How to use Koinonia

Quick start

Do these in order the first time you open the app:

1. Download Koinonia from the App Store and swipe through the welcome screens.
2. Add a few friends: by hand or with Import from Contacts.
3. Put them in circles (Family, Church, Work, Best Friends, or your own).
4. Set a catch-up rhythm for each person (weekly, monthly, or whenever).
5. Add anything useful on their profile: agenda items, dates, notes.
6. When you connect, log the catch-up. Only logged catch-ups update your rhythm.
7. Check Timeline for who's due. Optionally turn on Prayer guide in Settings.

Getting around

Tabs (iPhone / iPad)

• Friends: your people as a grid.
• Timeline: what's overdue, due, and coming up.
• Prayer: optional; turn on in Settings.
• Insights: rhythms and catch-up trends.
• Settings: About, subscription, sync, preferences.

On Mac, the same areas appear in the sidebar.

Handy shortcuts

• Tap the app logo (top left on Friends) to manage Circles.
• Tap a friend bubble to open their profile.
• Long-press a bubble to call, message, log, plan, or add an agenda item.

1. Add friends

Start on the Friends tab.

• Tap + to create a profile by hand: name, nickname, birthday, phone, email, photo.
• Or use Import from Contacts to pull people from Apple Contacts. Search filters the list; the Add button stays at the bottom while you search. Import is read-only, Koinonia never edits your phone contacts.
• The free tier covers up to 10 friends; Koinonia Unlimited removes the limit.

2. Circles

Circles group friends by life context, Family, Church, Work, Best Friends, or any groups you create. Colours make the friends grid easier to scan.

• Open Circles from the app logo on the Friends screen.
• Give each circle a name and colour; edit or delete ones you no longer need.
• Pin a circle so it appears first in lists and filters.
• A friend can belong to multiple circles; their bubble blends up to four colours.
• From a friend's profile or edit screen, open Manage Circles. Tap a row to select or deselect; use the colour swatch only when changing a circle's colour.
• Settings has Restore default circles if you delete Best Friends, Family, Work, or Church and want them back.

3. Catch-up rhythms

For each friend, choose how often you'd like to catch up. Open their profile and set the rhythm under catch-up (or when editing them).

• Options: weekly, fortnightly, monthly, quarterly, biannually, annually, or ad-hoc.
• Ad-hoc friends are never marked overdue. Every other rhythm calculates the next date from your last logged catch-up.

Status colours

• Overdue (red), past the date you wanted to catch up.
• Due (orange), time to plan; today or within a few days.
• Scheduled (blue), a catch-up date is planned.
• On track (green), not yet due for this rhythm.

On Insights and rhythm pickers, each rhythm also has its own colour (weekly red through ad-hoc blue). That is separate from overdue/due status on the friends list.

4. Friend profile

Tap any bubble for the full profile. The top is always the same: photo and name, circles, catch-up rhythm, and contact actions (call, message, log, plan).

Below that, keep the details that help next time. Show, hide, and reorder these in Settings → Friend detail tile order:

• Agenda: topics for your next conversation. Tap the circle to mark complete, or long-press to edit or delete. Open items carry into catch-up plans and logging.
• Reminders & Important Dates: birthday plus milestones, one-off reminders, and birthday nudges in one list. Tap Add important date and choose Milestone, Reminder, or Birthday.
• Prayer Points: when Prayer guide is enabled; same checkboxes as the Prayer tab.
• Quotes & Memories: things they said that you want to keep.
• Gift Ideas: for birthdays and celebrations.
• Post-it Notes: title-and-body notes for anything else; add, edit, reorder, delete.

Edit core info from the profile area. Deleting a friend removes their history and notes from Koinonia.

5. Plan and log catch-ups

Once rhythms are set, the everyday loop is: plan when due → meet → log → update agenda or notes for next time.

Plan a catch-up

• From a friend's profile, Timeline, or long-press on the friends grid.
• Choose date, time, and how you'll connect (in person, phone, video…).
• Active agenda items are pre-filled into the notes.
• With calendar integration on, Koinonia can add an event like “Catch up with Alex” to Apple Calendar. If it's off, the app can still offer a one-time prompt to add the event.
• Reschedule from Timeline or the friend's profile when plans change.

Log a catch-up

• Record when it happened and how you connected.
• What you discussed: active Agenda items appear here. Tick off what you covered, or add your own points.
• Follow-up flag: tap the flag on a topic for a date-only reminder. It appears on the friend's profile and Timeline.
• Prayer icon (when Prayer guide is on), save a topic as a prayer point.
• Notes and photos: a free-form summary and pictures from the catch-up.
• Afterwards you can schedule the next one. Logging from a Timeline reminder dismisses that reminder.

History

View, edit, or delete past logs on the friend's profile. History powers Insights and keeps Timeline up to date.

6. Timeline

Open the Timeline tab for a view of what needs attention.

• Cards group into overdue, today, tomorrow, this week, and later.
• Colour coding: orange for due catch-ups, blue for planned, red for overdue, grey for optional calendar events.
• Tap a row to open that friend's profile.
• Long-press for actions: plan, log, reschedule, delete (reminders), or snooze (birthdays and milestones to next year).
• Swipe left on an overdue catch-up or planned meet-up for Snooze 1 Week. That hides the item for seven days without changing your rhythm or planned date.
• Birthdays, milestones, and reminders appear alongside catch-ups.
• Calendar events (optional): when enabled in Settings, Apple Calendar events show next to Koinonia items.

