December of 2019, I wrote how I’m focused on making Sofa a more well-rounded product. There are a number of compromises that people have to make in order to feel comfortable using the product. Well, today a bunch of those compromised get squashed.

I’m happy to announce Sofa 2.10! This release brings full iPad support, iCloud syncing, and deeper personalization with 30+ themes.

Main Features

iPad Support

You can now enjoy Sofa with your iPad! This includes multitasking, multiple windows, keyboard, and mouse support.

iCloud Syncing

All your data will now sync to iCloud. This brings a lot of safety to your data and will allow you to sync it between your iPhone and iPad.

Deeper Personalization

There are now a ton of themes to choose from to personalize how Sofa looks. This is also the main way you can support Sofa’s development. Each theme costs $0.99 and comes with a custom app icon. Once you buy that theme you have it forever. There are 38 themes to start, and I’ll be adding more over time.

Business Model

I’ve thought a lot about the various ways to sustainably make money with Sofa. I initially launched as a paid up-front app, which didn’t work. I made the app free while I figured all this app.

Selling Themes

After a lot of exploring I landed on the idea of selling themes. Each theme costs a small amount, $0.99, and you buy it via a single in-app purchase. You can buy as many themes as you like. I’ll be adding new ones regularly so there’s an incentive for people to buy multiple themes over time.

I’m making a bunch of assumptions that I think will work, but only time will tell.

My assumptions:

Personalizing stuff is fun. People do this with their cars, bags, desks, etc. Themes fit into this model.
Selling themes won’t disrupt the current experience of using Sofa. If you don’t like or want themes, you can easily ignore them.
If you buy one theme you’ll probably buy a few. This kind of makes themes act like a subscription without actually being a subscription.

Other Improvements

New design that uses a tab bar which makes it much easier to get around
Groups: Organize all your lists into groups and browse each group individually or all at once
You can now change the date of activity items…finally
A slew of other UI improvements and bug fixes

Sofa 2.10 is a monster update and it feels so good to finally ship it. I’d love for you to download it for your iPhone or iPad.

Sofa 2020 Year in Review

Wed, 30 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMT

2020 has been one long shit show. Focusing on the good things in life has been difficult, to say the least. Sofa was a positive outlet for me this year and gave me a place to take a break from everything else going on. I’m thankful I have it.

As stated last year, my goal for 2020 was to make Sofa a more well-rounded product and reduce the compromises people had to make when using it. I’m happy to report that I knocked out almost everything on my list, plus some bonus iOS 14 work!

The First Big Release

In June, I released a monster update that brought full iPad support, iCloud syncing, and deeper personalization with 30+ themes.

This also introduced a new business model for the app: selling themes. Each theme costs $0.99, and you can buy as many themes as you like. The first six months have been promising, and I plan to push this more in 2021.

The Small Follow-Up

While Sofa’s data sources have large libraries, sometimes they don’t have what you’re looking for. This meant Sofa couldn’t be the place to store all your lists. I introduced custom items to solve this.

This was the most requested feature…by far. I’m super happy with the final implementation. It demonstrates a good way to add power to the app without introducing too much friction. It’s only there if you need it.

This is my favorite feature for 2020.

The SwiftUI Detour

This year’s WWDC brought a bunch of exciting improvements to SwiftUI. The improvements were so exciting that I decided to rewrite the entire app in SwiftUI(lol). I ended up abandoning that approach and doubling back to UIKit (phew!).

Learning a bunch about SwiftUI, prototyping new ideas, and writing simpler networking code made the detour totally worth it.

The Second Big Release

I only planned for one big release in 2020, but a few announcements at WWDC led me to take on heavier work a bit earlier. Sofa’s iOS 14 update was a biggie.

Under-the-hood I replaced most of the old UITableViews with UICollectionViews, and implemented UICollectionViewDiffableDataSource. This enables a better design for larger devices and dramatically improves reliability.

The cool stuff:

The Pile: A quick place to save things you’re not ready to organize or need easy access to.
Improvements to the iPad experience, including the new sidebar
Widgets
A much better experience for browsing themes + 17 new themes
New list design with view and sort options

Doing two large releases in a single year is not something I want to repeat. I’m tired 🥱.

Press

Sofa received a good amount of press this year, and some of it unprompted, which is pretty darn cool.

Keep Track of All the Books, Movies, Podcasts, and Games You Want to Check Out With This App

Emily Price wrote a nice little review on LifeHacker. I have no idea how she found out about the app. This little nugget shows the whole point of why I made Sofa:

If you’re like me, then that “list” is actually just a running Google doc where I manage to write things down, but also never look at them again, sort of defeating the purpose of creating the list to begin with.

Must-Have New Apps

Christopher Lawley featured Sofa as part of May’s “Apps of the Month”. As far as I know, this is the first YouTube review someone’s done for Sofa. So cool.

Sofa Debuts Modern iPad App, Rich Themes Experience, and More

MacStories wrote a nice review when I launched 2.10 back in June. I was happy to see that they appreciated the work I put in to make Sofa great on an iPad.

Though a simple media tracking app may not seem to require rich support for connected keyboards and pointing devices, I’m happy to see those things present in Sofa because they prove that the best iPad experience for an app involves supporting multiple modes of use.

Thank u, next: How to finally get through your watchlist

Jordan McMahon showed Sofa some love in his newsletter Rebooting:

Sofa’s killer feature is that its lists are totally customizable, and it gamifies your watching habits by letting you turn your watchlist into a Trello-like system with more pleasant color schemes and pretty cover art. It sounds geeky, I know, but bear with me, this might just help you find your new favorite TV show. Plus, unlike Letterboxd, which serves as a sort of Goodreads for film buffs, Sofa’s data is all synced across your iOS devices, and doesn’t share any of your data with other users.

Creators Campfire Podcast Interview

My first podcast interview! Bhav Sharma reached out to interview me on her Creators Campfire podcast. We chatted about Sofa, app development, and more.

If you prefer to listen as a podcast, you can do so here.

These iPhone Apps Are TOO GOOD To Miss 2

Chris featured Sofa in one of his app round-up videos for his DailyTekk channel.

Between you and me

Jordan McMahon shared some more love for Sofa in his Rebooting newsletter:

Sofa helped me better distribute the time I spend on the couch

Sofa Adds New Design, Widgets, More Themes, and “The Pile”

MacStories once again wrote a nice review when I launched Sofa 2.12. Not only do I love MacStories, but they have been very generous to Sofa over the past few years.

I think The Pile is a great addition to the app for any users who have many lists. It’s quicker to drop an item in The Pile when you think of it than to sort through all of your lists right then and there.

Downtime organizer Sofa’s iOS 14 update adds widgets, themes, and more

A few days after releasing 2.12 I was surprised with a nice write-up on iMore from Oliver Haslam. Yay!

Sofa: Organizing your leisure time Accessibly (In Spanish)

Gerardo Corripio created a cool video showing how he uses Sofa with Voicer Over. I never get to see stuff like this. I always try to do my best when supporting Voice Over, but it’s even more helpful to see someone actually use it.

