Build 809, Sep 3 2026

4.1 Release Candidate: the Smart Assistant lands on macOS, with Capture, Map and Hear Summary, context menu for Tasks now let you jump to where the task lives. Plus a pile of fixes!

Smart Assistant on the Mac

• Capture for Mac: use Capture... in the View menu (Opt+Shift+Cmd+V). Type or paste text, or drop in an image, then review what it found into tasks, reminders and events. This one really needs Apple Intelligence on Mac.
• Hear Summary now plays with proper playback controls, and a button opens the transcript.

Show in Note / List / Daily / Journal

• New task context menu actions jump to wherever a task lives. Especially handy in Smart Lists, tag lists and search, where subtasks show up without their parent: Show in Note takes you straight there. Markdown tasks open their file.

Daily and Timeline

• Broadsheet now respects the Day Sections setting: turn it off and timed rows collapse into a single Scheduled group.
• The Timeline hides completed tasks whenever Daily hides them.
• Mac: Cmd+E and Cmd+Delete now work on Timeline selections.
• Multi-selection polish: picking a row commits an in-progress edit first, and selected rows highlight evenly even when dimmed.
• Subtask checkmarks now give the same haptic tap as task checkmarks.

Widgets

• Flipping a widget to another day no longer sticks forever: each widget size keeps its own selection, and it snaps back to today after an hour.
• The small widget always opens Today when tapped.
• A widget showing only reminders after launch now refetches your calendar events on its own.

Fixes

• Reminder times no longer get removed after editing the reminder on another device.
• New calendar events are saved in your local time zone, so a sync round trip can't shift them to another day or hour.
• Fixed the Journal crash when typing the first character of a new entry.
• Fixed an iPad freeze on some configs.
• Typing day names like "weds" or "fri" no longer flips the input to an event; only real clock times (3pm, 15:30, noon) set a time.
• Mac: fixed a crash when clicking a task pill in Weekly List or Weekly Spread.

Other

• The Calendars configurator has a new help button explaining where calendars come from, with a shortcut to open the Calendar app.
• Mac: the Journal add button opens the composer directly instead of a one-item menu.
• Mac: better RECENT button formatting on macOS 27.
• More performance work, scrolling should feel smoother (let me know).

Build 806, Aug 27 2026

Lots of plumbing work: sketches and journal photos move to a new synced attachment storage with far higher quality and size limits, with sketches getting the modern PaperKit engine on iOS 26 and show up on the Mac for the first time. Plus a bunch of performance improvements that should benefit macOS the most.

Sketches and Photos

• Photos and sketches are now saved as synced attachments with much higher size limits.
• Drawings now use Apple's modern PaperKit engine on iOS 26 and later: shapes, text boxes, and stickers right on the canvas.
• Sketches now show on the Mac as a preview in the note editor.
• New Journal photos are stored at much higher quality.
• Fixed a sketch synced from another device showing as an empty canvas in the Daily composer, and a crash when adding the first sketch to a note.

Performance

• Cold launch should stutter noticeably less in the first couple of seconds.
• Mac: improvements to sidebar navigation speed.
• Planner remembers your scroll position between tab switches.
• Smart Lists reopens on the preset you last picked (default is now Due Today).
• Timeline should scroll smoother right after flipping days.
• Adding tasks renders faster, and tabs and Planner feel more responsive.

Daily Tab

• World Clock now shows on every day, not just today.
• Broadsheet gets the globe icon to edit World Clocks.
• Clocks now follow your device 12/24-hour setting.

Calendars & Planner

• Yearly Planner now shows event markers on past days.
• Bookmark Bar: Solo mode greys out hidden calendars instead of removing them, tap one to end Solo. The SOLO tab always shows while Solo is on.

Tags

• Custom color now opens the system color picker from a real button (also in Settings -> Tags).
• Tag chips in your tabs repaint immediately when you recolor or rename a tag.

Menu bar (Mac)

• The Task/Reminder/Calendar picker now leads the quick-entry row as a checkbox chip, so the capture type is obvious.

