What’s new in iFancy

Every page in the app is plain white now, with rows instead of cards and a header that keeps the page's name in view as you scroll. Friends is one alphabetical list that says when a follow only goes one way, and on a computer it uses the full width of the page.

New

• Follow back someone who follows you right from their row on Friends.
• On Friends, show only Mutual, You follow or Follows you, and sort by first name, last name or most lists.
• Recently viewed puts the profiles you opened last at the top of Friends.
• Pick people for a shared list or for Some people with a new picker you can search by name.
• The login marks the way you signed in last with Last used.
• Choose any profile color with Custom.

Improved

• Friends says "You follow them" or "Follows you" instead of the old emoji.
• On a phone, the bar at the top moves with your finger as you scroll, each tab keeps its place, and Back undoes your last tap.
• Settings is grouped, and long descriptions fold behind Read more.
• Pull down on Friends to refresh it.

Fixed

• Fixed Friends staying empty after a bad connection until you reloaded.
• Fixed Subscribe looking stuck on someone's default list.

ifancy.app and the app now share one bar, so nothing moves when you go from the website to your lists. Search sits at the top of every page and finds people, lists, help articles and blog posts as you type.

New

• Search people, lists, help articles and blog posts from the top of any page.
• When a search finds nobody, choose Not on iFancy yet? Invite them to send them a link to your profile.
• On a computer, the menu under your picture has View profile, Settings, Help & FAQ and Log out.
• On a phone, More at the bottom has your account, Settings and the website's pages.
• In Safari on an iPhone, the banner at the top offers the app, and on a shared list its Open goes to that list in the app.

Improved

• On a phone, the bar along the bottom has My Lists, Friends, Add, Alerts and More. Alerts is your notifications.
• In the iPhone app, the website's pages open in a sheet over the app, and the bar along the bottom steps aside while you type.

Search in the iPhone app had been finding nobody since August, and it finds people again; search on the web was never affected. Fetch Data also stops waiting forever on a link, and a few messages that said something untrue are fixed.

Improved

• When a store is slow to answer, Fetch Data stops waiting after 30 seconds and says so, and anything the store sends later still shows up.
• Un-marking a purchase now says "No longer marked as purchased".

Fixed

• Fixed Search in the iPhone app finding nobody, not even friends who use iFancy.
• Fixed a link staying on "Reading" after you'd fetched a lot of links in a row. It now says "Too many links in a row".
• Fixed the message after restoring an archived item, which said it had been un-marked as purchased when it hadn't.
• Fixed Settings saying list privacy is under Edit Wishlist. It's under Edit list → Rename & privacy.
• Fixed the From iFancy notification setting mentioning archive receipts, which iFancy doesn't send.
• Fixed the monthly reminder telling you to tap an "archive purchased" button that doesn't exist. It now says to tap Archive item on each one.

The screen for creating and editing a wishlist is redesigned. A list's name and icon, who can see it, and who collaborates on it sit together, and on iPhone it fills the screen. Open it from Edit list → Rename & privacy, or Rename list on a list you collaborate on.

New

• Closing wishlist settings with unsaved changes asks "Discard changes?" instead of quietly dropping your edits.
• Settings links to iFancy's accessibility statement, and so does the footer on the web.

Improved

• Pick a list's icon from eight quick choices, or any emoji under All emoji.
• Public, Friends only and Private each say who can see the list.
• Collaborators shows each person's photo, and whether they've accepted or are still invited.
• On a list you collaborate on, you see the name and icon you can change, and Leave this wishlist.

Fixed

• Fixed the Private Profile description in Settings, which had it backwards: only people who follow you can see the items on a private profile.

Notifications is rebuilt around what needs you. Invites and suggestions wait under their own tabs until you answer them, and you can answer from the notification itself. The badge counts only what's new since you last looked and what's waiting on you.

