What's New in Hamdam
These are Hamdam's release notes, in the same words that went to the App Store. Point releases in between carry fixes and small corrections, and are not listed. Hamdam is a daily Persian poetry, reflection and journal app for iPhone and iPad, with an Apple Watch companion.
Hamdam 2.1.
A welcome week. Every new install has all of Hamdam Plus free for its first seven days, with nothing to start and nothing to cancel.
Two more poets. Ferdowsi and Nezami join Hafez, Rumi, Saadi, Khayyam and Parvin Etesami: 700 verses from seven poets and, for readers with a Persian connection, a library of Shahnameh stories in Roots.
Ask Hamdam. Ask in your own words about your reflections, your journal and your family's stories, and get answers drawn only from what you have kept, with the sources shown. It runs on your iPhone: Apple Intelligence in English, and in Farsi an optional model you download from Apple. Part of Hamdam Plus.
Hamdam Health. The Garden coaches now ask about your goals and suggest gentle exercises, and, with Plus, read your heart and sleep signals from Apple Health against your own usual. Wellness, not diagnosis.
Yalda comes to Today in December for readers with a Persian connection, with a Yalda Faal of Hafez and a card to share.
Family on Today. When your family is in Roots, Today brings one small line from them each day, and a reflection that mentions someone can be kept privately with them. With Plus, your year with family becomes a card to share.
Also new: search across everything you have kept, Siri and Spotlight for your reflections, clearer family invitations, a Privacy and your data page with export, free reflection sharing, and an unlimited Faal.
iOS / iPadOS 26+Earlier versions
Hamdam 2.0.
Your family, and the meaning you keep together.
Roots is rebuilt around the people in your life rather than a list of names. Faces by generation, the threads between them, and a timeline of what a family has lived through.
Ask an Elder. Record your grandmother telling it in her own voice, and keep both the voice and the words. The voice is the part that matters, and it is kept whether or not the words can be made out.
Your family can now join you from their own iCloud. They see the family. They never see a single reflection of yours, and nothing of yours is ever copied into anybody else's account.
Private messages between the people in your family, closed end to end, with Hamdam Plus.
The Watch stands on its own. It has the whole catalog, its own membership, and it no longer waits for your phone to wake up.
Today is written for the reader in front of it. Persian poetry for those who grew up with it, and reflections in your own words for those who did not.
The widgets are redrawn, on one card, in one family of color.
Delete the app and put it back, and your settings come back with it.
Apple Intelligence runs underneath, on your device, and it never chooses a poem for you.
All changes and fixes in 2.0.3
All changes and fixes in 2.0.2
Games.
Four games have come to the Garden. Three plays a day are free; Hamdam Plus has no counter.
Riddle, the game you already had, now with a board for the day and a challenge you can send to a friend.
Backgammon, on a warm board, with dice neither side can bend.
Hokm, four seats and two teams, against the app or against three people in the same moment.
Play alone, pass one phone around a table, or play through Game Center. Leaderboards, achievements and challenges arrive there, and Hamdam collects nothing of its own.
Nothing is at stake in any of them. No clock you are racing, and no currency.
Thank you for playing with Hamdam.
The rest of Hamdam.
Ask Hafez a question and the answer now comes from across the whole Divan, rather than from one corner of it.
Today is calmer. The reflection you have already written is no longer shouted about all day, the door to the faal carries its name, and the Persian date is back under the greeting.
The coaches notice which suggestion you never take, and bring a different one. Your reflections stop returning the same thought twice in a week.
Today's pick in the Garden looks further before it recommends anything.
All changes and fixes in 1.4.2
The Garden.
Discover has grown into the Garden, and it is the largest thing in this release.
Three coaches, Mind, Move and Sleep, turn Today's one line into a plan for the whole day, read from your Health data, your calendar and the weather. Nothing is asked of you that the day cannot carry.
A garden bed for habits. Plant one small thing, say when it happens and what you will do on the day it does not, then watch it grow on every day you tend it.
A riddle waiting each day, alongside the picks you already had.
Hamdam has a new look throughout, built for the latest iOS.
Reading mode opens the whole poem now, for all five poets rather than Hafez alone. The themes under a verse read in Farsi. Right to left screens finally lay out right to left, and a reflection can no longer sit under the wrong poet's verse.
Also in this version: the faal explains itself and no longer asks you to type anything, the breath sessions can be heard as well as seen, a Move block can be sent to your Apple Watch, and a breath is recorded to Apple Health as a mindful session.
Thank you for reflecting with Hamdam.
All changes and fixes in 1.3.2
Hafez now speaks aloud.
Voice of the Elder brings real human recitation to the verses, from readers who have given their voices to the Divan.
The faal opens a whole page of the Divan rather than a single couplet, so you can read around the line you drew.
A Persian calendar you can live by. Shamsi and Gregorian sit together in the grid, official holidays and commemoration days are marked, and the Shamsi date can live on your home and lock screens.
Reading mode is quiet and free of chrome. Pinch to set the size, and Hamdam remembers where you left off.
Also in this version: a Persian font picker with Vazirmatn, seasonal app icons for Nowruz and Yalda, Iranian cinema in Discover, and a favourites notebook grouped by month.
Your body signals now stay on your device.
Thank you for reflecting with Hamdam.