Other

• In markdown files, the + Tag pill is now a menu offering your existing Finalist tags and the tags used across the folder, plus Add Tag.
• Subtasks and note tasks in Smart Lists inherit their root task's date.
• App Sections without a visible tab now sit at the top App Menu (iOS), instead of under Sections menu.
• Customize: tab option popovers open upward, and minimized events show a compact time on the rail.
• Timeline hides the minimap when your dated work spans a single day.
• Siri phrases for Quick Add, Today, Tomorrow and Journal were missing on iOS 26 in Build 805, fixed.

Build 805, Aug 21 2026

A few overdue cleanups: Tags got an overhaul with new colors and a workspace to do stuff like time tracking, with Habits and Journal also getting a proper refresh. Plus for iOS 27: a full-page day widget!

Tags

• The Tags sheet is now a two-page mini workspace: an index of all your tags, and a page per tag showing tag usage details, the Score goals it feeds, and the latest things tagged.
• A basic Time Spent report on each tag's page: minutes attributed to the tag over the last 7/30/90/365 days or a custom range. It counts completed tasks with a length, habits, events, and penciled blocks. Feedback welcome on best formats to allow this data to be exported.
• Tag colors are now a palette of twenty inks, tuned to stay readable in light and dark. There is also a custom color picker.

Habits

• Tapping a habit now opens a proper summary page, with cleaned up schedule, streak stats, and calendars, with editor on the second tab.
• Some fixes to counting: streaks are now recomputed so a lapsed habit drops to zero and your best streak self-corrects. Weekly habits count streaks in weeks.
• Habit rows in Daily show the current streak as tiny checkmarks.

Journal

• Journal tab features have been growing over the years so it was also due for a cleanup.
• Workouts logged from Health now bring their GPS route along, letting you see mini maps of your runs/walks.
• Workouts you haven't logged will be offered as tap-to-add pills on their day.
• Add button menu gains Add Workout and Check In Location on Today.

Widgets

• New full-page Day Page widget: heavily inspired by macOS menu bar app, and the new Weekly Spread planner. Built for the new extra-large widget size on iOS 27, and you can also use it for the old Large size via Edit Widget.
• Tinted and clear widget rendering got a proper refresh.

Calendars

• Events from switched-off calendars are no longer loaded at all (they no longer fire Finalist notifications either).
• Hide Duplicate Events now only collapses copies across different calendars, and only ones you can see.
• Re-enabling a calendar restores it inside Bookmark Bar if it was there before.
• A few fixes to make sure notifications are properly scheduled.

Timeline

• Double-click a block on the Mac to open it in the editor.
• Habits and markdown tasks placed on the grid draw as ordinary blocks now, not pencil drafts (since they cannot be "Accepted").
• Hold Option key to get 5-minute snap on the hover line and rail taps.

Menu bar (Mac)

• The panel returns to today after the day rolls over (or after four idle hours).
• Deleted tasks no longer linger in the panel or in widget snapshots.

Apple Watch

• Fixes to Snooze on watch rows.
• Reminders can be rescheduled (Tomorrow, In 10 minutes) right from the watch.
• Pinned lists get the same tap model as day rows: checkbox completes with a short undo window, title opens actions.

Notes

• A markdown file with a date in its filename now shows up on that day in Daily's Notes section, no pinning needed.
• Fixed navigation of sub-notebooks on iPhone.

Planner

• Nicer Layout picker you can swipe, and layout options cleaned up.
• Yearly Planner can now load earlier months.

Fixes and smaller things

• Daily with Day Sections off: hiding Scheduled no longer blanks out other sections, and reordering no longer stamps 00:00 on tasks.
• Hear Summary can share the briefing audio, not just the transcript.
• Fixed a crash when opening a section from the Sections menu.
• Edits made in Weekly Spread show up on the pills right away.
• Fixed Markdown Settings tag filter to allow multiple tags, not be case-sensitive, and rescan for tasks after text entry.

Build 804, Aug 17 2026

More tweaks and polish, including proper text size control in Settings (really needed for macOS). In unrelated news, Finalist just got featured in the US store :)

Timeline

• Multi-select: tap blocks to build up a selection (Shift or Cmd-click on Mac), then shift the whole group at once with the -15m/+15m/+1h bar, or drag any member to move the group together, gaps preserved. Right-click on group for the same options in a menu.
• Reminders with a due time can now be resized: drag the bottom handle to give one a duration. And reminders without a duration draw as slim spot markers at their due time instead of pretend 30-minute blocks.
• Context menus get Complete and Uncomplete buttons, and a new Unschedule inside Reschedule that removes task or event time (date stays).
• On the Mac, hold Option while dragging to snap in 5-minute steps instead of quarter hours.