2021 Plans

For 2021, I thought it’d be fun to try out the Theme System from the Cortex folks. I dig the simplicity and flexibility of defining a theme instead of specific goals. This also allows me to share a super high-level roadmap without committing to anything specific.

2021 will be the Year of Expansion. This includes expansion of functionality, awareness, sales, my skills, and probably other things I can’t think of right now.

This feels like a great follow-up to last year’s focus on making Sofa a more well-rounded product. You need a good foundation before you can expand on it.

Thanks for Another Great Year

I said the same thing last year, but I mean this…

I want to thank everyone who has given Sofa a shot, read a blog post, watched a video, liked a tweet, sent in feedback or anything else. We are bombarded daily with stuff, and the fact that you took your personal time to engage with something I made is crazy. I’m a very lucky person. Thank you.

Sofa’s iOS 14 Update

Wed, 18 Nov 2020 00:00:00 GMT

2020 has been full of surprises for all of us. For Sofa, I only planned on one major release this year followed up by a bunch of smaller releases. Things didn’t turn out that way. This iOS 14 update is big. I don’t like working on big releases. I prefer small iterations that I can ship out more frequently, but sometimes you need to dig in deep and power through.

All that said, I’m very excited about this update, and really happy with where things landed.

TL;DR

All-new design for iOS 14
Introducing The Pile: A quick place to save things you’re not ready to organize or need easy access to.
Widgets!
New themes store and 17 new themes

Download the update in the App Store

All-New Design for iOS 14

Almost the entire app has been improved and polished. This includes design, performance, and reliability. Under-the-hood I’ve replaced most of the old UITableViews with UICollectionViews, and implemented UICollectionViewDiffableDataSource. This enables a better design for larger devices and dramatically improves reliability.

Things you’ll see:

Improvements to the iPad experience, including the new sidebar
Widgets (see more below)
A much better experience for browsing themes
New list design

All New List Design

Lists have needed some love for a while and I’m happy to finally give them proper attention.

Chunkier Images

Having images for the things you save is one of the best parts of the app. Images are now bigger and chunkier for both list and grid views.

New Grid View

Speaking of grid views…you can now view your stuff in a grid layout. Sofa’s content is perfect for this.

If you prefer the list view, don’t fear, it’s still there. You can configure this view the ••• menu in the top right. Your selection will be saved and applied to all lists.

More List Options

Sort your content by title or date added
Changing a list title is now much simpler
Move a list to another group

The Pile

You know that place in your home where you put things you’re not ready to deal with yet? Stuff like mail, receipts, and notes? That’s The Pile. A quick place to save things you’re not ready to organize or need easy access to.

This isn’t a new concept for Sofa. I previously called this Quick List. The idea comes from the Inbox in GTD. A simple place to capture things before organizing them.

Quick List was fine but never felt right. First, I always hated the name. Second, it acted like any other list which gave it little purpose.

The Pile is more opinionated about its workflow. It’s always there for you to quickly capture stuff and fast to sort through. I love how items in The Pile get stacked like mail on a coffee table.

Widgets

I have a bunch of ideas for widgets, but I’m starting with a simple and obvious implementation. Add a widget of any size to show a list of your choosing. Medium and large widgets not only show more content but tapping on a specific item deep links into the app.

Widgets will match your current theme and update for light or dark mode.

New Themes Store

The themes store was introduced back in June as part of the 2.10 release as a way to personalize the app for people. The design was very much a 1.0. Browsing themes is a whole new, and better, experience.

There is a featured section, categories have nice cover images, and previewing themes is even faster. Browsing, previewing, and buying themes is much more fun.

17 New Themes

Along with a redesigned themes store, I’ve added a bunch of new themes. There are now over 50 themes for people to choose from!

5 new Fall themes
12 new minimalist black and white themes

Summary

This update ended up being much bigger than I had initially anticipated but moves Sofa in a positive direction. I’m excited to dive into some smaller improvements that I can ship a little faster. Stay tuned!

Download the update in the App Store

Making it Easy to Leave Sofa

Thu, 05 Dec 2019 00:00:00 GMT

The experience of leaving a product is just as important as when you start using it.

I just implemented the ability to export your data in Sofa. It’s a feature that probably should’ve been there earlier, but, you know, that’s life. If you’ve been on the fence because of this, worry no more. Try it out. Make a bunch of lists. If things don’t work out, no problem. Export your data and move on with your life and thanks for giving it a shot.

Download Sofa from the App Store

Announcing Sofa 2.0

Wed, 13 Dec 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Imagine you’re chatting with a friend and they tell you about a new tv show you must watch. The show sounds interesting and you say “I’ll have to check it out.” How do you remember to watch it?

You probably keep a list of some kind, either in your head or on your phone (most likely a notes app). There’s a good chance you also keep lists like this for movies and books too. Notes apps are great for many things, but not for keeping a list of things to watch and read.

Today we are launching Sofa 2.0, which is specifically designed for this situation. Sofa is an iPhone app that helps you spend quality time with a book, movie or tv show. You create lists of movies, tv shows and books you want to watch and read later. It keeps the flexible structure and speed of a notes app, while improving on the organization, visuals and information.

What’s new in 2.0?

A lot. 2.0 is a completely new app. When we first launched Sofa back in 2015 our only focus was movies. We learned a lot about how and why people watch and discover movies, and that drove our new direction.

Movies, TV Shows and Books

Our focus is on how people capture and organize the things they come across during the day. Those “things” include movies, tv shows and books. If you’re someone who currently keeps a list of things to watch and read in a notes app, Sofa was designed for you.

Lists for all the things

Sofa is basically a list making tool designed specifically for movies, tv shows and books. You can make as many lists as you like to organize and collect titles to watch and read. By building up collections of ideas, Sofa becomes a great resource for how you can spend your time.

What about Sofa 1.0?

Our plan is to eventually sunset Sofa 1.0. We are working on the timing, but in the meantime you can continue using it. We made Sofa 2.0 a separate app because it’s a dramatically new direction and didn’t want to force that experience on anyone who enjoys the current app. We are giving everyone time to either switch to Sofa 2 or find an alternative of their choosing.

The long term

Our mission is to help people find meaning and enjoyment in their lives beyond work. This is a small start, but we see plenty of opportunity in the future.

We are really excited about this new direction and can’t wait for you to start experiencing it. Download Sofa for free in the App Store.

Reorder Sections, Lists, and List Items

Wed, 24 Jul 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Reordering of sections, lists, and list items has been the most requested feature for a while now. You may even be thinking, “Why the hell did it take so long?”. First, it’s trickier than it appears to be to implement well. Secondly, I’m only one person who works on Sofa in my spare time. Things naturally take longer.

For those of you who’ve been waiting for this feature, thank you for your patience 🙌

Why having reordering at all?

One of the main benefits for using Sofa over a basic notes app is improved organization. Between Sections and Lists, you get a lot of ways to organize your movies, books, video games, etc.

The way it worked previously was like this:

Sections and Lists where order alphabetically
List Items were ordered by date added

This makes sense, but doesn’t give the flexibility needed for deeper organization. Sometimes you want a specific Section or List to be at the top or middle. Whatever makes sense to you.

