Every update to Tarsier, with the user-facing summary up top and the full changelog underneath if you want the receipts.
Changelogs in Settings. A new Changelogs section lets you see what's new in this version, or open the full history on the web.
Update reminders. Tarsier now gives you a gentle heads-up when a newer version is available on the App Store.
No more guessing. Fixed practice cards where the question's speech bubble showed up blank; the Tagalog word now appears and plays its audio.
Fairer picture questions. Picture-choice questions that showed only three options now show four, and a few that repeated the same image are fixed.
Wording cleanups. Corrected "ulam" to "main dish", fixed "kumusta" and "jowa" showing capitalized, and made "Oo", "Opo", and "Hindi" text choices instead of pictures.
Smoother and cleaner. Steadier quiz button sizes, a tab bar that fades instead of sliding, a tidier launch screen, and hidden scroll bars throughout.
Build-the-sentence cards play again. Fixed sentence-builder exercises where the Tarsier's speech bubble showed up blank with nothing to hear. It now shows the Tagalog sentence and plays its audio.
Tidier quiz cards. Removed the "NEW" and "IMAGE" tags, plus some developer labels that used to float over the progress bar, so each card looks less crowded.
Shorter lesson names. Lesson titles now use "&" instead of "and" (like "Mom & Dad") so they fit neatly on the card and the map.
Cleaner sentence cards. Fixed a few practice cards that showed a Tagalog word capitalized in the middle of a sentence.
A finish screen for Daily Practice. A practice session now ends on a "Nice practice!" screen with a finish sound and a celebrating Tarsier, your unit icons orbiting around it. A gold "Claim Reward" button opens the prize wheel, which now spins on its own until you tap to stop it.
A peek at Practice. The Practice button now appears right after your first lesson, shown locked, and tapping it tells you which unit to finish to unlock it.
Pictures for words that read the same in English. Food like adobo and sinigang, and times of day like morning and evening, are now identified by picture instead of picking the word from a list.
Onboarding opens your first lesson. A fresh install now jumps straight into Lesson 1 after setup, instead of leaving you on the Learn map with the lesson unstarted.
More accurate Tagalog. "Scared" and "angry" now use the correct everyday forms takot and galit (the older matakot/magalit are really verbs). The "kita" pronoun reads consistently as "I ___ you", a numbers review now shows English meanings, and a greeting quiz no longer offers a word taught much later.
Clearer answer choices. Answer choices now carry a clearer outline so they stand out from the background. "What would you respond?" quizzes now offer a tempting on-topic wrong answer instead of a generic one, and clarifiers like "(respectful)" sit on their own smaller line. Build-the-phrase exercises show the plain phrase to translate and no longer reveal the first word with a capital letter.
A cleaner ube reward screen. The 3-in-a-row "ube ice cream!" celebration now fills the whole screen instead of leaving the top bar showing through it.
Better fill-in-the-blanks. Quizzes joining two words with "at" now test one of the actual words instead of "at", family phrases read naturally with a single "my/your", and "so tired / so cold" exercises let you build the full doubled phrase.
Smaller corrections. Removed a few redundant one-word practice cards, fixed picture-scene quizzes where a tall image could push answers off-screen, added side-by-side picture cards for compared words (like bigas vs kanin), and tidied wording so ulam is always "main dish".
Milestones feel like a moment. Milestones on the learning map are now full-width banners instead of small circles, with plain-language names (Foundations, Sharing Meals, Travelling, and more) right on the map. The next milestone shimmers to draw you forward, and finished ones are marked done.
A ready screen before each milestone. Opening a milestone now shows a quick "ready to test your knowledge?" screen with Tarsier and the units that milestone covers, then starts a mixed review pulling questions from all of them.
Picture-scene quizzes are back. The "what would you say?" picture-scene quizzes return across every chapter, with art made for the moment (an emotion reaction, a size or height comparison, a hospital, a ferry pier, a gas station, a jeepney terminal) instead of a borrowed backdrop. Lessons are re-paced so new words are fully taught before practice, and each lesson ends on a bigger build-the-phrase challenge.
Pick up where you left off. Running out of ube mid-lesson no longer restarts the whole lesson. Your place is saved, so you continue right where you left off after refilling.
A new way to practice. A Practice button on the map gives you a quick mixed review drawn from the lessons you have already finished, separate from moving through new lessons. Free learners get a few sessions a day; Super members get unlimited.
