I just noticed something really useful on the iPhone. If you click the Recents option in the Phone app you’ll see a list of recent outgoing, incoming, and missed calls. If you don’t recognize a number, tap the little blue arrow to go to the info page for that number. Below the number you’ll see the physical location of the number based on the area code.

That’s just plain thoughtful! I just love stuff like that. The little details that make you go “Ah ha!”

I didn’t recognize a call from 574 so I tapped the arrow and found out it was from South Bend, IN.

One of the top Backpack requests has been the ability to move data between pages. The new Backpack makes that possible.

It’s a drag

So how do you move items between pages? You just drag the item to a page in the sidebar. Any “unit” can be moved — a list, a note, a photo gallery, a file, etc. The unit will be dropped at the top of the page.

Drag to make a new page too

Another twist is that you can drag an element to the “Make a new page” button to create a new page out of that content. It’s really handy.

Watch

Watch a quick video demo of the feature in action. Things are slower than they normally would be since we’re running in development mode, but at least you’ll get an idea of what to expect.

Coming soon

The new Backpack is coming soon. Thanks again for your patience and stay tuned for more previews and the launch announcement.

Page Dividers are one of the useful new features coming soon to the new Backpack.

Divider, not a uniter

Dividers are literal: They divide the page into distinct chunks. A dividers draws a grey line across the page. You can label the dividers anything you’d like. You can have as many separators on a page as you’d like and you can put them anywhere you want.

Here’s what they look like

You’ll see I’ve created dividers for each city I’ll be visiting on the trip. “Portland” “Seattle” and “San Francisco.” I also included the dates I’ll be in each city for reference.

Really flexible

Simple dividers give you a lot of power. Things you may have stored on multiple pages can now be put together on a single page. They are also great ways to set up time periods on a page. “January” “February” “March” etc. Or, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, etc. The options are plenty.

Coming soon

The new Backpack is coming soon. Thanks again for your patience and stay tuned for more previews and the launch announcement.

Wow. This has been a long time coming. It’s time to finally begin building up to the launch of the new Backpack.

We originally hoped to have this out at the end of 2006, but a variety of circumstances pushed it back and back and back. Technical challenges, strategy changes, and the launch of Highrise all played a part in the delay. We apologize. We learned our lesson about pre-announcing releases that aren’t truly right around the corner.

Familiar yet all new

One of the challenges of developing the new Backpack was to maintain familiarity yet make the product feel brand new. While the standard tools remain mostly the same, the experience of interacting with the tools is all new. It’s something you’ll feel when you use it.

Anywhere

The first major change we want to preview is the “items anywhere” feature. The current version of Backpack segments the page into fixed compartments. To-do lists always at the top, then notes, then files, then photos, etc. Not anymore. the new version allows you to put anything anywhere. A file on top of a list. A list below a note. A photo gallery at the top of the page, etc. It’s up to you.

Same content, different order

To illustrate, here’s two screenshots of the same content in a different order.

Coming soon

The new Backpack is coming soon. Thanks again for your patience and stay tuned for more previews and the launch announcement.

When we launched the 37signals Open Bar a few weeks ago it only supported Basecamp accounts.

That was then, this is now

Now the Open Bar includes your Highrise accounts too. So now you have single sign-on for both Basecamp and Highrise accounts. Log into any one of your accounts and you’re logged into all your accounts.

Access to multiple accounts via a dropdown

We made some changes with this recent push. First, if you have multiple accounts under a single product you’ll see them listed in a dropdown menu when you hover over the product name (see below).

Helpful delay

Second, we added a little delay on hover so the menu doesn’t drop down when you trail over it while reaching for the Back button or any of your browser shortcuts.

Smart bar

Lastly, and most useful, we made Open Bar smarter. Now it remembers the last place you were when you left one account for another. This means when you return to the previous account you were using it will drop you right back where you left off.

We hope you find it useful

We’ve been loving the Open Bar. We hope you love it as much as we do. Backpack is the next app to be added to the Open Bar. Stay tuned.

Just this morning I noticed something new at Amazon.com. If you click through to these coffee pods or razor blades or dishwasher detergent you can subscribe to have them auto delivered at specific intervals. I suspect they will be rolling this out for a variety of “repetitive staples.”

Very smart retailing. Amazon seems to be on a roll lately. And this time Wall Street thinks so too.

Highrise allows you to create tasks via email. The iPhone (and most smart phones, for that matter) allow you to send email. This is a good fit.

Here’s how I’ve set up my Address Book and iPhone to make this process as easy as possible.

Set up the Address Book

On my Mac I set up a group in the Address Book called “Highrise.” In that group I add individual entries for all my Highrise Task dropboxes.

Sync the “Highrise” group

In iTunes you can sync all your contacts or just sync specific groups. I have my set up just to sync specific groups. The “Highrise” group is one of them.

Check the iPhone Contacts app

If you’ve synced Address Book Groups you’ll see a “Groups” button in the top left corner of your iPhone Contacts App. Click it to get to the list of your groups. Then click the “Highrise” group to see the entries you just synced.

Continued…

I try to read my favorite business book of all time at least once a month. Luckily it’s only 30 pages.

Benjamin Franklin’s The Way to Wealth was first published in 1758 as a preface to Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac. It’s a summary of his previously published thoughts on how to succeed in business (and, I’d say, life).

It’s chock full of astute observations such as:

Creditors have better memories than debtors

If you want to be wealthy, think of saving as well as earning

A ploughman on his legs is higher than a gentleman on his knees

If you want to know the value of money, go try to borrow some

Buy what you do not need, and soon you will sell your necessities

It’s easier to suppress the first desire than to satisfy all that follow it

Experience keeps an expensive school, but fools will learn in no other

A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two different things

Keep your shop and your shop will keep you

...and so on.

And if you’ve ever wondered where “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise” and “There are no gains without pains” came from, now you know.

It’s really a wonderfully simple read that’s packed with reason. You can buy it for a few bucks or read it online for free. I’d recommend the purchase—it’s a great little book to have around.

This weekend we flipped the switch on Ta-da List for the iPhone. If you have an iPhone, just visit tadalist.com and you’ll see the iPhone version. You can access the standard web version with your desktop web browser. Both versions share data and lists.

Here’s what it looks like:

Your lists.

A sample list.

Tapping an item to mark it done, edit, or delete.

We hope you like it.

Last night we pushed a new feature for Highrise called the List view. The List view is a condensed view of the Dashboard, people pages, company pages, and cases. It looks like this:

For this design decisions post, I want to focus on one small detail that we believe makes a big difference.

Below the each note or email you’ll see “Posted by…” or “Sent by…” attribution lines. Originally we had that text in a dark grey (#666):

We didn’t think it was easy enough to spot the name so we tried a lighter grey (#999):

Now it’s too light. We tried a variety of colors and shades of grey, but they were either too close to black, too close to white, or they stood out too much.

Then I went back to a technique I used to use way back in the days of designing UIs for FileMaker Pro databases: Use a light golden color. Internally we call this an “uncolor.” It’s barely a color, but it’s not a shade of grey. Here’s what it looks like:

The light gold stands out just enough without standing out too much. It’s a color that’s not colorful. It’s subtle, but we believe it does the job well.

This “Posted by…” information isn’t as important as the primary content so it doesn’t need to pop, but it should be easy to spot if you’re curious. By focusing on a tonal value other than grey, you can quickly pick out these attribution lines from among the black text. It provides another layer of detail without clutter or camouflage.

We hope you like the little details as much as we do.