GhostFleet — Beta Console

Beta Users

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total in funnel

Invited

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not yet registered

Registered

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awaiting signing

Signed

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ready to activate

Active

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using the app

Name↕	Email↕	Invited↕	Status↕	Agreement	Last Active↕	Activity↕	Signin Activity↕	Actions

Operator-curated entries shown to testers at /whats-fixed. First names only, plain language. Saves to BOTH ailab and Azure prod so both sites stay in sync.

Fixed

Reported

Testers (first names, comma-separated)

Summary (one sentence, plain language)

Fixed	Reported	Testers	Summary	Action
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📣 Broadcast to Beta Testers

Sends from the product address with the clean Ghost Biographer signature. Recipients are resolved from the current environment. Opted-out and excluded addresses are skipped automatically — Preview first; nothing is sent until you click Send.

Recipients 0 selected

“Select audience” checks active + registered testers, minus excluded addresses. Greyed rows are hard-excluded and cannot be selected. ✦ = has added photos/stories.

Subject

Message (Markdown — **bold**, *italic*, - bullets, ## headings)

Dear friends,

You are among the very first people we invited to try Ghost Biographer — and whether you have already been adding photos and sharing stories, or you accepted the invitation and have been meaning to begin, thank you. Your place is still here, waiting for you.

We have been hard at work, and much of what improved came directly from watching real families use the app. Here is what is new — and if you have not had the chance to start yet, there has never been a gentler time to jump in. (We have also tried to be honest about what is solid and what is still a work in progress.)

**The short version**

If you read nothing else:
- **Signing in works beautifully now** — open the app with your face or fingerprint, and stay signed in for about a month.
- **Listen Together** — a new, button-free way to set your iPad down and just tell stories with family around your photos.
- **Add lots of photos at once** — straight from your iPhone or iPad Photos library.
- **Photos behave better on iPad** and the app is smarter about grouping faces and clearing out duplicate pictures.
- **New "inferencing engines"** working behind the scenes to make your finished prose truly excellent (early previews).
- **Tell us anything right in the app** — report a bug, a problem, or a delight with the Feedback button, and we will often fix it the same day.
- **We are building toward a real, printed book** you can hold.

The rest of this note has the details. Read what interests you and skip the rest.

**Signing in is much simpler now**

You told us — clearly — that signing in was the hardest part of the whole experience. We heard you, and this is where we focused.

- **Sign in with this iPad.** Instead of typing a password and then hunting for a code, you can now open the app the same way you unlock your iPad itself — with your face, your fingerprint, or the passcode you already use. It is called a "passkey," and once it is set up on your device, that is all you need. No password to remember, no code to type.
- **You stay signed in far longer.** The app now keeps you signed in for about a month, so you will not be asked to log in every time you sit down with it.
- **You are never locked out.** Your password still works as before, and whoever is helping you can set the passkey up alongside you so it is ready next time. And if you ever need a fresh way in — a new device, a misplaced link, anything — just text me or message me on Signal (below) and I will send you a one-tap magic link you can use to log right in, no password needed.

This was the most painful hurdle, and it works beautifully now — signing in with your face or fingerprint is genuinely easy, and you stay signed in. (We are still building one last convenience: an even easier way back in on a brand-new device.)

**Reminiscing together is easier now**

We added a new way to use the app called **Listen Together**. It is meant for sitting down with family around your photos, the way you naturally would at the kitchen table. You simply set your iPad down, open a photo, and start telling stories to one another — there is no microphone button to find and no recording controls to fuss with. The biographer listens quietly in the background and remembers the stories you tell. A gentle, glowing presence on the screen lets you know it is paying attention. This is a brand-new feature and still early, so please tell us how it feels.

We have also been working on **Partner Mode**, for couples who like to reminisce as a pair, so both of your voices and memories can be part of the same story. This one is still being polished, so consider it a preview.

**Bringing in your photos is easier — a whole batch at once**

You can now **add lots of photos at once, straight from your iPhone or iPad Photos library** — pick a whole batch and they upload and get organized in the background, so you are not left waiting at the screen. It is the fastest way to get your collection into the app and start the stories flowing.

