Strands

How It Works

Stay close to the people who matter.

What Strands is

A warm replacement for Apple Contacts, built around relationships instead of phone numbers. It answers "who matters right now?" — not just "who do I want to call?" Your names, numbers, and photos stay in Apple Contacts; Strands adds the relationship layer on top.

The 5 tabs

Tab	Question it answers
Threads	Who matters today?
People	Who am I looking for?
Strands	How is everyone connected?
Lore	What do I want to remember?
You	My settings

People tab

Your whole address book, photo-first.

Inner Circle rides up top — people you've tagged as close, as breathing photo cards.
Birthdays and Suggested touches surface here too.
Tap anyone → opens their Person screen.
+ (top right) → Add a person — writes back to Apple Contacts and sets relationship, inner-circle status, accent, and rhythm.

Person screen

The heart of the app — a relationship card, not a contact card.

Portrait + name + relationship label.
Thread — warm status ("Strong Thread" / "May Appreciate Hearing From You"), health bar, "last connected / usually."
How you know them — for indirect family, a one-line path ("Vic — Marie's brother").
Call · Text · FaceTime · Mail · Log Touch — open the real apps and auto-log a touch.
Your History with X — an on-device AI reflection over grounded facts.
Things to Remember — memories tagged to this person.
Moments Together — photos from days you logged seeing them.
Important Dates — birthday, any you add, "known since" anniversary.
Contact Information — at the very bottom.

Logging a touch

A "touch" is any time you connect: Talked · Texted · Saw · Note. It's never more than one tap.

Log Touch button → pick a type → optional note → done.
Call / Text / FaceTime buttons auto-log the touch.
Widgets on the home screen log without opening the app.
Siri — "log a touch with Marie."

Saves to your phone instantly, syncs to iCloud in the background.

Milestones: when a touch crosses a meaningful mark — first moment, 10th, 25th, 50th, 100th, or a year of staying close — a warm banner celebrates it.

Lore tab

Your journal of the people in your life.

Writing a memory:

Tap the pencil (top-right) → write a title + optional details.
Tag who it's about — a memory can tag several people and shows on each of their cards.
@mention while you write — type @name and a chooser pops up.
General memories — no tag = private to Lore, never on a person's card.
✨ Make it Lore — on-device AI tidies a rambly note into a clean title, details, category, and suggested tags. Always a preview.

Finding your lore:

Masonry layout — staggered grid.
✨ Recall bar — smart search; on device, answers by meaning ("what does Marie like"). Filters by text without Apple Intelligence.
On This Day — resurfaces a memory from a year ago today.
Lenses — filter by person, category, Important, or General.

Keeping it safe: Lore never hard-deletes. Long-press → Move to Forgotten (restorable). "Delete forever" is behind a second confirm.

Threads tab

The home screen. Opens with a synthesized "Today" brief — one warm line on who could use a hello and why. Below: a hero card for the top person and a few more. Always warm, never guilt.

Strands tab

The relationship graph. Switch between:

List — people grouped by cluster (family / friends / work).
Orbit — the living constellation, you at the center.
Family Tree — a real generational tree built from the family you've tagged.

The Magic Bar ✨

Natural-language command/search. Speak or type:

Commands — "call mom," "text Donovan happy birthday," "Donovan is my son."
Questions — "who is my sister," "how long have I known Marie," "who in my family haven't I talked to lately."
Never invents a person — all answers checked against your real contacts.

Widgets

Long-press the home screen → add Strands:

Widget	What it does
Your People	Photo-forward; tap to text + log
Four People	2×2 grid
Pinned Person	One person; lock-screen thread health ring
Next Birthday	Countdown → one-tap "Send 🎂" on the day
Log a Touch	Talked / Texted / Saw — no app needed
This Week	Your touches, days tended, who's drifting

Themes & app icon

Five looks — Warm (default), Home & Away (Braves navy/scarlet), Althome & Altaway (Dodgers) — re-tint the whole app and the widgets.

iCloud & privacy

Everything saves to disk instantly and survives restarts.
Touches, memories, dates, and the relationship graph back up to your private iCloud.
Deletes sync — a delete on one device sticks everywhere.
Strands never reads your texts or call history. Logging is always something you tap on purpose.

Living document — updated as features ship.