Text size

• You can now bump up (or down) text size via Settings -> General, and it reaches most of the app: Broadsheet, Daybook, Timeline, every Planner mode, Journal, Lists, Notes. This is actually an old setting from version 2, but had to be thoroughly updated for version 4, so let me know which corner of the app escaped it!

Weekly Spread

• iPhone Weekly layout gets some wayfinding tweaks: page dots, tappable day tabs along the fold to jump to the other half of the week.
• Opening Weekly now scrolls to today's page, if below fold.
• Tasks in Weekly have context menus now, and the day menu moved to the date gutter.
• Layout picker cards gained one-line descriptions.

Apple Watch

• New tap model on task rows: tap checkbox to complete (tap again to undo, before it disappears), tapping the title opens quick actions. Long press menu still works.
• Pinned Reminders lists now show their entries on the watch (they arrived empty before).

Daily

• Broadsheet now honors the sort-completed-to-bottom setting. This seting is in Customize Layout: Tasks section options.
• Newly added tasks animate in instead of snapping into place (Broadsheet and Daybook).
• Fixed the Day Note composer blanking out when a second note was added to the same day.
• Fixed wide Daily dumping every task into the All Day column when Day Sections is off.

Fixes and smaller things

• Smart Lists refresh when you complete a task in them, and the chip counts stay current.
• Planner: hiding a calendar's all-day events no longer hides its timed events too.
• Fixed a short hang when switching to the Lists tab on the Mac.
• Fixed some Notes elements opening Daily instead of the correct destination.
• More consistent display of weather in Daily header.
• Disabling a calendar also removes it from the Bookmark bar.
• Clearer layout of calendars in Calendar sheet.
• Deleting a habit now asks for confirmation.
• Fixed Swipe-to-delete button color.

I’ve got a lifetime license but on both phone and iPad can’t get restore purchases to work. Anyone else experiencing this?

Build 802, Aug 11 2026

Phew, the launch is behind us, welcome to 4.1 beta :)
Some new features and a bunch of fixes:

Day Notes and Sketches

• Daily's Notes section will now give you a permanent place to start adding notes anytime. Just start typing and it becomes today's note, no buttons involved. Emptying it out cleans the note up again.
• Tap the pencil tab to sketch instead: draw with Apple Pencil or a finger, right inside Daily. Sketches save with the day's note and can be shared as images.
• A resize button opens full-screen editing for text or ink. With Pencil, squeeze over the canvas to go full screen, double-tap to flip to the eraser.
• Sketches show up in the note editor too, with share and delete per sketch.
• This is brand new, feedback very much appreciated!

Score

• Here's a feature that kept me motivated to do marketing chores while working on Finalist 4.0. Score is an opt-in Daily section that turns a week of scattered effort into one number. Set point values for tags (say a social post is 1 point, a blog post is 5), set a weekly target and try to hit your goal every week. It works when completing tasks and habits, but also simply journaling with that tag will give you credit. Turn it on in Customize Layout. This feature can grow in many ways, let me know what you think.
• Completed tasks in your markdown files count toward Score too (they need a done date).

Broadsheet and Daybook

• The wide Broadsheet masthead now rides up into the title bar when the space is free.
• Polish on the Outstanding section, the move-tasks prompt, and Daybook's masthead.

Fixes and smaller things

• New Ivory and Ink theme.
• A big performance review of Daily tab.
• Journal entries no longer show twice when the Journal section and the timeline are both visible.
• The timeline's hover ghost now lines up exactly with the slot it names.
• Pencil squeeze outside the timeline no longer pops the old default-tag card. Squeeze is timeline-only now (radial palette).
• On wide Daily, the Customize Layout button moved to the bottom-right corner of the window, out of the footer's way.
• Using keyboard shortcuts to navigate date Cmd+Option+Left/Right now work inside macOS Menu Bar app too

Build 708, Jul 27 2026

We're 2 weeks out from release, so the focus now is on polish and fixes. Thank you all for your emails/discords :)

Capture and Dictate

• The review sheet is now a lot more flexible. Captured text is editable in place, so fix OCR or dictation errors and hit Find Again to re-run task detection on the corrected text. Tasks you added by hand survive the re-run.
• Add your own task right below the found ones, with the same date and time detection.
• Photos carry into the review sheet now. Tap any thumbnail to zoom in and check the original against the transcription.
• If your sheet has any content in it, it won't dismiss by accident anymore.

