What’s new & what’s next

Private iPhone testing only; the app is not available to download. Create the baby announcement, crop its photo and share it without leaving the app.

• Feature

  Share the news without leaving the iPhone app

  Private iPhone testing only; the app is not available to download. Share the news now opens a complete editor inside the iPhone app. Add the birth details and family note, choose and crop one photo, preview the card, and publish it. The app opens the iPhone share sheet as soon as the new unlisted link is ready. Replacing or turning off an announcement still turns off its earlier link and the help access that came from it.

• Fix

  Finish opening the web editor from the iPhone app

  Private iPhone testing only; the app is not available to download. Opening Share the news from the iPhone app now waits for the website's updated sign-in state before opening the editor. The secure handoff was already completing, but the page could briefly read the old state and show that the sign-in service was not ready instead.

Private iPhone testing only; the app is not available to download. The app can open its one web-only announcement task without asking an organizer to sign in again.

• Improvement

  Open the website from the app without signing in again

  Private iPhone testing only; the app is not available to download. When the iPhone app sends you to the website to finish sharing the baby announcement, the website now recognizes the organizer account you are already using in the app. The handoff expires in 90 seconds, works once, and opens only after the household is checked again. If Safari belongs to a different organizer, it asks before switching accounts.

Private iPhone testing only; the app is not available to download. The organizer app for iPhone reaches its first testers, and the privacy page says what the app keeps on a phone.

• Privacy

  What the iPhone app keeps on your phone

  Private iPhone testing only; the app is not available to download. The privacy page now says what the iPhone app keeps on a phone after you sign out: one value in the phone’s own Keychain that tells our sign-in provider which install of the app this is. It holds no household, no name and nothing about your family, and deleting the app removes it. Everything else the app kept on the phone goes when you sign out.

Every kind of notification now has its own Email box and Push box, ready for the iPhone app.

• Improvement

  Choose email, push, or both

  Notifications in Household settings now gives every kind two boxes instead of one: Email and Push. Tick both, either, or neither. Nothing changes today, because push notifications need the iPhone app, and until you install it the group says so and your choices wait for you. Turning an email off no longer means turning that kind off altogether: you can leave push on and get it on your phone instead. "What's new in the app" keeps its one Email box, because that one is only ever an email. When push does arrive it will be short on purpose: it will say something like "A helper needs your okay." and which household it is about, and never a name, an activity or a date, so nothing about your family sits on a lock screen.

You can now delete your own organizer account from the app, a new page says exactly what that does, and the Notifications group now says it is about emails.

• Feature

  Delete your account whenever you want

  You can now delete your own account, from Household settings or from the account menu on your households screen. Your name and email are removed straight away, from your account and from every invitation that carried them, and you are signed out on that device at once and everywhere else as soon as your sign-in is deleted, usually within a minute. You cannot sign in again. It is not the same as deleting a household: the households you help organize stay exactly as they are, with their other organizers. If you own a household, we will ask you to hand it to another organizer, or archive or delete it, first, because a household always needs an owner. The one thing we keep is a do-not-send note, and only if an email to you ever bounced or was marked as spam, so we never email that address again. A new page at whenbabyshome.com/account-deletion says all of this in full.

• Improvement

  The Notifications group says it is about emails

  The Notifications group in Household settings now opens with "Choose which emails we send you", so it is clear what each switch controls. Push notifications will get their own switches when the app arrives.

Household settings now carries your own email choices, one for each kind of email we send you.

• Feature

  Choose which emails you get

  Household settings now has a Notifications group. Turn each kind of email we send you on or off: a helper needing your okay, a helper offering something, sign-ups and cancellations, co-organizers, and what is new in the app. The choices are yours rather than the household's, so they cover every household you organize, and they take effect straight away on anything we have not sent yet. Your sign-in code and our one-time hello are not affected.

Two free guides for asking for help and helping from far away, baby visits can be planned from the first week home, and helpers now always sign in with a six-digit code.

• Feature

  Two free guides for asking for and giving help

  The website now has short guides you can read or share without signing up. One walks through asking for help after the baby comes home, with texts you can copy. The other is for friends and family who live far away and want to help anyway. Find them under Guides at the foot of every page.

• Improvement

  Visits can start in the first week home

  Visit the baby used to be the one activity you could not schedule in the first week home. Now it works like every other activity: add a visit time in week one if you want one, and a new plan suggests visits from week one too.

• Improvement

  Helpers always sign in with a code now

  Helper emails now have one button that opens your family's page, where a helper types their email and a six-digit code. Personal links are gone, so there is no separate link for anyone to keep safe. Older links in inboxes still open your page, and helpers who are already signed in stay signed in.

An activity can now run more than once a day, and you can change a single time without touching the rest of the plan.

• Feature

  An activity can happen more than once a day

  Two dog walks, lunch and dinner: when you set up an activity, tap Add another time slot to give it a second or third time on the same days. An activity can now have up to 21 time slots a week.

• Improvement

  Change one time without changing them all

  Before the baby is home, open an activity and tap Change one time slot to move or remove a single time, or add a one-off, without touching the rest. The list folds by week, and so does the list of times a visitor can take on. After homecoming, open times on the calendar carry a pencil so it is clear you can tap one to change it, and Change several asks which time of day to move when an activity runs more than once a day.

You can take one person out of your plan, turning off your link no longer signs out the friends already helping, and the beta page lets anyone in.