For example, I personally have a Section called “Currently”. This section has lists of things I’m currently watching, reading, playing, etc. I prefer this to be my top-most Section so I can see it right away when I launch the app. Before, I would have had to call it “A - Currently” or some other hack to get to be the top-most Section. Now, I can simply change the order of it.

How it Works

Reordering Sections

Option A

Tap the ••• button to the right of the section title
Tap “Reorder Section”
Hold down on the grab handle for the section you’d like to reorder drag it to where ever you want

Option B

Hold down on the title of a section for about 2 seconds. A new view should appear with a list of all your sections.
Hold down on the grab handle for the section you’d like to reorder drag it to where ever you want

Reordering Lists

Tap “Edit” in the top right corner. This puts your lists into an edit mode.
Hold down on the grab handle for the list you’d like to reorder and drag it to where ever you want.
Tap “Done” in the top right corner when you’re done.

Reordering List Items

Navigate to one of your lists
Tap “Edit” in the top right corner
Hold down on the grab handle for the list item you’d like to reorder and drag it to where ever you want

Pro Tip: Lists use the first item (top) for it’s cover image

Creating New Sections

Creating new sections has also been improved. Before, you could only create a new section when creating a new list. Most of the time this makes sense, but there are plenty of times when you just want to make a new section and move a bunch of lists to it.

You can create new sections by tapping the big blue + button in the bottom right corner, then tap “New Section”.

What’s Next?

There are a couple things to tackle next for Sofa, but the most important is iCloud Syncing and a way to support Sofa financially. iCloud Syncing is necessary to make a lot of other future work happen (for example, an iPad app). I’m not sure how long it will take to implement, but it will be my main focus for the next few months.

Get the Update

Head over to the App Store and enjoying reordering your stuff 😎

Sofa 2.7: Adding More To Your Lists

Wed, 16 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT

There are an enormous amount of ways that you can spend your downtime. So far, Sofa has been able to help you with a few of those: books, movies & TV, and podcasts. Today we are adding a few more to that list.

Introducing Music Albums and Video Games

You can now add music albums and video games to your lists 👏. As Sofa becomes the dedicated place for organizing your downtime, it’s only natural that music albums and videos games become part of that experience.

How it works

Adding a music album or video game works just like everything else. Tap the “+” button and choose what you want to add. From there you can search for the title of the album or game. For music, you can also search by typing in an artist’s name. It’s a nice bonus that comes for free from the iTunes API.

Accessibility Improvements

It’s important to me that anyone who wants to use Sofa is able to have a great experience. This release brings dynamic type to the app. This means Sofa now respects your font size settings. If you prefer super small type or need extra large type, no problem. The app now adjusts to what you prefer.

There is still a lot of work that needs to be done to make Sofa a great experience for everyone, but this is a big step forward. If you have advice or feedback on how to improve the experience don’t hesitate to reach out.

Download Sofa

Sofa 2.7 is available in the App Store for free. Update or download it today.

Sofa 2.8: Introducing Themes

Mon, 06 May 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Sofa 2.8 introduces themes! Woot! You can choose between Classic, Dark, and Black.

Why Themes

Themes are purely a cosmetic feature that don’t add any real functionality. The thing is, themes are undeniably fun. Fun is a feature. Themes allow you to personalize the experience to be more inline with your mood, personality, etc.

The other reason to introduce themes is because of rumors around iOS 13 and dark mode. I figured why not get a jump start on that feature.

Starter Themes

There are three themes to start: Classic, Dark, and Black.

Classic

This is the original, or “Classic”, Sofa look. It’s warm, friendly, and cozy.

Dark

Dark themes are so hot right now. I’m a fan. This is a simple Dark theme thatnstill has that cozy feeling.

Black

For the iPhone X & Xs users, the Black theme is super cool. The OLED screens allow the app the melt away into the hardware.

Future Themes

This is only the beginning for themes. I have a lot of ideas for themes based on movies, books, video games, etc. Like I said, this is going to be fun 😜.

You can start enjoying themes by downloading Sofa 2.8 from the App Store.

Sofa Year in Review 2019

Tue, 24 Dec 2019 00:00:00 GMT

I’m a fan of doing a “year in review” exercise. It’s easy to forget all the work that’s been done, which results in me feeling like I haven’t made enough progress. In fact, a lot of work has been done, which makes me feel good!

At the end of 2018 I wrote Sofa 2018: Year In Review. In this post I outlined my plans for 2019:

Add more data types

Music
Videos games
Maybe more…

Improve organization

Reorder items in your list
Search your lists
Improvements to Activity

Make your data even more secure

Export your data
Sync

While I didn’t check off everything on that list, I did knock out a good chunk of it.

Accomplished in 2019

Added Music Albums and Video Games

One of the main benefits of Sofa is that you can use a single app to keep lists of stuff you want to read, watch, etc. Expanding this list was a high priority and I’m glad I was able to do it relatively painlessly.

Themes and Dark Mode

I’m a big fan of personalizing things. It could be putting stickers on your luggage to show where you’ve been, a pair of well-worn, patina’d boots, or themes in software. It’s simply fun.

Mix that with the heavy rumors that iOS 13 was going to bring dark mode and it was an obvious addition to make.

I have a lot of ideas for making themes a bigger part of Sofa, but we’ll save that for 2020.

Reordering Sections, Lists, and List Items

This was a highly requested feature that I wanted just as badly. It’s not a show-stopper to promote, but it makes using Sofa so much nicer.

Exporting of your data

There are many barriers to entice people to try a new app. A big one is making it easy for them to leave with all their data. Even if you’ll never use this feature, knowing it’s there removes a large barrier. I feel much better knowing people can try Sofa without holding their data hostage.

Implementing the coordinator pattern

I’m still very new to iOS development, which means I’m going to make some mistakes. I took a good amount of time this year to improve upon one of those mistakes: tight-coupling of views.

Implementing the coordinator pattern has already made developing new features much easier. This was well worth the time to do even though it’s not a visible feature for people.

Balancing a full-time job, Sofa, and a personal life

Spoiler, there is no balance. Having a full-time job, Sofa on the side, and a personal life is hard, messy, and exhausting. It’s also fun, exciting, and energizing. Like life, it has ups and downs.

Sometimes I get so pumped about the work that I can make huge progress in a few days. Other times I don’t want to even look at my computer for weeks. I try to pay attention to how I’m feeling and not force anything. I’ve learned that my energy will rise and fall and it’s best if I follow it. Otherwise I’ll get burnt out. I don’t want that.

2020 Plans

This is the year that I want Sofa to become a well-rounded product. Today there are too many compromises for many people to truly enjoy it. The list below is going to be my main focus for 2020. As always, this list isn’t in any particular order, and things can/will change.

iCloud sync (this is being actively worked on right now)
iPad app
Improved theming
Add items to lists that are not in the database
Better shortcuts support

Thanks for a great year

I want to thank everyone who has given Sofa a shot, read a blog post, watched a video, liked a tweet, sent in feedback, or anything else. We are bombarded daily with stuff, and the fact that you took your personal time to engage with something I made is crazy. I’m a very lucky person. Thank you.

