Everything you need to get the most out of Cadence.

Getting Started

When you first open Cadence, you'll see a quick feature tour highlighting key features like the dashboard, calendar, cost tracking, and weekly summaries. After the tour, you'll start a free 14-day trial before setting up your household.

If you're reinstalling or setting up a new device, Cadence will recognize your subscription and automatically look for your data in iCloud. If found, you'll pick up right where you left off.

During setup, you'll enter your name and choose a household name (e.g. "Smith Family"). A progress bar at the top shows how far along you are. You are automatically added as an adult in the household so you can assign activities to yourself right away. Add your first child and their first activity to get up and running, or tap "Skip for now" to explore the app first.

Dashboard (Home)

The home screen greets you by name based on the time of day. Today's scheduled activities are shown below the day strip. Activities happening right now display a "NOW" badge so you can see what's in progress at a glance.

When an activity is shared by multiple people, all names appear on one card with colored dots, and each name is colored in that person's assigned color so you can scan grouped cards faster.

Conflict and Carpool flags New in 1.2

A red Overlap flag appears when one person has two activities at once. An orange Conflict flag appears when two different people overlap at different places. Two people overlapping at the same location is treated as a shared trip, so no Conflict flag appears. A mint Carpool flag appears on days where you have named a carpool driver. Carpool is something you set on the activity's day details, never inferred.

Day-specific details

A flag appears on cards that have day-specific details: alternate pickup, alternate drop-off, a carpool driver, or a day note. Tap the flag to expand the card inline and see those details without leaving the dashboard. Tap again to collapse. The label adapts: "Alternate" for a pickup or drop-off, "Note" for a day note, "Carpool" with a car icon when a named driver is the only detail, or "Details" when more than one kind is set.

Moving around

Swipe through the day strip at the top to view other days. Month labels appear on the 1st of each month. Tap an activity card to see full details or edit it. Tap the X button on a card to skip that activity for the day. For grouped activities, you can choose which people are skipping with a multi-select checklist. Skipped activities are also removed from your device calendar.

Registration reminder banners appear when a deadline is approaching. Tap the link to go directly to the registration page.

Calendar

Switch between Week, Month, and Year views using the picker at the top. Filter by child or adult using the colored chips below the picker. All adults, including you, appear as filter options.

Colored dots under each date show who has activities that day. Tap any date to see a detailed breakdown of that day's activities. The year view shows a timeline of all activities by person.

Activities

All activities are grouped by the child or adult they belong to. Tap the + button to add a new activity. Select one or more people to assign the activity to. Multi-person activities appear as a single card with all names listed.

Registration reminders and all-day events

Toggle "Registration Reminder Only" to save a camp or class you're considering without filling out the full schedule. Only name, location, reminder date, link, email, and notes are required. Toggle it off at any time to convert the registration reminder into a fully scheduled activity. Register now (new in 1.2): tap the dashboard banner to open the registration link inside Cadence with your notes right there, then tap Registered to stop the reminders and turn the placeholder into a scheduled activity. Toggle "All Day" for events that don't have a specific start and end time.

Schedules, colors, and costs

Each activity has a schedule (days, time, frequency), location, start/end dates, and optional notes. Frequency options: one-time (new in 1.2), daily, weekly, biweekly, monthly, or monthly by specific day (e.g. 1st Monday). One-time happens once on its start date. Apple Maps autocomplete suggests the location, with nearby addresses first when you allow location access. Set a Travel Buffer in minutes to drive the "Leave by" notification. You can assign an optional color to each activity. Add an optional cost with a frequency (per session, monthly, per season, annually, or one-time). Tap the $ button at the top of the Activities tab to see the by-year cost summary.

Editing

Tap an activity to view its details. You can edit, archive, or delete it from the detail screen. Swiping a row in the Activities list also reveals Archive and Delete actions. Add a registration reminder with a date, email, link, and notes.

Archive New in 1.1

Why archive? When an activity ends (a soccer season finishes, a class wraps up) archiving retires it without losing your data. The activity disappears from your active dashboard, the calendar, notifications, and the Apple Watch, but its cost history stays available in the by-year Cost Summary.