• Feature

  Remove a helper

  You can take someone out of your plan from the Helpers tab. Removing a helper ends their access straight away, takes down their raised hands and their on-call offer, puts any time they had signed up for back to open, and cancels the emails waiting to go to them. Help they already gave stays on your calendar, and they are not told.

• Improvement

  Turning off a link no longer signs out the helpers you already know

  Turning off or replacing your household link stops anyone new from getting in with it and finishes any code sent from it. Helpers who already verified their email keep their access, so you can retire a link without interrupting the friends already helping. Use Remove on the Helpers tab when you want one person's access to stop.

• Improvement

  The beta is open

  The beta page no longer asks people to apply and wait to be chosen. It says the beta is open and free, that setup takes about ten minutes, and offers Sign up for free and a log-in link. The application form is gone, so the page collects nothing.

Helpers can add a date they signed up for to their own calendar, you can add the whole plan to yours, and a helper's page now opens in light mode.

• Feature

  Add to calendar

  Helpers can now put a date they signed up for straight into their own calendar, one at a time or all at once, and you can put the whole plan into yours. Each choice hands over a calendar file, or a prefilled Google Calendar link, because Google on a phone will not open a file. The two emails a helper gets about a date, the one confirming it and the reminder the day before, now carry the same file as an attachment. Your export holds only the times a helper has taken: open times and visitors stay here, and no helper's name or private instructions travel with it. A saved event is a copy, so it does not move when you change a time; the email that tells everyone about the change now says to fix it in their calendar too.

• Improvement

  Helper pages open in light mode

  The page a friend sees from your link now starts light instead of following their phone's dark setting. The little sun and moon at the top still lets them switch, and their choice is remembered on that phone.

A friend who opens your private link lands on your plan right away, with the introduce-yourself card at the top until they type their code.

• Improvement

  Your link opens straight on your plan

  A friend who opens your private link now lands on your list of ways to help instead of a sign-in screen. They can read the whole plan straight away, with one short card at the top asking for their name and email so you know whose hand went up. When they tap something they want to do, that card is where they land, and after they type their six-digit code they come back to the very thing they tapped. Nobody who only looks is added to your household.

Household settings and Report a problem are one tap away on every screen, the helper list opens in place, and a helper who signed in with a code stays signed in for six months.

• Improvement

  Settings and Report a problem on every household screen

  The gear into Household settings and Report a problem now sit in the top right of every screen in your household, not only Home, so you can change a detail or tell us something is broken from the tab you are already on. On Your helpers, Show all your helpers now grows the one list you are reading instead of starting a second one underneath, and the control reads Show fewer once it is open.

• Improvement

  Helpers stay signed in for six months

  A helper who typed a six-digit code now stays signed in on that device for six months instead of thirty days, so a friend who said yes in the first week does not have to ask for another code when they come back in month four. Turning your link off still ends their session straight away.

A friend you share your link with now gets in with a six-digit code from their inbox, the welcome note from Marcelle and Scot arrives again, and organizers get a short email when something changes.

• Improvement

  Helpers get in with a code, not a second link

  A friend who opens your private link now types their name and email, gets a six-digit code in their inbox, and types it back on the page they are already on. That replaces the old two-trip walk where they asked for a personal link, waited for it, and opened a second link that looked like the first. It also closes a hole: typing somebody else's address used to hand the typist that person's access, and now it only sends that person a code. Anyone who already has a link from you keeps using it, and nothing they hold stops working.

• Fix

  The welcome note from Marcelle and Scot actually arrives

  A one-time hello from the two of us is meant to reach every organizer after their first sign-in. It never sent, because it ran after the page had already closed its database connection. It now opens a connection of its own.

• Feature

  A short email when something changes

  Organizers now get a note about what changed in the app, at most every two weeks and only when something did. Every one has a link that stops them with one click.

The whole app is rebuilt around one thing to do next, a calendar that fits a phone, and light or dark, your choice.

• Improvement

  A calmer, easier app on your phone

  Your household now has four tabs along the bottom: Home, Plan (Calendar once the baby is home), Helpers and Share. Home tells you the next thing to do. The calendar shows one day at a time so a week fits a phone. Household settings and Share the news are screens of their own. Every part of the app follows your phone's light or dark setting, and Household settings now lets you choose Light, Dark or System yourself. Helpers get a small sun and moon button in the corner of the family's note, so they can switch too. Text is bigger and easier to read throughout. Everything you could do before, you can still do, in the same places on each screen.

A few new ways to help your friends know what’s agreed and when they’re coming.

• Feature

  Ask a friend to confirm a private plan

  Send the dates and details for them to confirm or decline. You can see their answer before counting on that help.

• Improvement

  Your helpers can keep their personal link

  Each helper’s emails now use their reusable personal link to return to their page. This is their own link, separate from the household link you share with people.

• Improvement

  Helpers see their upcoming help first

  Their dated commitments and plans awaiting an answer appear before choosing more help. They can check what’s next or cancel a date from their own list.

• Feature

  See what’s new and what’s planned

  An Updates link in the website footer opens release notes and the roadmap.

Small fixes for finding your way back and choosing help on a phone.

• Fix

  Older email links work throughout their valid lifetime

  We fixed a timing mismatch that could stop a helper’s email link opening before it expired.

• Improvement

  Clearer dates and notices on phones

  Sign-up confirmations show the actual dates, and notices have more room to read on small screens.

• Fix

  The homepage respects reduced motion

  The video pauses when someone turns on reduced motion. They can still choose to play it.