Updates for iOS 13

Wed, 16 Oct 2019 00:00:00 GMT

There are a bunch of new features in iOS 13. To bring Sofa up to date, I focused on three things:

Dark Mode
Context Menus
Bug fixes

Dark Mode

Sofa has had a dark mode since the spring of 2019, but now it will automatically follow your system appearance settings.

There’s also the option to ignore the system appearance settings if you’d rather always use a specific theme.

Context Menus

Peek and pop is dead. Long live context menus! These were so easy to implement and I think a great improvement to iOS. Long press on a list or list item to bring up additional actions.

Bug Fixes

iOS 13 broke a few things in strange places, specifically the animation when dismissing the Quick Add Menu. All those little issues have been polished up.

You can download Sofa from the App Store.

A Simpler, More Inclusive Subscription Plan for Everyone

Tue, 21 Mar 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Today, I’m thrilled to share some exciting updates I’ve been working on to make your Sofa experience even better. I’m combining the old Personal and Family plans into a single, all-in-one “Super Sofa” subscription.

What’s Changing

Goodbye, Family Plan

For current Family Plan subscribers, I’m rolling out a nice little surprise - a price reduction! Your subscription will now match the cost of the Personal Plan. The best part? You don’t have to lift a finger. Just sit back, relax, and watch the savings roll in on your next bill.

Plan	Old Price	New Price
Family Monthly	$5.99	$3.99
Family Yearly	$59.99	$35.99
Family Lifetime	$299	$179

Share the Sofa Love with Apple Family Sharing

If you’re on the previous Personal Plan, you can now share your Sofa subscription with your Apple Family Sharing account members, all at no additional cost! To get started, simply activate Family Sharing on your device and invite your family members to join in on the Sofa fun.

You can head over to the pricing page for full details.

Why the Change

You might be wondering why I made this change. Well, I noticed that the Personal Plan was way more popular among our users, and after taking a closer look at the Super Sofa plans, I realized that the Family Plan didn’t feel as necessary as it once did. It only provided access to Apple’s Family Sharing, which wasn’t adding enough value to warrant a separate plan. Plus, having both a Personal and Family plan made explaining Sofa’s pricing more complicated than it needed to be. So, I decided to simplify things and focus on what really matters to you: a single, inclusive plan that offers all the awesome features you enjoy, while making it super easy to share with your family.

As always, I appreciate your support and love hearing from you. If you’ve got any questions about the new Super Sofa plan or just want to share your thoughts, don’t hesitate to reach out. I’m here to help!

Happy lounging 🛋️

Board Games Being Removed from Sofa

Tue, 29 Aug 2023 12:00:00 GMT

Update on Sep 14, 2023

Sofa 3.4.12 is out now! This update is an important one for people who have board games saved in Sofa.

As of Oct 1, 2023, the provider Sofa uses for board game data will be shutting down. This release will migrate all of your board game data and save it locally to your device. This is to ensure you have access to all board game information after Oct 1, 2023.

Going forward, Sofa will now save all item meta data locally to your device. This will improve the speed of the app, make your data more resilient, and save on your data usage.

Get the update

Update on Sep 2, 2023

I was able to get in touch with the data provider for board games and get an extension to Oct 1, 2023. I’ve since released an update (version 3.4.11) that fixes the issue of board games not loading correctly. I’m currently working on another update that will store all of your board game data locally to your device so you still have access to it after Oct 1, 2023. I expect to get this update out to everyone by the middle of September.

As of version 3.4.11, board games have unfortunately been removed from Sofa. The provider I was using (Board Game Atlas) for board game information has sadly gone out of business.

Any board games you’ve added to Sofa are still saved, but they will only include the title and Sticky Notes for the game. Any meta data or details won’t be loaded because the provider’s data is no longer available.

Why did this happen?

I’m still trying to get an answer to this question. I’ve reached out to Board Game Atlas for clarification and details, but I haven’t heard back yet.

Why isn’t all data saved locally in Sofa?

Designing and building software is all about tradeoffs. To reduce the amount of storage Sofa uses on people’s devices, the data that is saved locally is kept to a minimum. This keeps Sofa light-weight, but comes with the downside we are experiencing right now.

Going forward, I’m going to be making changes to save more data locally to your device so this problem doesn’t happen again.

What is being done to mitigate this problem in the future?

There are a few features I’m actively working on, even before the news about boards games going away, that will help remove this problem in the future.

Custom buckets - this will allow you to add anything to Sofa
Saving more data locally to your device

I’ll share more details as I’m building and making progress. I suggest following me on YouTube to get the latest and greatest info.

Are the other data sources in Sofa at risk of going away?

The providers I use for other data within Sofa are larger companies than Board Game Atlas was, so I think the risk of those sources disappearing over night is pretty low.

If you’re curious, here are the providers I use in Sofa for different data:

The Movie Database - movies and tv shows
iTunes Search API - apps, audiobooks, books, music albums, and podcasts
IGDB (owned by Twitch) - video games
Odesli - for music album links

Please know, I’m extremely sorry and upset that this has happened, and that it happened so abruptly.

If you have any questions, feedback, or issues, don’t hesitate to reach out.

feedback@sofahq.com

New Pricing Page, Remote Announcements, and Search URL Scheme

Tue, 03 Oct 2023 12:00:00 GMT

Sofa 3.4.14 comes with a few handy improvements and bug fixes for you. I’m working on some bigger features, and iOS 17 specific improvements, so stay tuned!

What’s New

New Pricing Page Design for Super Sofa

The pricing page for Sofa has two problems: too many choices and not showcasing features well. I’ve made improvements to better highlight the features you get, along with emphasizing the annual plan.

New Remote Announcement System

A few weeks ago I really needed to communicate with people who were using Sofa, but I couldn’t. The best option I had was social media, a blog post, and App Store release notes. So yea, not many good options.

I wanted to fix this, so I built a real-time announcement system into Sofa. In this video, I talk about how it works and how I plan to use it.

New URL Scheme for Performing Searches

This is handy for all the lucky people who have the iPhone 15 Pro and can trigger shortcuts with the new Action Button.

Read the docs for more info

Big “+” Button Position Setting

Added a setting for choosing which side of the screen you want the big ”+” button. Head to Fiddly Settings to play with this.

Improvements

Improved iPad cursor support throughout the app
Improved book search results
Improved search results when searching with “and” or ”&“

Bug Fixes

FIXED: Widget layout issues for iOS 17 users
FIXED: Support links in Settings page
FIXED: Category filter in Activity wasn’t updating properly
FIXED: Cover images not updating for lists
FIXED: Haptic feedback when tapping buttons in detail views

Get the update

Release 3.4.7

Mon, 05 Jun 2023 12:00:00 GMT

Hey gang, this is a simple update that brings a few new things and some bug fixes.

What’s New

Creating new groups is now much simpler
You can now add Pile items to The Shelf

Improvements

A bunch of under-the-hood stuff to prepare for future features

Bug Fixes

FIXED: Crash when logging Shelf items to Activity
FIXED: Crash when searching all your data from the home screen
FIXED: Searching movie & tv cover images wasn’t working properly
FIXED: Issue with lower resolution video game cover images
FIXED: Large Shelf widget was not loading correctly. I had to remove the decor element, but the benefit is that you now get a third row of items for the large widget!