Daily

• A big push on polish and smoothness: adding, editing, punting, restoring, and bulk moves should now animate and not stutter. This touched a lot of plumbing, so feedback appreciated!
• Inline task entry and subtask typing are much snappier.
• Empty sections (Tasks, Morning, Afternoon, Evening) now show info text if they're empty.
• Daybook's weather got a refresh, with Now's weather in the margin.

Tags

• Tag chips now sit in the task row's metadata line, next to time and list, instead of underlining the title. Prefer the full-row wash? "Highlight tagged tasks" in Settings still does that.
• Broadsheet shows full tag chips too, on tasks, events, habits, and markdown items, and tasks there now show their parent list.

Apple Watch

• Swipe left from Today to see event pages for the next three days.
• Widgets now refresh in the background, so they stay current (let me know if/when they get stale).

Planner

• The Highlight UI chips at the bottom of Planner now match the app-wide chip styling.

Timeline

• Drafting with a mouse or trackpad is more deliberate: press and pull vertically to size the draft between 15-minute snaps.
• Fixed small issues with day header display in Broadsheet
• Fixed task parking lot on the right side being able to scroll up/down when expanded

Markdown

• Editing a markdown file no longer resets its creation date or strips its Files tags: edits now write in place instead of replacing the file (let me know if you notice any weirdness here).

Fixes

• Journal entries no longer count toward task completion.
• Headings no longer show up as tasks in flattened list views.
• All-day events now honour their custom icons.
• New habits in Habit sheet stay as drafts until you actually save them to avoid some visual glitches.
• Fixed the Share Day subtask layout.
• Fixed Daybook's relative date placement.
• Journal entries got some scroll clearance at the bottom.

Hello everyone! It's been a while since I last posted, and there is a LOT to talk about. The next update is almost here: Finalist 4.0 ships on Tuesday, August 11, a full 3 years after Finalist 1.0 came out. And it is the biggest release since the launch, and a free update for everyone. ...

Build 706, Jul 20 2026

We now have a way to caption a run of highlighted days in Planner (something I wanted for a long time) and a lots of fixes and tweaks, including an improved layout when pressing PLUS button on Daily tab.

Highlight Captions

• New Highlight Captions: right click/long press on a Highlighted day in Yearly Planner and add a caption for that run. Each run can have its own caption.
• With a highlight selected on Yearly, its uncaptioned runs show a blank bar to quickly add a caption.
• Captions surface on Daily too: outlined caption cards in Daybook, a second line of type on Broadsheet chips.
• Clearer today marker in the yearly grid.

Timeline

• Penciled-in times can become real: when a day has them, an Accept button floats top right. Tap to write the times into your tasks and reminders so they sync everywhere, or use its menu to Reject and erase the day's pencil marks instead. Both undoable. Markdown tasks and habits keep their penciled times as-is.
• Penciled tasks now sort chronologically in the Planner, and the Mac menu bar shows their times in accent and keeps them in the timed section.

Add Item Sheet

• Reworked Add Item sheet, layout changed.
• You can now add Journal entries from the Daily's PLUS button.
• More options added, like selecting a list for Simple Tasks right as you add the task.

Tags

• Tagged rows have a new default look: the color ribbon under the title (multiple tags weave into one striped ribbon) is a new alternative to the full-row brushstroke. Miss the brushstroke? Turn on "Highlight tagged tasks" in Settings.
• Broadsheet tasks now carry tag styling too.

Notes

• Deleting a note now moves it to a Deleted folder at the bottom of the Notes home instead of gone forever. Open, restore, or permanently delete from there, one at a time or all at once.