**Your photos behave better on iPad**

We made several fixes aimed squarely at the iPad:

- Photos now appear more quickly and stay put instead of jumping around.
- Swiping left and right to move between photos is smoother and more forgiving.
- Tapping a photo to see it full-screen, and pinching to zoom in, now work the way you would expect.

**Behind the scenes: how your photos and faces are handled**

A lot of the work happens quietly after you add a photo:

- **The app reads each photo for you.** Soon after you add one, it looks at the picture and makes a few notes — roughly who and what is in it, and when or where it might have been taken — so the biographer can ask you better questions about it later. For a large collection this now happens in the background, so you are not left waiting at the screen.
- **It groups the same person together.** It finds the faces in your photos and gathers pictures of the same person, so you can tell us who someone is just once instead of over and over.
- **It tidies up duplicates.** When photos are gathered from many places — your phone, email, messages, social media — the very same picture often arrives several times, which used to make one person's face show up again and again. The app is now much better at spotting exact duplicates and cleaning up the repeated faces they create.

Honestly, the face grouping is not perfect yet — which is exactly why you can now tap to combine two pictures of the same person, or tap to remove a face that was grouped by mistake. (The old "drag and drop" never worked properly on iPad; tapping does.) And once in a while the app will decline to describe a photo; we are actively improving that. Your corrections are how it learns.

**Tell us anything — right inside the app**

There is now a **Feedback** button built right into the app: report a bug, flag something that feels wrong, or share a moment of delight, all without leaving what you are doing. These notes come straight to us — and because we are watching closely, we will often fix the problem the **same day**. Telling us is the single most helpful thing you can do, and it has never been easier.

**The biographer is becoming a better listener over time**

Two longer-term efforts are beginning to come to life behind the scenes:

- **A more curious biographer.** Rather than asking the same surface questions each time, the biographer is learning to hold on to what it genuinely wonders about you and return to it later — the way a thoughtful interviewer would once they have gotten to know you. The aim is a companion that deepens over months and years, not a chatbot that starts over every visit.
- **Writing that reads beautifully — in your own voice.** We have added several new "inferencing engines" that work quietly behind the scenes — finding the threads, the echoes, and the turning points in your story — feeding a set of tools we call *Perfect Your Prose* that will shape your memories into truly excellent, graceful chapters while keeping them unmistakably yours. This is early, so please think of it as a glimpse of where we are headed.

**Toward a real book you can hold**

The reason for all of this is a finished autobiography — not just words on a screen, but a printed, bound book you can set on a shelf and hand to your grandchildren. We have been quietly building that path: a printed-and-bound edition, a PDF, and an online version. It is still being built and the first printed copies are some months away, but it is squarely where we are pointed.

**A glimpse of what your feedback set in motion**

We are a little embarrassed to count, but: since we opened this beta in early spring, your involvement has driven an extraordinary amount of work behind the scenes — **1,323 commits** (each one a small improvement to the app), **422 fixes** (many straight from notes like yours), **153,456 lines of code**, all kept steady by **797 automated tests**. Every one of those numbers traces back to real families using the app and telling us what they found. A true ton of work — and you made it happen.

**Ready to begin — or pick back up?**

If you have not started yet, you have not missed a thing — your invitation is still open and your account is ready. Starting is simple: open Ghost Biographer, sign in (much easier now — see above), and add a photo or two. That is all it takes to begin. If you need a fresh way in, just text me or message me on Signal (below) and I will forward you a one-tap magic link you can log in with right away.

And please do not despair if life has kept you away — Ghost Biographer is built to run alongside you over months and years, at whatever pace suits you. Nothing is lost; your place and your stories will keep.

None of this would happen without you. If something feels confusing, slow, or simply wrong, please keep telling us — through the Feedback button or directly — your notes are exactly how we decide what to fix next.

One more thing, close to our hearts: our team includes many veterans, and we have begun building a companion product called **WingmanBiographer** to help fellow vets write their memoirs. It is part of a mission we care about deeply — helping reduce veteran suicide by giving veterans a meaningful way to tell their stories and be truly heard. More on that soon.

With gratitude,
The Ghost Biographer Team

P.S. If you ever get stuck — with signing in or anything else — you can reach me personally. I am Skip, and I would genuinely rather hear from you than have you struggle in silence. Call or text me at 703-475-5070, or find me on Signal at Skip.76.

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