7. Prayer guide

Optional. Turn the Prayer tab on or off in Settings. When it's on, prayer sections also appear on friend profiles and in catch-up logging.

What to pray for (by friend)

• Add prayer points from a friend's profile, the Prayer tab, or while logging a catch-up.
• Tap a row to mark prayed for today; tap again to undo.
• Each friend card shows today's progress and can expand or collapse.
• Sort by who needs prayer first, or alphabetically. When sorting by need, a friend keeps their place until every prayer point of theirs is covered today.

Personal

• For yourself, family not in the app, or anyone you don't track as a friend.
• Add via the + menu on the Prayer tab.

Guided walk-through

• The header shows Prayer today and how many points you've covered.
• Start prayer guide walks you through one friend at a time, with a shortcut to mark all their points prayed for.

Prayer points not yet prayed for show Not prayed yet; stale ones change colour after a couple of weeks.

8. Insights

Open the Insights tab (after Prayer when Prayer guide is enabled) for a wider view of your rhythms.

Catch-up rhythm

• Every friend grouped by rhythm (weekly through ad-hoc), coloured weekly red through ad-hoc blue.
• Strip of overdue, due soon, and total friends.
• Proportion bar and collapsible bands; overdue and due friends float to the top within each rhythm.

Needs attention

Friends past their rhythm, sorted by how overdue they are.

Overview & more

• Totals: all-time, this month, and this year.
• Most connected (collapsible), friends with the most logged catch-ups.
• Trends (collapsible), catch-ups over the last six months.
• Circles (collapsible), how friendships spread across circles.

Friends list tips

Once people are set up, the Friends grid is your home base.

Bubbles and chips

Each friend is a bubble with a coloured ring from their circles. The small label under the bubble uses a clock for days since last catch-up (e.g. 12d) and a calendar for a planned date (e.g. 24 May). Colours match overdue, due, on track, or planned.

Search, filter, and sort

• Search by name.
• Circle chips filter to one circle; tap again to clear.
• Overdue chip shows overdue friends only.
• Sort by circles, first name, or last catch-up.
• Best Friends at top: when enabled, anyone in a circle named “Best Friends” sorts first.

Long-press a bubble for quick actions. Pull down on the grid to refresh.

Notifications & calendar

Notifications

Configure in Settings → Notifications. Koinonia can remind you about:

• Catch-ups coming due (time to plan).
• Overdue catch-ups.
• Upcoming birthdays.
• Reminders you create.

These respect your system permission choices: check Settings (iPhone/iPad) or System Settings (Mac) if nothing arrives.

Calendar integration

• Show catch-ups in Calendar: create Apple Calendar events when you plan catch-ups.
• Show calendar events in Timeline: see your own calendar alongside Koinonia items.

Calls

Confirm before dialling: when on, tapping Call asks first; when off, it dials immediately.

Koinonia Unlimited

The free version supports up to 10 friends with every feature included. Koinonia Unlimited is an optional yearly subscription that removes the limit.

• Subscribe from Settings, or when you hit the friend limit.
• When active, Settings shows “Koinonia Unlimited Active” and an infinity badge appears in the Friends toolbar.
• Manage or cancel in the App Store → your Apple ID → Subscriptions.
• Promo codes are redeemed through Apple's redeem flow, not inside the app.

Settings

Open the Settings tab (gear icon).

• About Koinonia: first card; story, features, feedback, privacy policy link.
• Subscription: status and upgrade to Unlimited.
• Security: optional app lock with Face ID, Touch ID, or your device passcode.
• iCloud Sync: optional sync across your devices via your Apple account. After toggling sync, fully quit and reopen the app when prompted.
• Prayer guide: show or hide the Prayer tab and related UI.
• Circles: restore default circles.
• Calls: confirm before dialling.
• Notifications: catch-up, overdue, birthday, and reminder toggles.
• Contacts: refresh linked friends from Contacts.
• Calendar: planned catch-ups in Calendar, and calendar events in Timeline.
• Friend detail tile order: reorder optional profile sections.
• Privacy & Legal: link to the privacy policy.

Privacy and data

• Your library stays on your device by default. Aretix cannot access it.
• iCloud sync is optional and uses your own Apple account.
• No analytics SDKs, no ad tracking.
• Contacts, calendar, notifications, and camera/photo permissions are all optional.

The full privacy policy has the details.

Troubleshooting

iCloud sync not updating

• Check that sync is on in Koinonia Settings, and that the device is signed in to iCloud.
• If you just toggled sync, fully quit Koinonia (app switcher → swipe away) and reopen it.
• Give it a few minutes: CloudKit can take a moment between devices.

Notifications not arriving

• Check Koinonia's notification permission in system Settings.
• Confirm the toggles in Koinonia Settings → Notifications, then reopen the app.

Contact details look outdated

Update the person in Apple Contacts first, then use Settings → Contacts → Refresh from Contacts, or refresh from their profile.

App is unresponsive

• Force quit and relaunch.
• Restart the device if needed, and make sure the OS is up to date.

Support

• Email koinonia@aretix.com.au. The team reads every message.
• In-app: Settings → About Koinonia → Send feedback.
• Download or update on the App Store.
• What's new on the home page.

Use it in whatever way helps. Connection matters more than a perfect record.