Today a major version of the impressive and beautiful Sofa downtime organizer app for iPhone and iPad was released. Version 4 comes with a completely new user interface on the main screen, “The Pile”. and more, custom categories, pinned lists, smart lists and more.
Independent developer Sean Hickman today released Sofa 4.0 with a huge list of new features and improvements. Since I first tried Sofa in 2021, the app has continually improved and won an Apple Editors’ Choice.
Now Sean has introduced an amazing update based on convenient tracking of all the movies, TV shows, music, books, podcasts, apps and games you choose. I'd like to check it out.
Now, with Sofa 4.0, you can make the application as simple as you want, or customize and expand it to suit your needs, while tracking “virtually anything”; you want.
Here are some of the major updates:
- 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 almost anything in Sofa
- Add your own “Ingredients” for tracking, such as rating system, tags, scheduler, etc.
- Pinned liststo keep your favorites at your fingertips
- Smart lists – create lists that are automatically populated based on filters
You can try the standard version of Sofa completely free and without advertising.
To get the new customization features in this update, you'll need Super Sofa, which costs $3.99 per month or $29.99 per year and supports Sean's great work. It can also be purchased with a family subscription.
Full Sofa 4.0 release notes:
SOFA 4.0 HERE!
Sofa helps you spend your downtime more consciously by creating lists of what to watch, read, play, etc.
With version 4.0, you can add almost anything and expand Sofa to suit your 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 the magazine (formerly “Activity”)
• New design and name for pinned items (formerly “Shelf”)
• Customize what is displayed on the main screen and how “unusual” it is; This. 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, schedule future downtime dates, add trusted tags, and more.
PINCHED LISTS
Always keep specific lists at your fingertips.
SMART LISTS
Create lists that are automatically populated based on a set of filters.
ADD ITEMS MANUALLY
>
You can now add elements to Sofa manually with full editing capabilities. This means you can edit the title, description, image and add your own ingredients.
ADD LINKS
Insert links into Sofa and automatically get a beautiful preview along with pre-filled information. .
ADD VIA SHARE SHEET
Add websites, videos, articles and more to Sofa using the share sheet.
USE CAMERA IMAGES
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Use images from your camera roll or take a cover photo.
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**CHANGES TO BACKUP FILE**
Sofa backup files have a new file format that works better at saving images, as well as a new Ingredients feature. The new extension is .sofa3bk and will be automatically created starting with version 3.5.
These new backup files will be slightly larger to account for the additional data that is currently being saved.
I also added a setting to select the automatic backup frequency: daily (default), weekly, every 2 weeks and monthly.
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**SHARED LISTS ENDING**
I'm going to end beta testing and remove the ability to create new shared lists.
Shared Lists launched as a beta in December 2022. If you're not sure what “beta” means that it essentially means that something is in an unproven or experimental state.
During this time, I learned a lot about what sharing looks like in Sofa and what it doesn't. . Essentially, I need to go back to the drawing board and rethink how sharing will work in Sofa in the long term.
I have a lot of new things coming to Sofa that the current implementation of shared lists simply doesn't support . I work with. Things like custom categories, ingredients, and more are a work in progress (i.e. tracking progress).
Please know that I made this decision carefully, and I'm truly sad that it will go away. That being said, I would like to return this in the future.
For more information, go to cafehq.com/support
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As always, feel free to contact us with feedback, concerns, and suggestions. I'm always glad to hear from you: Feedback@sofahq.com
– Sean
