Back in 2012, we stupidly pre-announced Cardhop. In hindsight, we’re not sure why we did it, but we were likely just so excited that we wanted to let you know that we were working on it. However, it did teach us a very important lesson: never pre-announce apps. 😅 Kidding aside, in those past 5 years or so, we also learned a lot of other lessons. Most importantly, we learned that the whole contacts “genre” is bad. Really bad.

All we had to do was mention that “we’re making a contacts app” and people would react with a noncommittal “oh”, as if it’s not an app they would ever use. After being concerned, we quickly figured out why. Contacts apps have traditionally been nothing more than databases. Boring apps that do nothing for you. Instead they were apps where you have to be an administrator. Before Cardhop, contacts apps had been cumbersome, inelegant, and to put it bluntly, frustrating.

This changes today. Cardhop was designed with one thing in mind: making your contacts enjoyable to use.

Rather than writing a long blog post with lots of screenshots to tell you what it does or why you have to have it, go watch our promo video for Cardhop. While you’re there, be sure to check out the “Cardhop in action” videos, too.

The same way Fantastical revolutionized how you use your calendars — believe it or not, Fantastical 1 came out in 2011, before Apple released Siri and before voice assistants were mainstream — we believe Cardhop will revolutionize how your use your contacts. We hope that relationships are strengthened and people actually look forward to interacting with their contacts.

There’s one catch: You have to force yourself to use Cardhop for a day or two. After all, old habits die hard. Force yourself to open Cardhop rather than doing things the old way, and after a bit you’ll start to understand the power of Cardhop. It sounds silly, but just give it a day or two to develop new habits with Cardhop and you’ll thank us later.

Cardhop was a true labor of love and we couldn’t have done it without some help from a few of our friends along the way: Casey Fleser, Dustin and Dylan Bruzenak, Ed Wynne, Rogie King, Wolfgang Bartelme, Josh Mobley, and the designer of the world’s most delicious, most delightful, and biggest smile-inducing icon: David Lanham. 🙂

We also want to thank Adam and Darren Fanton, creators of the new video tool, ScreenSpace, which we used to create the Cardhop promo video. If you’re an app developer and want to make promo videos like Cardhop’s, go check it out.

Flexibits was created in 2011 with the single goal of making apps flexible. We’re users, too, and we hate when an app is difficult and frustrating. With Fantastical, Chatology, and now, Cardhop, we hope our apps are making your lives a little bit better. We’ve said this before, but we want to thank you for your continued support, and also for you very kind words throughout the years. They mean so much to us, and they keep us going.

We hope you enjoy Cardhop. Thank you in advance for trying it out!