Tempo 2 — Redesigned from the ground up
Over the past six months, we’ve been hard at work on a huge redesign that reaffirms our aims for Tempo. Through our dedicated and supportive user base, we’ve gained a clearer picture of how we can genuinely help people. By easing up on some of the app’s stricter parts and reinforcing the features that add real value, Tempo 2 further puts you in control of your emails and helps you build healthier email habits.
Let’s take a deeper look into what’s new with Tempo 2.
A new home for your inbox
During our quest to gather as much user feedback as possible, we learned that Tempo was conceptually too hard to grasp, especially for new users. There was a substantial amount of feedback about how the inbox felt too hidden and lacked function.
To simplify things, we decided to re-home the inbox completely. Now, the inbox has joined its friends over in the tabs area, making it more accessible but with enough separation to not be distracted by it.
When we pushed out the inbox Keep feature, we found a large percentage of Tempo users really enjoyed this added notch of flexibility; being able to cherry-pick emails from their inbox, rather than being forced to tackle them all and hit inbox zero.
But, with added flexibility comes with extra inbox noise, right? Not with Tempo’s newest feature, Batches!
Introducing Batches
With the inboxes in this update being tabs and therefore easily accessible, we still want to shield you from the incoming chaos that is all new email. This is where our new main feature comes in: Batches.
Now, new emails are bundled together and delivered to you in batches a few times a day based on a schedule customized by you. Your very own mail carrier in Tempo.
You’ll also notice that batches have a permanent place at the top of your Priority and Other inbox lists, giving you a heads up when the next batch is set to be delivered.
On the topic of customization, you have full control of when you want your batches to be delivered. Say if you don’t want any emails over the weekend, you can do that.
We believe that fewer email distractions give you more time for more in-depth, focused work, and more time to spend on the things you love the most. And is a calmer experience overall.
Take a Sneak peek
But, “what if I need to access an email ASAP?” I hear you gasp! We’ve got you covered with the Sneak peek feature. If you’re waiting for something specific, hover over the batch area and click the eye icon. You can then open the email you need.
Force fetch a batch
If you find some extra time to spare, you also have the option to sort new emails before a batch is due by force fetching a batch. Click and hold for a few seconds, then wait for the batch to be fetched.
If you prefer the old way of using the inbox in Tempo, you can also turn off batching completely, allowing you to silently receive emails in real-time.
Clearer To do overview
Big change alert number three: the To do list has transformed from a split view to a cleaner stacked view.
With the old split view, we noticed that it became a nightmare to work with for users with numerous emails in their To do list. It became an unachievable list of tasks that couldn’t be conquered — it just became overwhelming. The new stacked view allows for a clearer overview of everything in the list and is also visually cohesive with the rest of the app.
Snooze merged with Reminders
To eliminate the confusion between snooze and remind me, we’ve merged the two into one tab under the moniker of Reminders. Now, there is more clarity of what’s coming up, which is in line with the rest of Tempo’s design.
A place for notifications
We’ve added an all-new notification center: a discrete button in the top right that displays everything that you’ve missed, for you to catch up in your own time.
Whether it’s a new batch to sort, a reminder, or a new Tempo update, it’s all neatly tucked away in the notification center. You’ll know if there’s something to check out when you see the red dot.
What’s coming next?
Where our prime intention is to create a mindful, calming experience, we understand that improved keyboard shortcut support is a popular request for Tempo. We’ll be giving this an overhaul in the near future.
We aim to improve Tempo’s search functionality, bringing it more in line with how you’d expect a search feature to work.
Tempo for mobile is on its way! At the beginning of the year, we paused development for the mobile app to focus on Tempo 2. But, we’re happy to say that mobile is back in development.
The Tempo team and I are incredibly excited to share Tempo 2 with you all. Thanks for all the support along the way; we look forward to hearing your feedback, which you can submit here or through Twitter. Sign up to the Tempo newsletter for product updates and a glimpse into what the team has been working on.