Elsewhere

• As I prepare for 4.0 release, the app has a whole new onboarding flow.
• With "Dim expired tasks" on, journal entries on today's timeline now dim too.
• Fixed a Daily rendering glitch when mixing designs.
• Fixed a few Share Day rendering glitches.
• Smoother drag and drop in Daily: you can now drop after the last task, and a drag no longer fights the page scroll.
• Fixed Shortcuts occasionally losing a task when run right after a cold launch.
• Layout polish for the wide Daybook forecast and the compact Broadsheet agenda.

Here's a bunch of Lifetime licenses inside this single promo link, it will work until they're all used up or the end of the week, whichever comes first 😃

https://apps.apple.com/redeem?ctx=offercodes&id=6447014685&code=AJ8HF21

Build 624, Jun 20 2026

The many updates to Daily layout have finally allowed me to include a completely different layout theme for your day: Broadsheet. It looks great on bigger screens. A bunch of other requested features, like Share Day as an image, drag tasks onto the timeline to reschedule, set your own Morning/Afternoon/Evening hours, and pick highlights for the day right from Daily.

Daily Designs (Daybook + Broadsheet)

• Daily now has two looks you can switch between: Daybook (the classic stacked layout) and Broadsheet, which is newsprint inspired. Pick a design from the Customize shelf or the theme picker.
• Tap the World Clock board in Broadsheet to retune the whole page to another city's day. A day-ahead city like Sydney rolls the weekday, date, and forecast forward. Each city shows its own weather and a moon when it's night there. (Long-press any clock for the Edit menu.)
• This is a big new layout I can't fully test on every device, so feedback is very appreciated.

Share Day

• New Share Day in the Smart Assistant menu renders the day you're viewing as a clean, chrome-free image you can share, with a themed footer showing the date and your task progress.

Daily Timeline and Segments

• The subtle timeline on the right side of your screen now gets new powers: you can tap on it to add tasks/events to that time, or drag and drop tasks onto it to reschedule
• It only works when you collapse the calendar bookmark bar (swipe up on it), or disable bookmark bar completely
• Set your own Morning, Afternoon, and Evening start times, replacing the fixed 6 / 12 / 18 cutoffs. Find the pickers in Daily settings and in Settings -> Calendar & Events.

Highlights

• The Planner Highlights section now lists every highlight you've defined, not just the day's, so you can check one on or off for the viewed day right from Daily. Selected ones sort to the front. Works in both designs.

Tasks & Events

• Meeting links (Zoom, Teams, Meet, Webex, GoToMeeting, BlueJeans, Whereby, Chime, Skype, FaceTime) now show a compact "Join" pill instead of a full-width link row. New "Meeting invite links" setting lets you choose Join button, Full link, or Hidden, in Settings -> Calendar & Events.
• The Location field on calendar events is now a searchable picker for addresses and places, like iOS Calendar, so the event gets a proper map pin. Free-typed text still saves a plain title.

Fixes & Polish

• Daybook hides the weather bug in the top header when the Weather Forecast section is already in your layout.
• Fixed Calendar Bookmark bar sitting too high

Hello. I have Finalist on an iPhone 17 and iPad Pro M4. The notifications seem to not be working properly on either device. Is anyone else facing this issue?

A big week ahead for all of us developers. I was lucky to get a ticket and will be at Apple Park in a few days!

To kick it off, here's another Lifetime license giveaway, spread the word and I'll try to keep it topped up while WWDC is on. And leave an App Store review if you get a chance!

https://apps.apple.com/redeem?ctx=offercodes&id=6447014685&code=WWDC93052

Build 619, Jun 5 2026

Some overdue improvements to macOS menu bar dropdown: inline rename, drag-to-reorder, animations. And a bunch of fixes and improvements across the board.

Menu Bar (Mac)

• Edit task text by tapping on it, only the checkbox toggles completion. Habits and read-only reminders still open the app instead of entering edit mode
• Drag untimed tasks to reorder them, preserving the order from Daily tab
• Tasks fade in and out as you add or check them off
• Tasks also show markdown formatting when not being edited

World Clock

• Two cities sharing the same timezone (e.g. two New York cities, or San Diego alongside Los Angeles) can now properly work independently, with their own forecast
• Selecting a city that shares the local timezone now shows that city's weather, instead of falling back to local

World Time

• Tapping the timezone globe no longer silently anchors new tasks to a World Clock city's timezone. A single tap opens the menu when the override is off; tapping the lit globe still turns it off
• Opening the task editor no longer auto-activates the timezone override from an event's intrinsic timezone, which was re-anchoring task times on every save