Get the update from the App Store

Sofa 3.4.2 - Quality-of-Life Update

Sun, 12 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Hey gang, I’ve got a nice quality-of-life update for you. This release has lots of little features, improvements, and a healthy amount of bug fixes.

New Settings Design

The Settings area of the app has been completely redesigned from scratch. This brings a lot of customization across the app for things like changing the shape of items in your lists, hiding data types you don’t use, and a new “quirky mode” toggle.

Overview of what’s new:

A new “Fiddly Things” area to fine-tune and customize the app to your taste
New design for choosing an alternate app icon…and some new app icons
Simpler settings for themes…and some new themes
Easily see your iCloud syncing status

Other New Things

Expand and collapse groups. Tap the group title or using the ••• button.
Tap the Sofa logo in the top title bar for a fun surprise :)
New experience for choosing a list with adding, moving, copying, etc.
Backup files now include shared lists where you are the owner of a list

Smaller App Size

Sofa’s app size was getting a little too large for my liking. I’ve optimized things under-the-hood and was able to significantly reduce the size of the app on your device. Your device should now feel much lighter in your hands!

Bug Fixes

FIXED: Crash on iPad when trying to load The Pile on launch
FIXED: Issue where you couldn’t move items to from a private to a shared list
FIXED: Poor search experience if your search query had a trailing empty character
FIXED: Date formatting bug in Activity for non-US countries that would prevent proper filtering
FIXED: Logged to Activity date wasn’t refreshing properly on an item’s detail screen
FIXED: App crash when you’d try to set an custom item’s cover image in Activity
FIXED: Global search would show the wrong group name for a list
FIXED: Navigating to the pile from a detail view while in global search didn’t show the correct configuration
FIXED: App review prompt repeatedly showing on macOS
FIXED: List widgets weren’t displaying their group names
FIXED: Shelf Widget not refreshing it’s data
FIXED: The description field background color was incorrect in Edit List Details
FIXED: Crash when renaming a list on iPad
FIXED: Issue when duplicating lists
FIXED: Crash when checking if an item is custom
FIXED: Theme preview not updating on item detail pages
FIXED: Crash that could occur when searching all your stuff from the home screen
FIXED: Laggy scroll performance on the search screen for iPhone
FIXED: Alt app icons are now hidden on the Mac
FIXED: Performance issue when navigating and scrolling around the app

Download the update from the App Store

Sofa's 2022 Recap

Tue, 03 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMT

2022 was Sofa’s best year by every metric, but more importantly, the product has reached an important milestone in terms of usefulness.

I put together a little video recap of the features I launched, the health of the business, how I’m spreading the word, and more.

Thanks for all your support this year and I’m excited to jump into 2023👏.

Introducing Super Sofa Lifetime Billing

Wed, 01 Jun 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Today I’m introducing a new way of leveling up to Super Sofa, a lifetime billing option. A lifetime billing option is exactly what it says on the tin: pay for Super Sofa once and enjoy the full benefits forever.

This rounds out the Super Sofa offering in a nice way and gives people multiple ways to pay depending on their preference or financial situation.

Personal

For individuals

Plan	Price
Personal Monthly	$3.99
Personal Yearly	$35.99
NEW Personal Lifetime	$179.99

Family

For families up to 5 people

Plan	Price
Family Monthly	$5.99
Family Yearly	$59.99
NEW Family Lifetime	$299.99

Why am I doing this?

Since Sofa is a subscription business, you may be confused as to why I would offer an option to pay once instead of on a recurring basis. I think it’s helpful to understand some of the arguments against a lifetime option before explaining why I think it’s a good fit for Sofa.

One of the main reasons quoted for not offering lifetime billing is that you’re not capturing the full Lifetime Value (LTV) of a customer. For example, David Barnard recently said on the “How To Not Screw Up Switching Your App to Subscriptions” episode of the SubClub podcast:

“I think we’re just so early and understanding like how long these things are going to go if you’re going to pick off some of your best, highest intent users and charge them 200 bucks, you’re actually probably significantly shortchanging your, true lifetime value.”

So when you take average churn rate and say, my average retention is two years. And so I’m going to charge two X, my subscription, which you’re not accounting for is that it’s actually your best users who are gonna be. Paying lifetime.

Echoed by Curtis Herbert:

https://twitter.com/parrots/status/1404819957578452994?s=61&t=hbfOXy75CXbntMH0X2RypA

While this may be true, this is a bit of a purist approach and a “you’re leaving money on the table” argument. I’m ok with leaving future money on the table if it allows me to grow the business today. This is also assuming that these people subscribe in the first place and stay subscribed for long enough to get the full Lifetime Value (LTV).

I find myself agreeing with this approach from Ryan Jones:

https://twitter.com/rjonesy/status/1404813713534820356?s=61&t=ZUf32x7b3e7Fuj6z2UUKmw

Since Super Sofa only launched in July of 2021, I don’t have enough historical data to pull on. I don’t know what my long-term average retention will be. Also, as a small, growing business, having more cash now is better for the long-term:

Booking that money, like right up front can really mean the difference between, okay. I can hire the next step and like we can kind of ramp what we’re doing as opposed to an annuity, which essentially like an annual subscription where you’re just getting that money like over time.
– Jacob Eiting

Similar to Roon, I plan to increase the one-time price over time to account for Sofa becoming a more mature and healthier business.

We initially offered the lifetime for early commitment, not so people could rent-to-own. The goal was to bring forward 4-5 years of revenue so we could fund the start of the company. It worked. We never raised external funding.
– Roon Lifetime Price Increase

I think the tradeoffs are worth it, but here are the two main reasons why I’m offering a lifetime option:

Open up Super Sofa to more people

Since introducing Super Sofa in the summer of 2021, I have heard from a vocal minority that they would prefer a “lifetime” option for Super Sofa. The reasons for this range from people who are anti-subscription and others who are on a more strict budget.

It’s highly unlikely that the people who fall into these groups will ever subscribe to Super Sofa on a monthly or yearly basis. Since this is revenue I wouldn’t have ever gotten anyway, why not offer a way for these folks to pay for Super Sofa?

Help bootstrap the business

Since I’m not planning on seeking VC money for Sofa, I need to bootstrap the business by charging customers money. Offering a lifetime option could pull forward revenue.

I disagree with that. Lifetime is too lucrative.

I.e. 15% of $100 vs 30% of $100 is still a shit ton *right now*. Versus 15% of $25/yr, praying for 4 years of retention, and time value of money— Ryan Jones (@rjonesy) October 22, 2021

Increased cash flow today really matters. That’s money I can use to put back into the product for new features, improvements, and most importantly, marketing.

What does “lifetime” actually mean?

