The impressive and beautiful downtime organizer app Sofa is out with a major release today for iPhone and iPad. Version 4 comes with an all-new UI across the home screen, “The Pile,” and more, custom categories, pinned lists, smart lists, and much more.
Indie developer Shawn Hickman launched Sofa 4.0 today with a huge list of new features and improvements. Since I first tested out Sofa back in 2021, the app has consistently been improved and won an Apple Editors’ Choice Award.
Now Shawn delivered an awesome update that builds on the great experience of easily being able to track all the movies, TV shows, music, books, podcasts, apps, and games you’d like to check out.
Now with Sofa 4.0, you can keep the app as simple as you want or customize and expand it to fit your precise needs while tracking “basically anything” you want.
Here are some of the major new upgrades:
- New home screen (including fresh UI for The Pile, Logbook, and Pinned Items)
- Customize what you see on the home screen
- Custom categories – allows you to add and track most anything in Sofa
- Add your own “Ingredients” for tracking like rating system, tagging, planner, etc.
- Pinned lists to keep favorites “within thumbs-reach”
- Smart lists – create lists that automatically populate based on filters
The standard version of Sofa is totally free to try and also ad-free.
To get the new customization features with this update, you’ll need Super Sofa which goes for $3.99/month or $29.99/year and supports Shawn’s great work. It’s also available as a family subscription.
Sofa 4.0 full release notes:
SOFA 4.0 IS HERE!
Sofa helps you be more intentional with your downtime by creating lists of things to watch, read, play, and more.
With 4.0, you can add basically anything, and expand Sofa to fit your exact needs with Custom Categories, Ingredients, Smart Lists, and more.
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**WHAT’S NEW**
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 CAMERA ROLL
Use images from your camera roll or take a photo to use for cover images.
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**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 3.5.
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.
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**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 sofahq.com/support for more info
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As always, don’t hesitate to reach out with feedback, issues, and suggestions. I’m always happy to hear from you: feedback@sofahq.com
– Shawn
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