A More Well-Rounded Sofa Experience
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.