Every change and fix in Hamdam 2.0

Hamdam 2.0 is the biggest release so far: your family, and the meaning you keep together. Here is everything that changed, area by area.

Roots and your family

Roots is rebuilt around the people in your life: the Family Universe lays out faces by generation, draws threads between parent and child, and puts your own face at the centre.
Every person has a page of their own, with their face, their dates, the stories told about them and what they are connected to, and you can set their photo there.
A family timeline by decade, where an empty decade is still shown so you know what to ask about.
Places, Stories, Traditions, Voices and Wisdom each lead somewhere real, and you can now add places and traditions of your own.
A family recipe holds its ingredients, its method and a photo.
Birthdays and anniversaries come round in the calendar they were counted in, so a birthday kept in the Persian calendar falls on its Persian date.
In Farsi, the month calendar in Roots now names the Gregorian months beside the Persian ones.
Tap a moment such as Mehregan and Hamdam tells you everything it can do for that day.

Ask an Elder: hand your phone to your grandmother and let her answer the question of the week in her own voice.
Her voice is saved first and kept whether or not the words can be made out, and the words are written down afterwards.
In English, with Apple Intelligence on, Hamdam offers the names, places and years it hears for you to confirm, and drafts a short story from the recording for you to correct before you keep it; without it, and in Farsi, the recording's own words become the story.

Your family can now join you from their own iCloud.
They see the family, and never a reflection, a mood or a health reading of yours.
Shared things live once, in your iCloud, and are never copied into anybody else's account, so taking access back really takes it back.
Before you send an invitation, Hamdam tells you that whoever accepts should not have started a family of their own yet.

Private messages between the people already in your family, with Hamdam Plus: no address book, and nobody to add.
Messages are encrypted end to end, so neither Apple nor we can read them.
A conversation is between two people, in words or in your own voice.
Call a family member with FaceTime audio from your conversation, without Hamdam ever keeping their number.
You can report a message or block someone, and a filter, on by default, covers a message that may contain offensive words until you tap it.

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.
A new header: the greeting steps back, and your family's card, with a face on it, comes before the fold.
On This Day brings a family birthday or anniversary to Today.
After eight in the evening, a short recap of your day leads Today. It reports, and it never scores.
The day's suggestion reads your day, with other ideas beside it.
Richer picks: food with real photographs, a card for the little ones, and more TV, books and podcasts.
The widgets are redrawn, on one card, in one family of colour.

Reflections has four parts: Journal, Voice, Letters and Wisdom. Recent, Favourites and Archive now sit inside Journal.
Speak a reflection instead of writing it, and it is transcribed on your device.
Letters: write now and open later. A letter stays sealed, and opening it early asks you first.
Wisdom notices what keeps returning in your own reflections, once you have written enough of them over a few weeks.
Add a mark for how a moment felt, an emoji that reads the same in any language.
Apple's Writing Tools work inside the reflection you are writing, in English.

Three coaches instead of a mixed list: Body for movement, sleep, recovery and food; Spirit for breath, pause and stillness; Mind for the rest.
Each coach asks you once, the first time you open it.
The Faal moves from Roots to the Mind coach.
Spirit notices when your day is stretched, against your own recent days, and offers a breath at the hour you usually pause.
The breath guide has a voice beside the two bells.
Your week fills in the past six days of exercise and sleep from Apple Health.

The Kiosk, in the Garden, reads the news feeds of papers you choose, with a lead story and its picture, then the rest with thumbnails. Nothing is bundled, and nothing appears on Today.
News of violence, disaster and death is set aside, in English and in Farsi.
Type a paper's address and the Kiosk finds its feed, with a three-step guide and examples to start from.

The Watch stands on its own: the whole verse catalogue is on the wrist, and it no longer waits for your phone to wake up.
It knows your membership itself, and you can buy Plus on the Watch.
It reads its own Health data and makes the same day plan as your phone.
Your family and your family conversations reach the wrist, and you can record a family voice there; your phone writes the words down later.
A complication for On This Day, controls in Control Centre, and Smart Stack cards shown when they are worth showing.

Apple Intelligence runs underneath, on your device, and it never chooses a poem for you. It is now one setting for the whole app, not only for reflections.
Ask Siri about your family and the answer comes only from what is recorded; if nothing is, Siri says so.
How Hamdam chooses, in Settings, explains where each thing on your screen comes from.

Delete the app and put it back, and your settings come back with it.
Health, calendar and music access are asked for again on a new phone, and Your Hamdam says plainly what a reinstall brings back and what it does not.
Redeem a code, under Membership.
Yearly is now the plan Hamdam Plus opens on, and the one marked as recommended.
The delete button now says exactly what it removes, your reflections and favourites, and where your family's data lives.

Weather was off for anyone who had never found its switch. It is on now.
For readers ahead of UTC, such as in Australia, a new day no longer starts mid-morning; it starts at your own midnight.
Right to left layout is corrected across the app, and Roots no longer slides sideways under your finger in Farsi.
The sun is no longer drawn as a grey disc against a bright sky, overcast skies carry a veiled light, and dusk has a cooler top.
The Yalda and Norooz Live Activities now appear only for readers with a Persian connection.

iOS / iPadOS 26+