When it comes to purchasing software, words like “lifetime” and “forever” can be a bit murky. Here’s how I’m defining it…

The life of the app

If Sofa goes out of business then its “life” is over and honoring _any_customer purchases would be impossible.
A sale or acquisition of Sofa would constitute a “new life” for the product. This isn’t my plan for Sofa, but life is weird, things happen, and it’s helpful to think through many scenarios. I can’t make any promises about new owners honoring lifetime customers forever, but would _strongly_negotiate for them to do so.

The life of the customer

This is a sad thing to think about, but if a customer passes on then honoring their purchase would only be possible if someone took ownership of their Apple ID.

Final Thoughts

There are trade-offs between offering and not offering a lifetime option within a subscription product. For the long-term viability of Sofa, I think it’s worth offering a lifetime option today so that the business has a better chance of existing in the future.

My goal is to grow Sofa into a healthy and sustainable business, and I think offering a lifetime option can help me get there.

You can see the updated Super Sofa plans on the Sofa website.

Making Lists More Customizable

Thu, 28 Apr 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Hey gang, ready for a fun update? Sofa 3.3 enables you to make your lists even more personal and fun.

Cover images for lists
Large titles and descriptions
New layout options
Custom settings per list
Edit custom item’s image and title
Markdown for Sticky Notes
8 new themes

About This Update

The lists that people create in Sofa are highly personal and are often painstakingly curated over time. A lot of time, effort, and care goes into creating and curating people’s reading lists, watch lists, playing lists, and more. The benefit of Sofa is managing all of this in one place so you can be more intentional with your downtime.

What’s New with Lists

For your lists, you’ll now be able to add a cover image, large title and description, along with more layout options.

Cover Images

Add a large cover image to each of your lists. You can search from Sofa’s movie, tv show, and video game data sources, Unsplash, or add an image with a URL.

Large Titles & Descriptions

Display a large title for your lists and give it a description. Descriptions support markdown syntax for a little extra flair. Perfect for adding bold, italic, and links.

Layout Options

Two new “cozy” grid and list layout options. These “cozy” options are great for lists where you want a little more information density.

Custom Settings Per List

All list settings are now saved per list and synced with iCloud. This means you can choose different sorting and layout options for each list.

New “Edit List” View

A new view is dedicated to controlling all the details to easily understand and customize all these settings. Tap the * * * button in the top right of each list, then “Edit List Details.”

Edit Custom Items

Custom Items are a great way to add content to your lists even if one of Sofa’s data sources can’t find it. Previously, custom items would use a random image from Unsplash. You can change the title and cover image for custom items in your lists. This should make custom items feel more at home in your lists.

Sticky Notes Markdown Support

Sticky Notes now support markdown syntax. This helps add emphasis and links to your notes.

Important Changes

Editing Sticky Notes requires explicitly tapping the “edit” button in the top bar. This approach has pros and cons, but the main benefits are that rendering and interacting with Markdown is much more reliable with this implementation.

New Themes

Sofa is ready for spring and summer with 8 new themes:

Spring

New Day
Flower Power
Open Fields
Sleeping Flowers

Summer

Camp Out
Clear Skies
Surf’s Up
Island Vibes

Improvements & Bug Fixes

You can now take action on items when performing a global search
Fixed the pluralization of an Activity metric category when the total equaled one.
Fixed a bug where items would “flash” when being moved to and from the Shelf

Shared Lists, Shortcuts, and More

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Today is a big day. I’ve been wanting to bring some of these features to Sofa since 2017 and I’m so pumped to finally launch them. I’m not going to beat around the bush, Sofa 3.4 is jammed packed with goodies.

Shared Lists (BETA)

Share and collaborate on lists with friends and family! This means you can now share those awesome movie and reading lists with your favorite people.

This feature is starting as a beta feature that people need to opt-in to using. While I was able to test shared lists with a small beta group, it needs to be tested at a larger scale. Releasing it to the public, and marking it as beta, will allow people to test and share feedback to smooth out any rough edges.

Learn how to share lists

Shortcuts (iOS 16+)

Use Shortcuts to access your Sofa data to power some nerdy and fun workflows.

Learn how to use Shortcuts

Streaming Providers

When viewing the details of a movie or tv show, Sofa will now display which providers the movie or show can be watched on. This is a huge improvement with how people use Sofa to decide what to watch.

This requires a Super Sofa subscription.

Lock Screen Widgets (iOS 16+)

Use Sofa to customize your iPhone’s lock screen with widgets for your favorites lists and The Shelf.

I hope you’re as excited as I am for these new features. They have been in the works for a long time and I can’t wait to see how you all use them.

Download the update

Sofa on Apple Silicon Macs

Fri, 21 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Hey gang, Sofa 3.2.4 has one significant new feature for M1 Mac owners and many more minor improvements and fixes. I hope you all enjoy it!

What’s New

Sofa is now available on M1 Macs!

Improvements

Added a setting for choosing how Logging to Activity works
Improved the design of the List settings menu
Items in The Shelf can now be moved to the trash
Items in The Shelf can now be sorted
If viewing from Activity, an item’s detail page now shows the date it’s been logged to Activity
Increased the number of search results for movies and tv shows. This should help surface items that are a little harder to find.

Bug Fixes

Fixed a few keyboard navigation issues for iPads running iOS 15
Fixed an issue exporting multi-line sticky notes to Markdown and CSV
Fixed an issue exporting/importing trash data in backup files

Introducing Sofa 4.0

Tue, 30 Apr 2024 12:00:00 GMT

Today, I’m excited to announce a huge new update to Sofa. Version 4.0!

If you’ve never heard of Sofa…Sofa helps you be more intentional with your downtime by creating lists of things to watch, read, play, and more.

With version 4.0, you can add basically anything, and expand Sofa to fit your exact needs with Custom Categories, Ingredients, Smart Lists, and more.

What’s New

This is a quick summary of all the new stuff. If you want to see a deeper dive, head over to the 4.0 landing page.

All New Home Screen Design

New design for The Pile
New design, and name, for Logbook (formerly Activity)
New design, and name, for Pinned Items (formerly The Shelf)
Customize what is shown on the home screen and how “quirky” it is. Go to Settings → Fiddly Things

Custom Categories

Create categories for anything: articles, events, places to eat, and more.

Add Your Own Ingredients

Create your own rating system, plan dates for future downtime activities, add robust tagging, and more.

Pinned Lists

Always have certain lists within thumbs-reach.

Smart Lists

Create lists that automatically populate based on a collection of filters.

Add Manual Items

You can now add items manually into Sofa with full editing capabilities. That means you can edit the title, description, image, and add your own Ingredients.

Add Links

Paste links into Sofa and automatically get a nice preview along with pre-filled information.

Add via Share Sheet

Add websites, videos, articles, and more into Sofa via the Share Sheet.

Use Images from your Camera Roll

Use images from your camera roll or take a photo to use for cover images.

Backup File Changes

There is a new file format for Sofa backup files to work better with saving images and the new Ingredients feature. The new extension is .sofa3bk and will be automatically created starting from version 4.0.

These new backup files will be a bit larger to account for the additional data that is now being saved.

I’ve also added a setting for choosing the frequency of automatic backups: daily (default), weekly, every 2 weeks, and monthly.

Shared Lists are Ending

I’m going to be ending the beta and removing the ability to create new shared lists.

