Flexibits, the company behind productivity apps Fantastic and Cardhopreleased a new version of Cardhop for macOS and iOS. This is the second major version of the app and it has new features like business card scanning, widgets, organizational charts, and deeper integration with Fantastical.
Cardhop is a clever way of contact management. It uses the same address book as the standard Contacts app on your Mac, iPhone, and iPad. However, you can use it to find, add, and edit contacts much more efficiently.
On the Mac, Cardhop is in the menu bar. If you click the icon or press a keyboard shortcut, you can see your contacts, but you can also start typing. Then things get interesting.
As expected, you can find a contact card by typing a few letters. You can also add information to an existing contact in this way.
Credit: Flexibits
For example, if you enter a name followed by a phone number, Cardhop will automatically determine that the phone number does not exist in the existing contact entry. Press Enter and the number will be saved. If the person isn’t even in your address book, you can create a new contact by simply entering information in the search box.
The app really shines when you think of Cardhop as something of a command line interface for interacting with your contacts. You can type “Call Jane”, “Email Tom” or “WhatsApp Natasha” and Cardhop will analyze the action for you. It can be especially convenient to initiate calls on your iPhone from your Mac.
With Cardhop 2, the design has been updated and there are a handful of new features. You can now create widgets with your preferred actions. On iOS, you can add it to your home screen. On macOS, you can access it through the Notification Center. Widgets were a popular feature of iOS 14 and many users will like this new feature.
If you’re also using Fantastical, you can send a calendar invitation from Cardhop to someone else. If you tend to invite the same group of people to your events, you can create a group in Cardhop. The next time you want to send an invitation, you can use Cardhop to create an event with all the members of the group. This will be a good alternative to email aliases.
Cardhop can now also create organizational charts and family trees based on the relationships in your contacts. And if you work for a large company with a contact directory, this new feature will make it easy for you to find the right person to talk to.
Flexibits also added a business card scanning feature on iOS. You can add contacts by pointing your phone at a business card. There are many apps that already offer this feature, but it’s now built in.
Credit: Flexibits
Flexibits have been around for 10 years. Originally, the company released new critical updates and users had to pay to download the new version. This is how independent development companies calculated apps.
Last year the company launched a new version of Fantastical with a freemium model. New users could download the app for free and would have to pay a subscription of $ 4.99 per month or $ 39.99 per year to unlock all features. Existing users can continue to use the app free of charge, as all existing functions have been activated for them.
After switching to this new model, Flexibits has already released some updates for Fantastical. For example, you can now quickly take part in conference calls with shortcuts in the menu bar and in the app. Fantastical now also supports Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft teams.
Flexibits wants to go one step further and create an ecosystem of productivity apps. Cardhop 2 is a free app with some free features. If you want to unblock everything, you need to subscribe to the same Flexibits Premium subscription.
In other words, the company bundles premium versions of Fantastical and Cardhop into a single subscription – and the price doesn’t change. Existing Cardhop users who do not want to log in will also keep everything that was available in Cardhop 1 for free.
And if you’re already using Cardhop, it’s nice to see an update. This means that the app will be supported in the future. If you rely on an app to do your job, it is better if it is updated regularly and works as expected for years. And I suspect a lot of fantastic users will try Cardhop thanks to the new Flexibits Premium subscription.