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Version 1.5.2LatestOctober 2026
Smarter quick entry, multiple addresses per pal, and a faster way to add several notes about the same person.
What's New
Multiple Addresses - Give a pal a home, work, or vacation address, or as many as you need. Tap an address to open Maps, long-press to copy it, and use the edit dialog to label it, make it primary, or delete it. Linking a contact brings in all of its addresses, without duplicates.
Addresses in Quick Entry - Type "Sam address 1200 Oak Ave", "Jen's address is ...", or "lives at 22 Baker St" and betterpal saves the address to the right pal. A new street address becomes the primary one and the previous street address is kept as an extra address instead of being overwritten. A city never replaces a street address, and an address the pal already has is ignored.
Add Several Entries to One Pal - Select entries on the Pals tab, tap Process, and switch to One pal to fold them all into a new or existing pal, one note per entry. Each note keeps its original date, and birthdays, reminders, and locations are still detected. You can leave any entry out (it stays in your inbox), and when every entry starts with the same name, betterpal picks One pal for you and preselects the matching pal.
Visit betterpal.app - A new row in Extras → About opens the website without leaving the app.
Improvements
Smarter Name Detection - betterpal finds the name in entries like "Coffee with Olivia", "My barber Tony", "Uber driver Ahmed", "I just met a guy named John", "Her name is Fatima", or "Dr. Patel", and keeps the description readable. When it can't tell, it leaves the name blank rather than guessing "Coffee" or "My".
Cleaner Note Splitting - Entries no longer split into separate notes in the middle of "Dr.", "St. Louis", or "5.11", and a bare number like "5.11" is no longer read as a reminder date.
Multiple People - "Met Dana and Chris" is recognized as two people, while "Grace, Mateo's mom" and "The new guy at work, Derek" stay one.
Distance Sort - Sorting pals by distance uses whichever of their addresses is closest to you.
Send Feedback - Opens Gmail or Outlook when that's your preferred mail app, and includes your app version so we can help faster.
Bug Fixes
Tapping a birthday or "birthday is tomorrow" notification now opens that pal instead of just opening the app
Fixed a note's text being wiped when you tapped + to start another note
Notes added or deleted on your Mac now sync reliably to your iPhone (and the reverse), even when the other device saved the same pal in the background
Added safeguards so a failed storage read can never wipe your pals list on the next save
"Lives in Denver now" no longer saves the location as "Denver Now"
Clearing a pal's location now also removes their old map pin
Version 1.5.0July 2026
"Add entries from anywhere." The theme of 1.5: betterpal now works even when it isn't open — on your Home Screen, on your Action Button, through Siri, and on your Mac.
What's New
Notes View - A new toggle on the Pals tab flips the list into a journal of every note about everyone - grouped under day headers like a diary, or by pal. Swipe a note right to set a reminder, left to delete; tap it to jump to that pal's card, scrolled to that exact note. Search and tag filters carry over, and the sort pill under the nav now shows (and controls) how the view is sorted. Read the guide.
Quick Capture - The fastest way to save a person you just met, without opening the app. Bind it to your Action Button or Back Tap: press, type "Sarah tall, met at the gym", done - betterpal saves it silently in the background, and the new pal is waiting for review next time you open the app. Or go voice end to end: "Hey Siri, add to betterpal". The capture box also supports the keyboard mic, or build a press-speak-saved shortcut with Dictate Text. Read the setup guide.
Quick Capture Setup - A guided setup screen (Extras → Quick Capture & Widgets) walks through binding it, with one-tap jumps into Settings.
Home Screen & Lock Screen Widgets - Voice Capture, a mic button that opens betterpal already transcribing; Quick Add, the entry bar one tap from your Home Screen; and Your Pals, a glanceable list in your preferred sort (recent, A-Z, birthdays...) with each row opening that pal directly. All three come in Lock Screen sizes too (iOS 16+): circular quick-capture buttons and a rectangular top-pals glance, without unlocking your phone.
betterpal for Mac + Desktop Sync - betterpal now runs on your Mac, with your pals, notes, timeline, and the network graph on a big screen. Your data lives in a single vault file you own - drop it in iCloud Drive, flip on Sync with Desktop on your iPhone, and both devices stay in sync through your own iCloud. No accounts, no servers; record-level merging means edits from both devices coexist safely, and photos are stored as compact sidecar files next to the vault so syncing stays fast even with a big pal library. Read the setup guide.
Improvements
Paste a Photo - Set a pal's picture straight from the clipboard.
Customizable Extras - Collapse any section, long-press a header to rearrange the whole page - including Weekly Wrapped, Recall Quiz, and Quick Capture.
Calmer Network View - The graph settles longer and more gracefully, and crowded clusters no longer shake at high frequency.