Easier-to-read map. Every unit now has its own icon, and new lessons added to chapters you already finished show a purple NEW badge with a count, so returning learners can spot fresh content.
Smarter reminders. The daily reminder now learns the time you usually practice and nudges you then, until you set your own time in Settings. Tapping a reminder takes you straight to your lessons.
A picture quiz for loanwords. Words like jeepney and tricycle now have a picture quiz where you match the spoken word to its image.
Milestone reviews work again. Milestone reviews had stopped pulling in their practice questions and could fail to open. Each milestone now mixes questions from the units it covers again.
Cleaner answer choices. Multiple-choice word quizzes now always offer four options (or two), never an odd three, and choices that crammed two meanings into one ("Oo / Opo") have been split so each option is a single clear answer.
Gender-neutral pronouns. Tagalog has no gendered pronouns, so "siya" now consistently reads as "they" rather than "he/she". The evening greeting now reads "Good evening".
Smaller corrections. Fixed blank quiz tiles in the day-of-week lesson, word quizzes whose hint did not match the answer, a "Being Polite" grammar slip, and lesson headers that showed debug labels. Added a Terms of Service, linked from Settings and the welcome screen.
Consistent feeling words. The kilig, tampo, and gigil exercises now use one clear meaning each ("romantic giddiness", "moody sulking", "cute aggression") everywhere, instead of wording that changed from card to card.
Steadier Check button. The Check button now stays in the same spot across every exercise type instead of shifting slightly between them.
Picture prompts no longer doubled. Fixed picture exercises that showed the question twice (the speech bubble repeated "How do you say...?" or "Which one is...?"). The bubble now shows just the word.
Consistent lesson audio. A few phrases were narrated in a male voice or at uneven speeds. All word and phrase audio is now the same female voice at a consistent pace.
Clearer "naman" practice. The "naman" greeting-response exercises now translate Tagalog → English, so you practice noticing "naman" in a sentence instead of guessing when to add it.
Standardized word meanings. Corrected and made consistent the English meanings shown under Tagalog words across the early lessons (for example, "naman" now reads as a softener instead of "too").
Finishable Family builders. Fixed Family-chapter builder exercises that couldn't be completed because the word bank was missing a tile the answer needed twice (like "My big sister and my big brother").
Long builder answers wrap. Builder answers with a lot of words now wrap onto multiple lines instead of overflowing the row.
Grammar fix on "I love my..." builders. Corrected the spouse / partner cards to "Mahal ko ang asawa ko" and "Mahal ko ang jowa ko".
Progress bar fixed on reviews. The lesson progress bar could stop around 75% and end early on unit reviews. It now fills to 100% exactly when the last card is done.
Replays keep your streak. Replaying a lesson you've already finished now counts toward your daily goal and streak.
Grammar fix in Hello. Corrected how the Hello chapter teaches asking someone back, so it now uses "At ikaw, kumusta ka?" and "Kumusta ka, pare?".
Bigger daily spin. The hidden daily spin now hands out more ube on a regular win.
New onboarding. 27 personalized screens that respond to who you are. A problem/solution opener for heritage learners, a slider that estimates how many Tagalog words you already know from childhood, two question-bank rounds with reflection screens that mirror your answers back, a fluency-curve story chart, a "building your plan…" loader that resolves into a personalized summary with a future date and outcome math, and a commitment screen before the paywall. Honorifics (Ate / Kuya) run throughout, and Tarsier greets you out loud at the right moments: Mabuhay!, Magandang araw!, Tara na! A dedicated screen for Filipinos who grew up abroad: "You're not behind. The words are already in you."
Real loading on launch. A white spinner spins continuously from the iOS launch image into the SwiftUI app, then a progress bar fills with a live caption ("Loading lesson 42 of 112…") as Tarsier loads the 100+ lessons in the curriculum.
Profile redesign. Header, mascot, name, level bar, share button, and motivations live as one continuous card. New Tagalog XP level bar. Redesigned share card with the Apple App Store badge. Working Instagram Stories share with a tappable App Store sticker.
Secret roulette. Hidden somewhere in the app. Once a day, every spin wins ube (or XP if you're a Super Tarsier subscriber). Wins range from a small taste to a full refill or one hour of unlimited ube. Watch an ad to respin. Where is it?
