1Add the people who matter
Open People from its card in Browse, or tap Person in Agenda's "+" menu to go straight to a new one. A person can hold:
| Field | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Name | The only thing you need |
| Phone numbers | As many as you like, each with a label such as Mobile, Home or Work |
| Emails | As many as you like, each labelled |
| Address | Street, city and so on |
| Birthday | Turn it on and pick the date |
| Notes | Anything you want to remember, kept in Dawnlet only |
Adding people by hand is free, with no limit. The list is alphabetical, and the search field at the bottom looks through names, phone numbers, emails, addresses and notes. Browse's search finds people too, alongside everything else. On iPad in landscape the list sits beside the person you've picked, with their numbers and emails ready to tap to call or write.
2Never miss a birthday
Give someone a birthday and it starts working for you. Browse's People card shows whose birthday comes next and how far off it is ("Tomorrow", "In 5 days"), and two notifications cover the rest. Both are free:
| Notification | When it arrives | Starts |
|---|---|---|
| Birthdays | On the day, at 9:00 unless you pick another time | On |
| Birthdays coming up | 1, 2, 3 or 7 days before (3 unless you change it) | Off |
Two birthdays on the same day arrive as one notification ("It's Sam's and Alex's birthday today"), and tapping it opens People. The year you enter is kept, but notifications match on the day and month, so they come round every year.
Turn on Birthdays coming up and set it to a week for anyone you send a card or a gift to. The day-of notification is for saying happy birthday; the early one is for having something to give.
Notifications match the exact day and month, so a February 29 birthday is only marked in leap years. Browse's card follows the same rule. If they celebrate on February 28 or March 1 in other years, entering that date instead gets you a notification every year.
3Keep notes only you can see
Every person has a Notes field, and it's the one field that never leaves Dawnlet. Even when a person is linked to Apple Contacts and you've asked Dawnlet to update them there, notes are never copied across in either direction.
Use notes for the things that make you thoughtful: a partner's name, the kids' ages, a gift idea you heard in passing, a book they recommended. People's search reads notes too, so "allergic" or "loves jazz" finds the right person later.
4Say who you were with
Movies have Watched with, places have Went with and meals have Ate with. As you type, Dawnlet suggests matching people. If there's no match you can add the name as it is, and that name becomes a new person when you save.
Those names come back as Who you watched with, Who you went with and Who you ate with in the month's Insights Plus on Movies, Places and Meals: who you actually spend your evenings, trips and dinners with. See the Bucket list and Meals & gratitudes playbooks.
5Bring in Apple Contacts
Typing in a whole address book is nobody's idea of fun. Import from Apple Contacts Plus does it for you. Open it from the import button on the People screen, or from Settings › Apple Integrations › Contacts.
The import only reads. Nothing is written back to Apple Contacts and nothing on your device is deleted. Run it again whenever you've added new contacts.
To go the other way, turn on Also update Apple Contacts Plus in Settings › Apple Integrations. Editing an imported person in Dawnlet then updates the real contact too, and someone you add by hand is also added to Apple Contacts.
Deleting a person, or using Delete All Synced Contacts in Settings, only ever removes them from Dawnlet. Dawnlet never deletes anything from Apple Contacts. Delete All Synced Contacts also leaves alone anyone you only ever added by hand.
If Plus ends, everyone you imported stays, along with everything else. Dawnlet simply stops writing changes back to Apple Contacts, and starts again if you resubscribe.
§Under the hood
A person is one record with a name, their numbers and emails, an address, a birthday and notes. It's the same record that the names on your movies, trips and meals point to, which is why a name typed into Went with turns up on the People screen.
- Birthday notifications are planned on your device. The birthday's day and month are matched against the days ahead, and the notifications are scheduled from there. Nothing is sent from a server.
- A link, not a copy. An imported person remembers which Apple contact they came from. That link is what Also update Apple Contacts writes through, and the one thing it never carries is your notes.
- There's no delete path to your device. The part of Dawnlet that talks to Apple Contacts can read, add and update contacts, but has no way to delete one.
People and both birthday notifications are free, with no limit. Plus adds importing from Apple Contacts and updating it, plus the "who with" breakdowns in Insights.