How to archive: Swipe a card in the Activities list to reveal the Archive action, then tap Archive. Or accept the end-of-activity prompt the next time you open Cadence.

Where archived activities live: A collapsible Archived section appears at the bottom of the Activities list whenever you have archived activities. Tap to expand and see them.

Unarchiving: Swipe an activity in the Archived section to reveal Unarchive. Tap it. The activity returns to your active list, the calendar, and the watch, and its notifications reschedule automatically.

End-of-activity prompt: When you open Cadence and an activity's end date has passed, a sheet titled "These activities ended." appears. Tap Archive next to each activity, or Archive All to do them all at once. Tap Not now to dismiss. Cadence won't auto-prompt for those again, but you can still archive them later via the swipe action. Registration reminders never show up in this prompt.

Cost Tracking

Tap the $ button at the top of the Activities tab to open the Cost Summary. A year picker sits at the top. It includes every year your data spans, plus the current year, so you can review past spending or plan ahead.

Each owner (child or adult) gets a section showing every activity that contributed to that year, with its real contribution to that year and the rate underneath for reference (e.g. "$10.00/mo"). Each section has a subtotal for that owner, and a grand total appears at the bottom.

Archived activities are included in the cost view. The year picker scopes the math, so past years still reflect what was actually spent.

How frequencies count toward a year

Tap the share button (top-left of the Cost Summary) to export the year's breakdown as text. Share via Files, AirDrop, Messages, email, or any share extension.

Split a cost across people New in 1.2

Divide one fee evenly across several people. The household total does not change, only who it is attributed to. When one activity is assigned to several children, you can save it as a single shared cost split evenly instead of a full-price copy for each person. Split shares are labeled in the summary. If a split partner is later removed from the household, they drop out of the math automatically.

Budgets New in 1.2

Set a household budget plus a budget per child and per adult for the year you are viewing. Each budget shows what is left, or how far over you are. It turns amber at 80% and red at 100%. A pace mark shows how far through the year you are, so you can tell whether spending is ahead of schedule.

Household and per-person budgets are tracked independently. Budget spend counts the same activities as the year total, so the two numbers always agree. Budgets do not send notifications in 1.2. The color is the alert. Open Budgets from the Cost Summary, below the year's totals.

Documents

Upload documents and link them to specific activities. Supports PDFs, images, spreadsheets, and more. Great for storing registration forms, medical forms, waivers, and schedules.

Tap a document to preview it full-screen. Select multiple documents to share or delete them in bulk.

Managing Your Household

Go to Settings → Manage Household to add or remove family members. The "You" label marks the member this device is linked to, and stays correct after an ownership handoff. The household owner's own row cannot be deleted. Additional adults can be added and removed. Adults can be assigned to activities just like children.

Each child and adult has a color for easy visual identification. Tap anyone's row to edit their name, color, and photo. Profile photos work for children and adults through the Photo Picker, so Cadence never needs full photo-library access. You can edit the household name at any time from Manage Household.

Release device link. If a member is already linked to a device, you can release that link so a different device can claim them.

Household Sharing New in 1.2

Share your household with another parent so you both work from the same activities, calendar, costs, and documents, each on your own iPhone through your own iCloud account. There is no Cadence server and no login. Sharing runs on Apple's iCloud (CloudKit), and identity is the Apple ID. It works on any iCloud account, so you do not need to be in the same Apple Family.

Sending an invite

Invite from Settings → Manage Household via Messages, Mail, or any share option. Choose the access level when you invite: "Can edit" gives full use of the app, and "View only" can see everything and change nothing. Invitations go to the people you pick, never to anyone with the link. On joining, the invitee picks which household member they are, and the app greets them by that name. A member can be linked to one device at a time.

Access levels and seats

One subscription covers the owner plus two editors. View-only members are free and do not use a seat. If both editor seats are taken, a further editor can still join using their own subscription, and view-only invites are never capped. Manage Household lists everyone who has joined with their current access at a glance.

Managing and stopping sharing

Owner-only controls let you see who has joined, remove someone, or restart sharing. Removing a co-parent shows a warning first, then ends their access in one step. A household cannot be deleted while other people are still in the share. Changes travel through iCloud, so a device that has been offline catches up when it wakes. Allow a few minutes rather than expecting an instant update.