New

• Accept or decline an invite, and keep or pass on a suggestion, right in Notifications.
• Suggestions and Invites tabs show what's waiting on you, and what you've settled.
• Mute a friend or one of their lists from a notification's ⋯ menu, and undo it straight away.
• Notification settings let you choose which kinds of notification reach your phone, and they're saved to your account so every device follows them.
• See a notice when the gifts people bought you become visible after their reveal date.

Improved

• Notifications that arrive while you're reading wait at the top behind a "new" button instead of moving the list.
• Tapping a push opens what it's about.
• Logging out stops that phone getting your pushes.

Fixed

• Fixed the app once again asking for notification permission as soon as it opened, before you'd logged in.

Adding, editing and viewing an item now happens on one redesigned screen, on the web and in the iPhone app. The link, the photo and who can see the item sit together, and you can now change a gift's reveal date after you've marked it as purchased. On iPhone it needs iOS 16.4 or later.

New

• Change reveal date lets you move the day someone finds out about a gift you marked as purchased.
• Closing an item with unsaved changes asks before discarding them, and the header marks unsaved changes until you save.

Improved

• Fetch Data fills in the name, price and photo from a pasted link, and says so when a site sends nothing back.
• Search the web for a photo without leaving the item, or upload your own.
• Who can see this is three cards (Everyone, Some people, Only me), with the friends you picked shown underneath.
• Saving to shows which list an item goes on, and lets you pick another of your lists or suggest it for someone else's.

A few weeks of changes: a new privacy setting for search engines, redesigned wishlist cards and list switcher, and fixes to a few things people actually hit.

New

• Turn a wishlist's visibility to search engines on or off from Edit Wishlist — separate from friend search, which is now labeled "Show Me in Friend Search" to make the difference clear.
• First app open now shows a welcome screen instead of the old homepage.

Improved

• Wishlist cards and the list switcher were redesigned. Suggested items from friends now show right in the list instead of a separate strip.
• Items without a photo show the store's own color instead of a random one, and hidden items are visibly faded.
• Opening the app while already signed in takes you straight to your list, with a way back; signing out shows a clear confirmation.
• App footer redesigned.

Fixed

• Fixed a collaborator's editing rights and purchase visibility depending on which link they used to open a shared list.
• Fixed notification toggles occasionally reverting or double-firing when tapped quickly.
• Fixed a handful of smaller bugs around switching and renaming wishlists.

The image search we use to suggest pictures when you add an item stopped returning results — the service behind it was retired. It runs on a new one now, and when a search genuinely finds nothing you get a message saying so instead of an empty box.

Improved

• Headings across the app use a new display typeface, so titles read a little cleaner.

Fixed

• Fixed the app showing a white screen on sign-in, sign-out, and sometimes on first open.
• Fixed notifications from a previous account still appearing after switching accounts.
• Fixed the alignment of the phone number field on the sign-in screen.

You can now invite someone to collaborate on a wishlist. Both of you can add, edit, and reorder items on the same list. This came from the most common request we get: two parents keeping separate, half-overlapping lists for the same child.

New

• Invite a collaborator from a wishlist's Collaborators screen. Invites stay pending until the other person accepts, so nothing lands on their account uninvited.
• Pending invites show in the wishlist dropdown, and lists someone shares with you are marked with whose list it is.
• Remove a collaborator from their row, with a confirmation first.

Fixed

• Fixed a typed +1 being kept alongside the country code when signing in by phone.
• Fixed the previous account's details lingering after switching accounts.
• Copying a wishlist link now copies the canonical share URL and tells you it worked.

The last release of 2024, and mostly about hearing from you when something goes wrong.

New

• Support chat inside the app.

Improved

• Feedback includes your device details, so a bug is reproducible.
• A wider wishlist dropdown, so long list names are readable.

Fixed

• Fixed the friends list missing people because of how followers were looked up.
• Fixed prices failing to save for some items.
• Fixed the chat box being unusable on small phones.

Image search used to run while you typed, which was noisy and rarely what you wanted. It's a button now.