Instant Network Filtering - Filtering by tag no longer triggers a full rebuild on every tap.
Smoother Smart Connections - Suggestions recalculate as you approve them, so you can accept a whole family in one flow instead of reopening the tool. Step-family inferences now suggest step-parent/step-child (gender-aware) rather than plain parent/child.
Pals List Polish - Cards have a pill-rounded left edge hugging the avatar, and scrubbing the A-Z bar shows tag colors instantly. The Notes view shows the same active-filter summary as the pals list.
Tag Inheritance - Adding a new person from a pal's connections inherits that pal's tags.
Backup & Restore - Reorganized into a cleaner, consistent layout.
Better Tutorial - A dedicated notes walkthrough, and the whole tutorial reads better in dark mode.
Bug Fixes
Family tree, blended-family edition: each parent's kids now group on that parent's side of the couple, a recorded dad plus a step-father no longer renders as a phantom marriage, and children always sit under their actual parents
Every family's parent-child connector now gets its own vertical lane, so you can follow whose kids are whose even when several families share a generation
The family-tree button on a pal's card is now properly scoped: blood relatives traverse fully, while spouses, step-relatives, and in-laws appear without dragging their whole clan in - no more spiderwebbing into half your network
Family tree: in-law families are placed more sensibly, connector lines no longer break after editing someone, and tree lines can never bleed into the animated network view
iCloud backup now reliably writes to real iCloud
Fixed a stale tag filter on cold open
Fixed a crash in the notes section bar
Fixed the "MainTabs" back-button label
Keyboard and navigation edge cases, plus many more small fixes from a full-app audit
Version 1.4.0June 2026
What's New
Add People While Linking - Create a brand-new pal right from the Add Connection module on someone's page, instead of jumping out to add them first. Makes it much quicker to build out families and relatives in one go.
Family Tree View - A dedicated family-tree layout in the Network view. Switch it on and your relatives arrange into a clean top-to-bottom hierarchy: parents above children, generations stacked, built from the relationships you've recorded.
Smarter Smart Connections - betterpal now infers a person's gender from gendered relationships and first names, so its suggested links land correctly more often (aunt vs. uncle, niece vs. nephew).
Linked Contact Changes - When a phone contact you've linked to a pal changes, betterpal flags it so you can review and apply the update instead of letting your records drift.
Smart Connections Banner - A dismissible banner at the top of your Pals list surfaces new relationship suggestions, with a count badge so you know how many are waiting.
Free Recall Quiz Mode - Choose to type a person's name from memory instead of picking from multiple choice. A tougher, more honest test of what you actually remember.
Quiz by Tag Group - Scope the Recall Quiz to a tag group, so you can drill just the people from one event, team, or trip.
Improvements
Roomier Network View - More breathing room between nodes, clearer spacing, and unconnected people separated out so clusters read at a glance.
Family Tree Polish - More zoom-out range, a smoother entry animation, and a subtle vertical glow to guide the eye through generations.
Stacked Suggestion Cards - Smart Connections suggestions stack as swipeable cards you can tap to open.
Multi-Select Birthday Reminders - Choose several advance birthday alerts at once, for example a week before and again on the day.
Bug Fixes
Fixed Liquid Glass top-bar borders getting clipped on some iPhones
Fixed excessive top padding in the Contact Updates and Smart Connections sheets
Fixed wrapping in the Upcoming filter
Additional stability and polish fixes
Version 1.3.0April 2026
What's New
Calendar Integration - Add birthdays and reminders directly to Apple Calendar. Events include deep links back to the person in BetterPal.
Map View - See your contacts on a map with automatic clustering. Tap clusters to see everyone at that location. Tags can have locations too, so people appear on the map based on their groups.
Proximity Sort - Sort your people list by distance from your current location.
Smart Connections Overhaul - Swipeable card interface for relationship suggestions. Swipe right to connect, left to skip. View and restore skipped suggestions anytime.
Contact Import Improvements - Conflict detection with merge UI, progress tracking, and auto-detection of new iPhone contacts.
Recall Quiz - After Weekly Wrapped, quiz yourself on new people you met. Shows descriptions and notes when you answer.
Section Index Bar - iOS Contacts-style A-Z scroll bar. Shows contextual labels (months, "This Week", etc.) for non-alphabetical sorts.
Multi-Edit Relationships - Select multiple people and add them as connections to someone in one action.
Real-time NLP Highlights - Names, birthdays, reminders, and locations highlight as you type.
Voice Recording - Hold your phone to your ear to start hands-free voice entry.
Batch Selection - Hold and drag across people to select multiple for batch operations.
iCloud Sync Toggle - Explicit toggle in settings to enable/disable iCloud sync.
Improvements
Liquid Glass UI - Frosted glass blur effect on navigation bars, matching the floating search bar.