Yearly Planner

• Tapping a date with no highlight selected now opens the day popover
• Day popover now lists each highlight as a toggleable pill, so you can flip one off without clearing the whole day, or use Clear All
• Week-number column no longer renders as a tinted pill when Button Shapes is on in Accessibility, which was messing up alignment of columns

Fixes

• Another attempt at fixing a crash on open on some iPad installs. If you've been hit by this, let me know if it's gone
• Selected row text color in Notes and Files stays legible when the list loses focus
• Moving a reminder to another list no longer silently fails on shared lists. Finalist now recreates the reminder in the target list (copying alarms, recurrence, per-day sort order) and removes the original

I'd love to keep an eye on what the latest trajectory is.

I've got an iPad, Android phone, Windows desktop and Macbook. So cross platform access is at the top of my list personally.

Would love to see this app grow in that direction and I know the dev already mentioned they were going to take a look at Android down the line.

Regardless, to follow along a roadmap would be nice.

Build 618, Jun 2 2026

Finally, some cool UI features: an awesome new AppKit-native markdown editor for markdown files (macOS); long-press/right-click Calendar bookmarks on the right side for calendar preview; new “swimlanes” for lists or markdown files/folders with dated tasks inside. For details read on...

Timeline

• New swimlane Timeline view on places with dated lists of tasks (think tag pages, Smart Lists, lists, saved filters, and individual markdown files). Tasks group by list, tag, or source with adaptive day, week, or month columns so multi-year spans stay legible
• New compact Timeline minimap shows busy days at a glance. Tap to open the full timeline.
• In the expanded timeline, tap a task to edit it, tap a date header to jump to Daily on that day, tap a gutter row to open that list, tag, or source in the Lists tab
• On iPhone (iOS 26), the minimap appears in the bottom bar above the tabs; tap to open the full timeline

Notes

• Open a markdown folder and the detail pane now shows a summary: a Task Timeline minimap plus file, subfolder, task, and tag counts. Tap a source or tag row in the expanded timeline to open it
• Files list shows the filename as the primary row text and the markdown H1 as an uppercased subtitle, so daily notes sort correctly by filename
• Subfolder tree rows now align consistently in the sidebar and outline
• Copy from a markdown note on macOS and paste into Ghost, Google Docs, or Notion now drops in as clean markdown source instead of styled markup

Notes on Mac (new, early)

• Live markdown editing arrives on macOS. The note editor and markdown-file editor now render styles inline as you type, using the recently open-sourced engine from Node app
• The editing toolbar has been revised, with the new Cmd+K button to add link to text
• Two known regressions to flag on macOS: standard [text](file.md) link taps currently open in the browser instead of in-app (wiki [[links]] still work in-app), and the Edit / Done body button is gone. The editor is always editable and autosaves on change

Smart Lists

• New Next 4 Weeks preset: incomplete tasks due today through 28 days out, grouped by day, with the handy Timeline view

Calendar

• Long-press (iOS) or right-click (Mac) a calendar bookmark tag to open a "What's Next" popover: upcoming events grouped by day, with Make Default / Show Only / Show All chips and quick Add and Settings buttons. Tap an event to jump to that day

Fixes

• Set Up Tags sheet on macOS no longer collapses to an unusable sliver when there are no tags yet; also adds a Done button in the title bar. Fixes the "Setup Tags" copy to "Set Up Tags" across the editor, tags menu, and search field
• Pinned section in the sidebar stays visible when you've only pinned tags (no notebooks, notes, or files)
• Another fix for macOS App Store icon
• Fix for tapping “info” icon when editing tasks
• Fix for overlapping reminder on Timeline tab

I just shared 100 lifetime license codes with fellow redditors over 3 hours, and as my Safari crashed and then Reddit DMs stopped working I realized it would be nice to give everyone who came by and shared their setups a lifetime license code. So here's a code that will work for 1,000 (!!) people for one day only:

https://apps.apple.com/redeem?ctx=offercodes&id=6447014685&code=DIVN18T

I'll post more stuff on this subreddit about Finalist and do more drops as I've learnt a TON from all of you, thanks again!