New

• Feedback takes your email address, so a reply is possible.

Improved

• Image search runs when you press the button.

Fixed

• Fixed people search missing results.

Improved

• The add-an-item box suggests what to do next rather than waiting on a pasted link, with a little sparkle when it finds something.

Fixed

• Fixed secure connections failing inside the app on some networks.

Fixed

• Fixed an item's title dropping characters while you typed it.
• Fixed the profile checklist not marking itself complete when it was.

Improved

• Adding a friend picks up the lists they've made public, instead of leaving you to subscribe to each one.
• Updated terms of use.

Being someone's friend told you nothing about when their list changed. Now you can follow the list itself.

New

• Subscribe to a wishlist and hear about new items, with a badge on lists you already follow.

Improved

• Faster page loads, and better titles when a list is shared or found in search.

Fixed

• Fixed the privacy link in the sign-up prompt going nowhere.

Improved

• A new app icon and refreshed logo.

Fixed

• Fixed the homepage video failing to play on some browsers.

Notifications hadn't survived the rebuild. They work again, including while the app is closed.

New

• Push notifications, with the permission prompt at a moment that makes sense.
• If you said no, there's a button in Settings to turn them on later.

Fixed

• Fixed several back buttons appearing at once.
• Fixed the tab bar and sign-in screen layouts on smaller phones.

A round of work on the item screen, mostly aimed at phones, where a long title used to take over everything else.

Improved

• Long item titles collapse on a phone instead of pushing the rest of the item off screen.
• Notification permission is asked for at a point where it makes sense, rather than on first launch.
• Your email address is no longer shown on your profile.

Fixed

• Fixed a title that failed to save doing so silently — you get an error now.
• Fixed pasting a link into the item box failing in some cases.
• Fixed "suggested by" not loading who suggested an item.

Six weeks of work on the parts of the app you touch constantly — searching, switching tabs, and getting back out again.

New

• Search is its own tab: search for people, press enter, and leave the keyboard without losing your place.
• Friends you visit often stay in reach in the tab bar.

Improved

• Your friends list is sorted alphabetically.
• Signed-out visitors get a sensible page instead of an empty one.
• Sharing a link into iFancy from another app says what went wrong when it can't read it.

Fixed

• Fixed navigation getting stuck when moving between tabs.
• Fixed the delay before a profile page appeared.
• Fixed the close button missing from Settings.

The rebuilt app is on the iPhone. If you had WishRoll, this is the same account and the same lists under a new name.

New

• iFancy on the iOS App Store.

The work that took the rebuilt app through review: the requirements Apple asks for, and the fixes that came out of testing it as an app rather than a website.

Improved

• Account deletion, data handling, and permissions all meet what the App Store requires.

New

• Delete your account, and everything on it, from Settings.

Fixed

• Fixed a cross-origin error that could stop the app loading for some people.

New

• iFancy installs to your home screen from the browser, no app store involved.
• A prompt asking what you think, once you've added a few things — early enough to be useful, late enough to be fair.

Improved

• A new account opens with the search field focused and an add-friends button, instead of an empty screen with nothing to do.
• Uploading a profile picture is part of the setup checklist.

Fixed

• Fixed image uploads failing on large photos.
• Fixed signing out leaving traces of the previous account behind.

Improved

• Product links resolve more often, Amazon's in particular, and fall back to the page title instead of an empty item when a shop blocks us.

A new name and a rebuilt app. Everything you had is still here — the same lists, friends, and purchases — on a version that loads a list in one pass instead of three.

New

• One tab bar across the whole app, so wishlists, friends, search, and notifications are a tap apart.
• Search for people from a page of its own.
• An emoji picker for naming a list.

Improved

• Items show their image, price, and whether their link still works, on the item itself.
• Profiles get an avatar and a header you can set.
• Purchase counts stay hidden from people who aren't signed in or aren't friends.