Shared Lists was launched as a beta feature in December of 2022. If you’re not sure what “beta” means, it basically means that something is in an unproven or experimental state.

During this time, I’ve learned a lot about what sharing looks like in Sofa, and what it doesn’t. Basically, I need to go back to the drawing board and rethink how sharing will work in Sofa long-term.

I have a lot of new things coming to Sofa that the current implementation of Shared Lists just doesn’t work with. Things like Custom Categories, Ingredients, and more in the pipeline (i.e. Tracking Progress).

Please know, I made this decision with care, and I’m genuinely sad that it’s going away. That being said, it’s something I want to bring back in the future.

Go to this support page for more info

Sofa 4.0 is an important evolution to make Sofa as flexible and accommodating as possible for managing your downtime. I really hope that you love it as much as I do.

Sofa for Vision Pro and Mac

Tue, 09 Jul 2024 12:00:00 GMT

I’m happy to announce that Sofa is now available on the Mac and Vision Pro!

I had originally planned to have Sofa ready for Vision Pro when it launched in February, but I was deep in the middle of working on Sofa 4.0 (which launched in April). During May, I was focused mostly on 4.0 bug fixes and prepping for my trip to WWDC in early June.

This left me with a small two to three week window after WWDC, and before I start work on the new iOS 18 features, where I wanted to see if I could bring Sofa to the Mac and Vision Pro. It turns out, I could!

Up to this point, you’ve technically be able use Sofa’s iPad app on the Mac and Vision Pro, but this new version of Sofa is built specifically for the Mac and Vision Pro. There is still a lot more work to be done for these apps, especially the Mac, but this is a good improvement over the existing iPad versions.

Vision Pro Design Challenges

There were a bunch of design challenges bringing Sofa to Vision Pro, specifically around themes. If you don’t know, Sofa has over 100 themes to choose from, and they’ve been a fun part of the overall experience.

In visionOS, the glass texture is an important part of the look and feel. Finding the right balance between which parts of the app used the glass effect, and which were themed took a lot of iteration.

The additional challenge was that I don’t personally have a Vision Pro, so testing was very limited. Luckily, I have some very nice friends who tested and shared helpful feedback.

In the end, I’m pretty happy with where the design landed, but I’m expecting to iterate as I get more feedback from people using it.

Ingredient Improvements

Sofa 4.1 also brings a few improvements to Ingredients:

You can now search for items you’ve added to Sofa by their metadata or Ingredient values
Text Ingredients now adapt to longer, multi-line text

You can read the full release notes here, and download the update from the App Store.

Sofa for iOS 18

Mon, 16 Sep 2024 12:00:00 GMT

I’m happy to announce Sofa supports a bunch of new features in iOS 18!

This is the first year I’ve had an update ready on day-one of a new version of iOS. You know what? It feels good!

What’s New

Home Screen Customization

With iOS 18, Apple has added new ways to customize the look and feel of your home screen.

App icons and widgets appear even sleeker with a new Dark look. Tint them all with any color, or have iOS suggest a color that complements your wallpaper. You can also make apps and widgets appear larger.

Sofa’s primary app icon, and widgets, will now adjust to light mode, dark mode, and the tint-color of your choice.

Control Center Widgets

With iOS 18, Apple has enhanced Control Center to allow third-party apps to create their own controls.

Add more controls from the Controls gallery, which displays all your options in one place, including new controls from your favorite apps.

Sofa’s controls will allow you to open various parts of the app: The Pile, Logbook, Pinned Items, and any list you have.

You can read the full release notes here, and download the update from the App Store.

Introducing Sofa’s New Podcast Player

Wed, 02 Apr 2025 12:00:00 GMT

As of today, Sofa comes with a full-featured podcast player that can easily be your primary way of listening to your favorite shows.

Here’s a quick rundown of what you get:

Add your favorite podcasts
Easily manage your “Up Next” queue
Simple controls, chapter selection, show notes, and more
Create custom playlists
Plenty of settings to configure things just how you like
Fine-tune settings for individual podcasts
Listen while you drive with CarPlay
Widgets and shortcuts for quick access

All of this works across iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and visionOS. Head over to the Sofa Podcast Player page to learn more.

Super Sofa Features

Most of the podcast player is completely free to use, but there are a few features that require a Super Sofa subscription:

Chapter Selection

Some podcasts include chapters that display additional details while listening and allow for easy navigation within an episode.

Sofa’s Podcast Player automatically adapts to show which chapter is currently playing, how much time is remaining, chapter artwork (if available), and provides controls to jump between chapters.

Individual Podcast Settings

You can easily configure Sofa’s Podcast Player to work exactly how you want. Adjust playback controls, manage downloads, and more.

With Super Sofa, you can fine-tune settings for individual podcasts.

For example:

Automatically download new episodes
Choose what happens to an episode after you finish listening
Set an episode limit (how many to keep)

Are You A Podcaster?

If you have your own podcast, and would like to provide your listeners with a “Listen on Sofa” button or link, I built a handy tool for you.

Head over to the Sofa Podcast Button Builder, and make a “Listen on Sofa” button for your show in just a few seconds.

When listeners click the “Listen on Sofa” button, it will automatically open your podcast in Sofa for them to subscribe to. If they don’t have Sofa installed, they will be redirected to Sofa’s website showing details about your podcast.

Here’s an example linking to my “Worklog” podcast:

You can read the full release notes here, and download the update from the App Store.

Sofa for iOS 26

Mon, 15 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT

Sofa’s iOS 26 update is packed with features designed to make listening and organization smoother than ever. From smarter playback tools like Voice Boost and Trim Silence, to big improvements in “Up Next,” and even the long-awaited ability to manually sort your lists, this update is all about giving you more control and a better experience.

Here’s a quick rundown of what’s new

Liquid Glass: A sleek new visual effect for a polished, modern feel.
“Up Next” improvements: Bulk editing, swipe actions, offline download indicators, and real-time download progress.
Enhanced Podcast Player: Voice Boost for clearer audio, Trim Silence for faster listening, and playback duration in the mini player.
Manual Sorting: Finally reorder groups, lists, and items in both The Pile and Lists.

All of this works across iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and visionOS. Head over to the Sofa for iOS 26 page to learn more or you can download the update from the App Store.

Introducing Sofa 5

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Today I’m releasing the biggest update I’ve ever made to Sofa, version 5.

If you’ve never heard of Sofa, it’s an app that helps you be more intentional with your downtime. You can create lists of things to watch, read, play, and listen to, and then actually keep track of all of it. It’s a non-work tool for your personal time.

With version 5, Sofa goes from being a really good list app to something more like a full companion for your downtime. Sofa 5 gives you the tools to track your progress through shows and books, listen to podcasts, plan trips, and and a whole lot more.

Here’s a rundown of everything in Sofa 5. For a deeper dive, head over to the 5.0 landing page.

Progress Tracking

Sofa now provides a highly flexible tracking experience. There are five tracking modes that let you follow shows, books, games, and movies however you want, from simple checklists to full journaling.

See How Tracking Works

Planner

The new Planner handles your TV schedule, standalone tasks, sticky notes, and full trip itineraries with budgets, maps, and weather.