Ownership transfer and take-back

A participant can take the household over, and the original owner can take it back later, in a guided three-step handoff. A backup file is saved on-device first, nothing is deleted at any point, and an interrupted handoff resumes where it stopped rather than duplicating anything.

On Android, sharing works through your family's own Google Drive instead of iCloud, and does not use edit/view roles or seats.

Calendar Sync

Enable calendar sync in Settings to add all activities to your device's calendar. A "Cadence" calendar is created automatically. Events update when you add, edit, delete, skip, or archive activities. Skipping or archiving removes the events automatically, and unarchiving brings them back.

For activities to appear on your other Apple devices' calendars, enable iCloud Calendars in Settings → [Your Name] → iCloud → Calendars on each device. Share via iCloud Calendar sharing so other family members can see the schedule. Disabling sync removes the Cadence calendar from your device.

On Android, Cadence syncs to your device calendar the same way. iCloud Calendar sharing is an Apple feature. To share on Android, share your household through Google Drive with one other adult.

Notifications

Activity alerts

Get notified before activities start (2 hours, 4 hours, 1 day, or 1 week before). All-day activities do not trigger time-based alerts. Skipped and archived activities are automatically excluded from reminders and overlap alerts. Notifications refresh automatically when you create, edit, delete, archive, or unarchive activities. No app restart needed.

Leave-by alerts New in 1.2

Set a Travel Buffer in minutes on an activity and get a notification that many minutes before it starts, like "Leave by 3:40 for Soccer." You can set the buffer when you first create the activity.

Registration reminders

Deadline reminders escalate at 1 week, 3 days, 1 day, and day-of, delivered in the morning. A reminder created late gets whichever rungs still fit. Marking a registration complete clears the whole set at once.

Overlap alerts

Get notified when two activities for the same person overlap, scanning the next 7 days on a daily, weekly, or monthly schedule. Skipped and archived activities do not count. Cross-person Conflict flags and carpools you have set stay on screen and do not send notifications, so a busy week does not turn into a stream of alerts.

Per-person muting New in 1.2

Turn any family member off to silence their activity and leave-by alerts. This is set per device, so each parent chooses their own. Overlap alerts stay on either way.

Weekly summary

Get a weekly reminder to share the upcoming week's schedule as a PDF. Choose your preferred day and time. Skipped and archived activities are excluded from the summary. Use "Share Now" to generate and share the PDF immediately.

Widgets, Siri & Live Activity New in 1.2

Widgets

Add the Today widget (small or medium) to your Home Screen to see what is left on today's schedule, or the Next Up widget (rectangular or circular) to your Lock Screen for the next activity and its time. Widgets update on add, edit, skip, or archive, including skips made from the Apple Watch, and keep working after a restart before you open the app. Widgets show names, times, and colors only, never costs or notes.

Live Activity

When the next activity is close, a countdown appears on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island and ends when the activity starts. The countdown window is the activity's Travel Buffer, or 60 minutes by default.

Siri

Ask Siri "What's next in Cadence" or "What's on today in Cadence." Both shortcuts run without opening the app and answer with a spoken reply plus a small card. You can filter today's schedule to one family member. Siri reads the same data as the widgets, so skipped and archived activities are left out.

On Android

Android has Today and Next Up home-screen widgets and a leave-by countdown notification. Lock Screen widgets, the Dynamic Island, and Siri are iPhone features.

iPad

Cadence adapts automatically to iPad with a sidebar navigation instead of the tab bar. All features work the same, just with more room to see your schedule.

Activity Board Mode

Tap the TV icon on the Home screen to launch a full-screen family activity board. Board mode shows each family member's schedule in side-by-side columns with a live clock and "Next Up" banner. Board mode keeps the screen awake, which makes it a good fit for a wall-mounted iPad in the kitchen or entryway. Tap the X in the top-right corner to exit.

Apple Watch

The Cadence watch app shows today's activities right on your wrist. Use the person picker at the top to filter by family member, or tap the house icon to see everyone's activities. Activities display the same color coding, time, location, and "NOW" badge as the phone app.

Swipe left on an activity and tap Skip to mark it as skipped. Skipped activities appear in a separate section below. Swipe left on a skipped activity and tap Restore to bring it back.