The last WishRoll update, November 2023. It shipped on top of 1.15.0 without a version bump of its own, and it settled how purchases work: hidden from you on your own list, and revealed on a date the buyer chooses.

New

• Purchases can be disclosed to the list owner on a date you pick — after the birthday, after Christmas — rather than never.
• The purchased badge says who bought it, so two people can't buy the same thing.
• Profile avatars.
• Items show when they were added, and profiles show when someone was last active.

Improved

• A new profile header with the actions where you'd expect them.
• Purchase information is hidden from people who aren't signed in.

Fixed

• Fixed relationship badges showing on other people's friends lists.
• Fixed scrollbar colours in dark surfaces.

The biggest WishRoll release: you stop copying links between apps, because the share sheet does it for you.

New

• Share a product to WishRoll from any app and it becomes an item.
• A setup checklist for a new profile, so a half-finished account doesn't stay that way.
• Image suggestions based on an item's title, for links with no usable picture.
• Confetti and a little haptic feedback when you mark something purchased.

Improved

• Marking purchased and adding a friend update immediately instead of waiting on the server.
• Purchased items sink to the bottom of a list, and each item shows the shop its link points at.
• Uploading an item image is faster, and you can clear one you don't want.

Fixed

• Fixed links shared from other apps often failing to parse.
• Fixed the review prompt appearing before you'd rated anything.

New

• A clear button on the link box, and the link actions moved to where your thumb already is.
• A reminder to finish a profile that's been left half-set-up.

New

• A list that hasn't been touched in a long time says so on the profile, with the option to archive what's out of date.
• Feedback can be typed straight into the page instead of opening a form.

New

• Suggest an item for a friend's list. They decide whether it goes on.

Lists collect things you've stopped wanting. Deleting them loses the history; now you can put them away instead.

New

• Archive an item, and an archive page to find archived things again.

Improved

• Archived items keep the order you had them in.

Notifications had been arriving one at a time with nowhere to see them together. They now have a home, and lists finally look like something when you share them.

New

• A notifications screen, with a button to dismiss all of them at once, and a bell that animates when something arrives.

Improved

• The purchased badge stays readable on items whose image has a transparent background.
• Affiliate links are disclosed where they appear.

Fixed

• Fixed notifications not refreshing once you'd read them.
• Fixed the preview image on a shared list often failing to generate.
• Fixed broken item images on some retailers.

Improved

• Deleted items and lists are kept rather than destroyed, so an accidental delete can be undone.

WishRoll on the iPhone, and the release that made it worth keeping open: you hear about it when something happens on your list.

New

• Push notifications.
• The app asks permission before any tracking, and works fine if you say no.

Improved

• Pasting a product link fills the item in as results arrive, instead of sitting still until everything is ready.

Fixed

• Fixed the tab bar starting on the wrong tab.

Fixed

• Fixed accounts created with Sign in with Apple losing the name Apple provided, leaving profiles blank.

New

• Tapping a link to a list opens it in the app when you have it installed, landing on the list itself rather than the home screen.

Fixed

• Fixed being redirected to the wrong screen after signing in.
• Fixed a loop that could leave the app stuck with no signed-in user.

Setup for handing a wishroll.com link to the installed app instead of the browser. The behaviour itself lands two days later in 1.6.

Fixed

• Fixed hidden items occasionally appearing where they shouldn't.

New

• Reorder the items on your list by dragging them.
• Share a single item, rather than the whole list.
• An empty friends list explains what to do about it.

Improved

• The link box was tidied up.

New

• Change your display name.
• Share and profile actions sit together at the top of a profile, including the colour picker.

Fixed

• Fixed the action buttons overlapping on narrow phones.

A version number that admits the app is real. Sign in with Apple works on the web too, not just in the app.

New

• Sign in with Apple on the web.

Fixed

• Fixed being unable to mark some items purchased.
• Fixed a delay before a newly added friend appeared.

New

• Terms of use, linked from sign-up.