See the Planner

Podcast Player

Sofa now has a full podcast player built right in with queuing, offline downloads, CarPlay, and per-show playback settings.

See the Player

Better Organization

Lists got a lot more powerful in this update. Two list types, four layouts including the new Data Cards view, 28 Smart List filters, custom fields called Ingredients, and multi-select actions to manage items in bulk.

See How to Organize

Logbook and Stats

The Logbook catches everything you finish with its date, notes, and metadata intact. A Stats dashboard turns that history into charts, top rankings, genre breakdowns, year-over-year comparisons, and milestone markers.

See the Logbook

Apple Intelligence

On devices that support Apple Intelligence, you can create Smart Lists by describing what you want in plain language. It also powers automatic summaries in the Planner that update as your plans change.

And More

Unified Search now covers your library and new content in one place, with trending results and smart type detection
Widgets put progress rings and cover art on your home screen and lock screen
40+ Shortcuts actions let you automate your library however you want, including things like “mark next episode as watched” through Siri
Customizable tab bar lets you hide the Player or Planner if you don’t use them
Manual items now get the same detail fields as items from search, so everything has full parity

Sofa 5 is the version of the app I’ve always wanted to build. It took a while to get here, but I think the result is something really special. I hope you love it as much as I do.

Download Sofa on the App Store

Import Your Library, Take It With You

Thu, 28 May 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Hot on the heels of Sofa 5.0, I’m bringing a looooooooong time request for Sofa 5.1: Importing data from other services. If you’ve been tracking movies on Letterboxd, books on Goodreads, or keeping all that stuff in Apple Reminders, you can now bring all of it into Sofa.

Import from Other Services

Importing is built for two kinds of people. The first is the longtime tracker who has thousands of items on another service and has been holding off on switching because the thought of re-typing everything is unbearable. The second is the brand-new Sofa user who tried the app, liked it, and quietly realized they’d lose ten years of viewing history if they actually committed. Both of you, I hope, just got unblocked.

The import handles:

Goodreads — books, ratings, tags, reviews, shelves
Letterboxd — films, diary entries, ratings, watchlist, custom lists
Trakt — movies and TV, with full episode-level history
IMDb, TV Time, Hardcover, StoryGraph, Book Tracker, Movie Tracker — CSV exports from each
Apple Reminders — pull a Reminders list directly into Sofa, no export step
Generic CSV / pasted text / .txt / .md files — anything that doesn’t fit a preset

Sofa matches every row in your export against TMDB, iTunes, or IGDB so items land with the right posters, descriptions, and metadata. Nothing gets dropped — if a book is too obscure to find online, Sofa creates a custom item from whatever metadata you provided. There’s a Review step where you can swap any low-confidence match for an alternate, and an Undo button on the success screen if you want to start over.

Learn more about importing your data →

Export All Data

The previous “Plain Text” and “Spreadsheet” export options are replaced by a single, much more complete Export All Data action. The result is a zip you can open in Numbers, Excel, or anywhere else that reads CSV files.

Inside the zip:

items.csv — every item in your library as one row, with the list and section it lives in, its category, all dates, your notes, tags, links, custom properties, and (for podcasts) your per-show playback settings
Per-area files for the Planner, Travel & Money, and Media sections
An attachments/ folder and an images/ folder with every file Sofa is holding for you
A README.md explaining the schema

The whole point is human readability. Open the zip in Numbers and you can browse your whole library at a glance, filter to a single list, count what you’ve finished this year, or sort by date. If you ever decide Sofa isn’t for you, this is also how you take everything with you.

For full round-trip restores, the .sofa4bk Sofa Backup format is still the right tool. The new export is for reading and analyzing — the backup is for replacing.

Learn more about exporting your data →

See the full release notes
Download Sofa Sofa 5.1 from there App Store

A Better Podcast Player and a New Enjoying Tab

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Sofa 5.2 is a big one. A much improved podcast player, a brand new Enjoying tab, a single global search, and a ton of improvements spread throughout the app. Here’s the rundown.

Podcast Player

The player got a lot of love this release, and the biggest change is that it’s now completely free. Chapters, per-show settings, and Voice Boost are unlocked for everyone.

The headline feature is Listen as a Series. You can now follow any podcast like a TV show, in order from the beginning, with a progress ring, a dedicated series view for Up Next, Played, and Skipped, and a new CarPlay Series tab.

There’s a lot more under the hood:

Per-podcast settings for playback speed, Voice Boost, seek intervals, Skip Intro, and Skip Outro.
Better chapters with artwork, scrubber markers on iOS 26 and later, and automatic parsing from show notes.
New Up Next controls so you can choose whether new episodes land at the top or bottom, either globally or per podcast. Each playlist keeps its own sort, including manual drag order, synced across your devices.
New playback settings including Smart Resume, Auto Play Next Episode, Only Play Downloaded Episodes, and 21 playback speeds from 1.0x to 3.0x in 0.1x steps.

The Enjoying Tab

There’s a new tab that’s a dedicated home for everything you have in progress: shows, books, games, and more, all in one place.

Smart views surface the right things at the right time with Finish Tonight, On a Roll, and Dusty. You can sort by time remaining or units left, and TV shows can show a “time left” estimate right on the item.

Everyone can now track up to 2 items for free. Super Sofa includes unlimited.

One Global Search

The Search tab is gone. In its place is one global search, a single tap from any tab, or ⌘K on a keyboard. It searches your library first and lets you add new items from the same place.

Settings Sync

Nearly every preference now syncs with iCloud. Set it once and it’s everywhere.

TV Show Tracking

Show tracking picked up collapsible seasons, a Hide Spoilers mode, and a choice of how progress is displayed: Percent, Watched count, or Remaining. There’s also a new “Caught Up” Smart List filter.

Logbook

Log Again brings back one-tap re-logging. Repeated Quick Log taps, podcast episodes, and TV episodes now bundle into tidy collapsed rows instead of flooding the day with separate entries, and TV episodes group by season by default.

And More

TV Time import now supports the official GDPR export, with full episode-level watch history, rewatches, movies, and custom lists.
Letterboxd import now brings over written reviews as Notes on each film.
Smart Lists can filter by title with contains, equals, and excludes, and support multi-range filters.
Notes can show as a compact “Little Icon” instead of a full inline card.
New “Date Edited” sort, a new “Course” checkpoint type, and a default checkpoint type per media category.
Custom categories can be assigned to Enjoying groups.
Select All in Up Next for quick bulk actions.
Sofa now restores your last-used tab and podcast mini player position when you reopen it.
Tappable toasts, so you can tap the confirmation banner to jump straight to what you just changed.

Plus the usual round of fixes: finished TV shows correctly resurface in Enjoying when new seasons arrive, podcast episodes no longer show up under “Unknown Podcast” or appear twice in Played history, and Planner dates no longer appear a day early for anyone in a time zone ahead of UTC.

See the full release notes
Download Sofa from the App Store

As always, don’t hesitate to reach out with feedback, issues, and suggestions. I’m always happy to hear from you at support@sofahq.com.

– Shawn