Archived activities do not appear on the watch. Unarchiving on the phone brings them back automatically. Changes sync between your watch and phone. Add the Cadence complication to your watch face to see your next activity at a glance with a countdown timer. Activity notifications from the phone are mirrored to your watch. If you are a view-only member, a skip from the watch is not saved and the watch refreshes back to the current schedule.

Android

Cadence is available on Android phones through Google Play. The dashboard, calendar, activities, cost tracking, budgets, documents, reminders, and weekly summary all work the same as on iPhone.

Backup and sharing on Android

Android backs up, restores, and shares your household through your family's own Google Drive. Your data stays on your device and syncs privately through your Google account, never through our servers. Share your household with the other parent, who opens the shared file once to pair. Android sharing does not use edit/view roles.

Subscription on Android

The 14-day free trial and pricing ($6.99/mo or $59.99/yr) are the same, but billing runs through Google Play. Manage or cancel in the Google Play Store under Payments & subscriptions. Subscriptions don't transfer between the App Store and Google Play, so start your trial on the platform you'll use. Each Android phone has its own subscription.

What's iOS-only

Some things are iOS-only: the Apple Watch companion and complication, iPad Activity Board mode, Lock Screen widgets, the Dynamic Island countdown, Siri, iCloud sync, and the edit/view roles and shared subscription seats. On Android, sync and sharing run through your family's own Google Drive, and the device calendar stays local to that phone. Home-screen widgets, the leave-by countdown, budgets, cost splitting, conflict and carpool flags, and the weekly PDF all work on Android too.

Subscription

When you first open Cadence, a feature tour introduces the app's key features, followed by the subscription screen. Cadence offers a 14-day free trial so you can fully experience the app before committing. Choose between monthly ($6.99/mo) or annual ($59.99/yr) plans. The annual plan saves 28%.

What one subscription covers. On iPhone, one subscription covers the owner plus two editors in your household. View-only members are free and do not use a seat. If a fourth person needs to edit, they subscribe on their own and join. Anyone can see the household while they decide, with a "Viewing only" banner until they subscribe. On Android, each phone has its own subscription.

Your subscription gives you unlimited activities, full household management, notifications, calendar sync, documents, and more. On iPhone and iPad, manage or cancel anytime in Settings → Apple ID → Subscriptions. On Android, manage it in the Google Play Store under Payments & subscriptions. Tap Restore Purchases on the subscription screen if you've already subscribed on another device on the same store. Subscriptions don't transfer between the App Store and Google Play.

iCloud Sync

On iPhone and iPad, Cadence automatically syncs your data across all your devices via iCloud. Make sure you're signed into the same Apple ID on each device. Enable iCloud Drive in Settings → [Your Name] → iCloud → iCloud Drive. Make sure Cadence is toggled on under Settings → [Your Name] → iCloud → Apps Using iCloud.

When you install Cadence on a new device, your subscription transfers automatically (same Apple ID). After the Feature Tour and Get Started, Cadence checks iCloud for your existing household and brings everything down. No sign-in form required. If iCloud sync hasn't finished bringing your data down, you can also tap "Restore from Backup" to import a backup file you've saved. On Android, sync and backup run through your own Google Drive instead.

Accessibility

Cadence supports VoiceOver (and TalkBack on Android) throughout the app. All interactive elements have descriptive labels. Text scales with your preferred Dynamic Type or font size. Animations respect the Reduce Motion setting.

Color pickers announce color names (e.g. "Teal", "Coral"). Full Keyboard Access is supported on iPad. Overlap, Conflict, and Carpool are announced as part of the activity card, never by color alone. The dashboard's day-detail flag announces both its label ("Alternate", "Note", "Carpool", or "Details") and whether it is expanded.

Download My Data

Export all your family's data (activities, children, household info, documents, archive status, and more) as a single backup file. Tap "Export My Data" to generate the file, then save it to Files, AirDrop it, or email it to yourself.

Use "Restore from Backup" to import data from a previous export. Existing records are not duplicated. Backups made before 1.1 (without archive status) restore as not-archived. Useful for transferring data to a new device or keeping a personal backup of everything you've entered. On Android, backup and restore run through your own Google Drive.

Settings