What I've Been Building While I Wasn't Writing

I haven't written here in months. Not because nothing was happening, but because too much was. Every free evening went into the app, and writing about it kept sliding to "next week".

So this is me catching up. Here's what changed in Unplugged since early summer, starting with the one I'm proudest of and never properly talked about.

When I wrote about battery predictions back in January, I ended with a question: is this actually useful, or just interesting? A number that says "about 16 hours left" is nice, but it doesn't really change what you do.

What changes what you do is knowing whether your battery will make it through your day. Your actual day, with the evening meeting, dinner after, and the gym late at night.

So that's what Battery Agenda does. It takes your forecast and lays it over your calendar. You see the battery line dropping through the day, your events sitting on top of it, and for each event, roughly how much battery you'll have when it starts. If it looks tight, you can set a reminder to charge before it becomes a problem.

It's the first time the predictions feel like they're working for you instead of just reporting. And it's very much the direction I talked about at the start of the year: less "your battery is at 20%", more "you'll want to charge before tonight".

The same update brought steadier predictions with fewer sudden jumps, a fully charged notification that finally arrives every time, and a big round of VoiceOver improvements across the whole app. I also added a way to report bugs right from the app, with a note or a screenshot. It sounds boring, but reports now come in with the context I need, and fixes happen a lot faster.

In July I rebuilt how the app gets new people started. The old version threw every option at you up front, and a lot of people gave up halfway. The new one asks what you actually want from the app and sets things up around that. Twice as many people now make it all the way through.

You can also finally choose when battery alerts reach you. Set active hours so your phone doesn't ping you about 20% at 2am, or only get alerts while charging, or only while on battery. This was one of the oldest requests on the list.

The Live Activity on your Lock Screen got real work too. It updates more often while you charge, so the number you glance at is actually current.

Version 4.0 came out in September, and it was all about Siri. You can now ask for your battery level, your forecast, your Apple Watch battery, or a quick report, all by voice. You can add or remove battery alerts and start or stop the Live Activity without opening the app. All of it also works in Shortcuts, so you can build your own automations around it.

There are also new app icons made for the Liquid Glass look, and the picker is now organized by color. I spent way too long on these, and I regret nothing.

The dashboard got a Batteries section that shows your iPhone and Apple Watch side by side, and there's a What's New page in Settings with the full history of every update, in case you're curious how the app got here.

Under the hood, 4.0 fixed a lot of the stability issues that had been bugging some of you: the Watch app getting shut down after background updates, complications freezing, and widgets going stale. Not exciting to read about, but they matter more than any new feature.

Looking back, the summer was mostly about two things. Making the app easier to get started with, and making it something you can rely on without thinking about it.

Whether that worked is a different story, and an honest one. I wrote it up in a separate post, with real numbers and what they mean for what I do next. You can read it here.

The next update is almost ready. It brings a few new Control Center controls, so you can start the charging animation, start a charging session, or pause battery alerts with one tap.

And something is coming for the new iPhone Duo. I've been building it for a while now, and it's the most fun I've had working on Unplugged in a long time. More on that very soon.

If any of these updates changed how you use the app, or if you're still waiting on something, I'd love to hear about it. Just reply.

Written by Christian Skorobogatow