Fixed

• Fixed prices losing their decimals in some currencies.
• Fixed images not being removed when you deleted them.
• Fixed opening a profile that doesn't exist showing a broken screen instead of a message.

New

• Search for people by name.
• Block someone, from their profile.
• Items only you can see now say so on the item itself, so you can tell at a glance what a visitor would be seeing.

Fixed

• Fixed copying a share link doing nothing on a phone.

New

• Sign in with Apple.

Improved

• Page transitions throughout.

Fixed

• Fixed error messages left over from a previous action staying on screen.

The app moved onto new infrastructure — mostly invisible, except that lists and friends load quicker.

New

• Pick the colour of your profile header.

Improved

• Friends load from a shared cache instead of being fetched again on every screen.
• Deleting an item now deletes its image too, rather than leaving it behind.

Fixed

• Fixed who-can-see-this filtering not being applied in every place it should be.

Improved

• The loading screen appears sooner and clears faster, so opening the app no longer looks like nothing is happening.

Fixed

• Fixed sign-in by text message inside the app.

Authentication was the part of the app most likely to leave you stuck. It was rebuilt from scratch, including the phone-number sign-in that the iPhone app would need.

Improved

• Sign-in handles being interrupted, backgrounded, or retried without losing your place.
• A new app icon.

Fixed

• Fixed sign-in failing inside the packaged app.

New

• Send feedback from inside the app, so a problem doesn't have to become an email.

Improved

• Errors are now reported automatically, which is how most of the fixes in the next few releases got found.

Improved

• The price field accepts what you actually type, decimals included.
• Adding an item shows real progress while the link is fetched and the image uploads.

Fixed

• Fixed the image upload overlay covering the wrong part of the screen.

New

• When a product link offers several titles or images, you pick which one the item uses.

Fixed

• Fixed the purchased state displaying incorrectly on some items.
• Fixed flickering while scrolling a long list.
• Fixed a modal that could open taller than the screen.

New

• Items someone has bought carry a purchased badge, so the next person looking at the list doesn't buy it twice. The list's owner never sees it.

Improved

• The item screen was reworked around it.

Moving between a list, a profile, and settings had been the roughest part of the app. It was rebuilt, and image upload came with it.

New

• Upload your own picture for an item when the link doesn't have a good one.

Improved

• Navigation between screens keeps its place instead of resetting.

Improved

• The item screen shows what a link resolved to as a card, so you can tell at a glance whether it found the right product.
• Softer corners throughout.

The web app got the plumbing it needs to be packaged as an iPhone app. Nothing visible yet — the App Store release comes a year later — but this is where it starts.

Fixed

• Fixed the notes field growing oddly and dragging the page with it.

Fixed

• Fixed an add-item button appearing on other people's profiles, where it had nothing to add to.

Improved

• The tab bar blurs what's behind it and screens transition the way they do in an iPhone app, rather than snapping between pages.

Fixed

• Fixed marking an item purchased not sticking.
• Fixed a signed-out visitor being bounced away when they tried to mark something purchased, instead of being asked to sign in.

Sending someone your list produced a bare URL in the message. It now unfurls with a title and description like any other link.

New

• Link previews for a shared wishlist.
• A login and signup button in the footer for people arriving from a shared link.

Improved

• Notes on an item moved to the top of the form, where people were looking for them.

Fixed

• Fixed the friends list failing to load.
• Fixed several routing problems that could strand you on the wrong screen.

The first public version, under the name WishRoll. You could make a list, add things to it by pasting a link, and let other people mark items off without the list's owner finding out.

New

• Make a wishlist and add items to it.
• Paste a product link to fill in an item, with buttons to pick between what the page offers.
• Mark someone's item as purchased. The person whose list it is doesn't see it.
• Sign in with Google.
• A settings page, and a changelog inside the app.

Fixed

• Fixed signing in with Google failing on phones by redirecting instead of opening a popup.
• Fixed image upload on iOS.