Every month (or two) we bring you updates on the latest V6 features and fixes.

February’s update marks a monumental shift in our ecosystem with the official release of the CAN API and our dedicated iOS App. This month, we successfully transitioned to a multi-platform community, launching the iOS App (v1.3.1) to bring Activity directly to your pocket with native performance. Members can now enjoy a seamless mobile interface with deep linking and the ability to participate in Activity directly from their devices. Under the hood, we’ve optimised it with native geocoding and intelligent caching (client and server) to ensure the app remains fast and efficient.

Powering this evolution is the new CAN API (v2.1), which now allows for programmatic interaction with the entire platform. This interface supports everything from silent background polling for real-time updates to enriched image galleries. We’ve also introduced cross-device synchronisation, ensuring your “read” state follows you from desktop to mobile.

What is API and Why?

API or Application Programming Interface, is a form of an interface that allows you to programmatically interact with the CAN ecosystem using your member credentials. It means you can easily build your own applications and interfaces that connect to CAN, retrieve the data you want, or post things for you. We tend to think of websites as places to go to where things are designed to be only one way. The API allows you to build your own way to interact with CAN content, whether on mobile or desktop. We have built the iOS app not only because it provides a new native interface to the iOS platform but also as a demo of this API. Do you have an Android? Sure, build your own CAN app for it. Now we know that building an app like the one we built for iOS is quite a bit of work, but these don’t have to be fully blown apps if you are building them for yourself. For example, you could build an app that sits on your desktop and lets you send a picture to CAN Activity by drag-and-drop. You could also build a small app that tells you how many new entries in Activity have happened since the last time you visited it– oh, wait, we built this already, for Mac OSX, using Claude Code in 7 minutes and 20 seconds. Yes, you heard this right, seven minutes! You can download it here or start building your own using the API.

Because of this, when you generate an App Password from edit-profile, you are not only creating a password to access the iOS App; you are also creating a key to interact with CAN in the way you like by building your own apps.

The iOS App we built took approximately 4 weeks, and it was our test run for the API. We were actually building these two things simultaneously, asking ourselves which features this API would require. The iOS App is a demo of the API, and it uses all the features of the API that you can use yourself. Four weeks may sound like a long time, but for an app and API, it’s only a fraction of what would have been possible to build a few years ago. Claude Code was a huge help, building the foundations for the app, authentication, and listings within the first prompt. Then the details took much longer to ensure things looked and felt the way we wanted.

The Activity iOS App – Download

The iOS App is everything you’d expect from a CAN app. It mirrors much of the /Activity functionality, including all the filters, etc. We have also added a few app-only features, but we’ll let you discover these for yourself. We are now up to 1.3.1 release, including the latest addition ability to post directly in Activity. Please have a play and let us know what you think.

Full Development Log

25/02/2026

• (activity-ios-1.3.1) Release. Features include:
  • You can now post directly in Activity.
• (activity-3.6.0) Release. Features include:
  • You can now post directly in Activity.
• (can-api-2.1) – Release. Features incllude:
  • New endpoint for posting new activity entries (text and/or image)
  • silent polling for background clients
  • new lastActivityVisit field to sync your last-seen state across devices

20/02/2026

• (activity-ios-1.2.1) Release. Mostly bug fixes and visual improvements.

18/02/2026

• (activity-ios-1.2.1) Locations – CLGeocoder now handles the geocoding natively with GeocodingCache persisting results to UserDefaults — each city is only ever geocoded once.
• (activity-ios-1.2.1) Text Encoding – There was an issue with ‘other’ member meta and how it was displayed – now fixed.

16/02/2026

• (maintenance) Updated Member Submission Form – Completely refactored now featuring a single form with three different outputs (results) → Project/News/Event.
• (activity-ios-1.2.0) Submitted version 1.2.0 to Apple, featuring member actions in profiles and many bug fixes. Features:
  • You can now see members’ Actions in Profiles.
  • Membership levels added to member profiles.
  • External URLs now added to News + Event cards.
  • Nested Member Profiles enabled (threads included).
  • Carousel bug fixed + preloading now.
  • Deep linking to threads enabled.
  • Blocked users are now persistent even if referenced (cards).
• (maintenance) Edit-Profile – fields have been re-jugged because, as of late, some have been missing the website field and using ‘other’ instead. Things should be a lot clearer now, visually, ie primary vs secondary fields.
• (activity-3.5.1) Small bug fixes and performance improvements. Now you can also click on each entry in Activity Log on posts to be directed to threads in Activity.
• (can-api) – Version 2.0
  • Added /can/v1/member-activities/{user_id} endpoint for fetching a specific member’s activity feed
  • Supports pagination via page and per_page parameters
  • Returns enriched activity log format (same as main feed) filtered by author
  • Added id field to member profile response (/can/v1/member/{username})

14/02/2026

• (activity-ios-1.2.0) Source URLs for News and Events are now included in the main feed inside the card.
• (activity-ios-1.2.0) Comment bubble now only as wide as the text content.
• (activity-ios-1.2.0) Hide embedded reference cards when the referenced author is blocked.
• (activity-ios-1.2.0) prevent same-profile nesting
• (activity-ios-1.2.0) Implemented Member Activity Feed in MemberProfileSheet
• (activity-ios-1.2.0) Other small fixes include Lazy feed loading, feed cache, static user info cache, profile info fade-in, thread cache fix, article card title truncation fix, double top border fix when no image, and line weights consolidated.
• (can-api) – Version 1.9
  • Gallery images now included inline in activity log responses via gallery_images field
  • Uses medium-sized images from WordPress attachment metadata for faster loading

11/02/2026

• (activity-ios-1.1.1) – First Release of our iOS App (built on the API)

03/02/2026

• (can-api) – Version 1.8 – First Release of our API: This interface allows you to programmatically interact with the CAN ecosystem using your member credentials.

Lastly, as every month, our Activity map continues to grow, showing member interactions. If you haven’t updated your Location (City), please do so in the /edit-profile/ page under ‘Location’ and see who else is in your city or any upcoming events nearby.

Did you know?

• You can generate an image for social media from a link in the left sidebar of every article?
• CAN has keyboard shortcuts, try 1,2,3 or A,S,D,W and see what happens!
• Subscribe to all events with Google or Apple calendars?
• Start a conversation about a Person or a Tool by leaving a comment?
• Check out Last Week‘s articles or get them in your mailbox every Monday!

Not a Member already? Please support us by becoming one or by donating. With the personal membership priced at only $20 per year (less than $2 a month), you unlock a heap of community features (like Activity) available only to Members. Please help us keep this platform and community alive, and thriving!

See the previous update here → V6 Development Log (01/2026). All dev-log updates are here.