Philippines map. Pull down on the Learn header to reveal a full-screen map of the archipelago. Swipe sideways or tap a language to highlight its regions. Tagalog is live; Cebuano, Ilocano, Hiligaynon, and Baybayin are marked "coming soon."
Words page redesigned. Colored category tiles (Greetings orange, Pronouns pink, Phrases teal). New Fun Facts collection holding every "Did you know?" you've unlocked from a lesson. Each fact card now leads with the lightbulb + headline you saw in the lesson, a Tagalog hero word, the fact body, and a chip row showing the unit (Feelings 1, Daily Life 2), the chapter, and the lesson title so you can trace each fact back to where you met it. Locked categories greyed-out so you can see what's ahead.
Insights detail pages. Five widget tiles (Streak, Pace, Time, Accuracy, Recall) each open a focused page. Streak gets a GitHub-style heatmap calendar with consecutive runs, your longest run's date range, and 12 encouragement tiers so a 405-day streak doesn't read "Nice start." Time tracks lifetime totals (total time, longest single lesson, fastest single lesson) labeled with full chapter + lesson title + date. Accuracy reframes "wrong attempts" as "second tries" and "worst lesson" as "biggest challenge." A "Last 10 lessons" card with a sparkline and ranked list. Free tier sees the hero sharp with gated content blurred behind a tap-to-upgrade overlay.
New chapters through Milestone 4. Home, Hello, Love, Food, Feelings, and Daily Life. Includes a brand-new chapter 1 lesson 3 focused on po as the respect tag.
Chapter 3 restructured around the three Filipino meals. The old generic Food chapter is now three meal-based lessons: almusal (breakfast), tanghalian (lunch), and hapunan (dinner). Each meal teaches its own dishes, drinks, and the everyday reactions Filipinos use at the table.
Home and Love merged. What used to be two thin units is now one warm Home & Love unit. Same content, fewer hops.
More cards in every existing unit. Every teaching lesson got padded to at least 25 cards and every end-of-unit review to 15. Roughly 570 new practice cards across the v1.1 curriculum. UPDATED chips appear on the Learn map for lessons that gained content; your progress is preserved either way.
New quiz types. "Statement" cards: a single Tagalog sentence with one blank and the full English translation underneath. "What would you respond?" cards: a family member's question in front of you with multiple-choice replies.
Pictures across more quizzes. 27 new word illustrations covering food (busog, masarap, gusto, magkano, tsaa), family and affection (tahanan, asawa, jowa, yakap, halik, mahal), emotions as smiley/frowny faces (masaya, malungkot, magalit, matakot), Philippine-style road signs (kaliwa, kanan, diretso), and more. Number choices render as a big SF Rounded numeral on a light-purple tile that parses 0-100, so Tagalog (sampu, labinlima), English (ten, fifteen), and bare digits all just work. Image-match captions show the English meaning (Dad / Mom) when the prompt is in Tagalog, so you actually have to know the word.
Every Tagalog answer button speaks. Tap any Tagalog choice in a quiz and hear it pronounced in the bundled native voice. Full coverage across every speakable string in the curriculum, at a uniform speaking pace. The cohort-padding sweep added roughly 187 new phrases and words; all of them now ship as bundled recordings instead of falling through to the system synthesizer.
Super Tarsier paywall. Crowned-and-caped hero mascot, three ube-bulleted benefits (progress tracking, unlimited practice, no ads), side-by-side yearly / monthly plan picker with a 3-day free trial on the yearly.
New celebration moments. "Welcome to the club!" the instant a Super Tarsier subscription completes: ube ice creams rain down with heavy haptics and three perk chips fade in. "Bago na ang araw!" each day when your ube refills at midnight, with a quiet wave from the mascot. App-open surprise drops gift you free ube on the right day, with purple aura and ice-cream confetti.
Trust screen for annual trials. A "No surprises" screen confirms we'll notify you 24 hours before your trial renews, and the notification gets scheduled the moment your trial begins.
Concept cards show illustrations above the hero text when the word is a concrete picturable noun (ate, kuya, buwan, oras, relo, orasan). Abstract concept cards (po, mo, ko, mag-, nag-) stay text-only.
Learn map auto-scrolls on launch so your current lesson is vertically centered. Mascots along the path cast soft contact shadows so they feel grounded.
2×2 grid for short text-only quizzes. 4-choice "How do you say this?" cards without illustrations render as a compact 2×2 grid instead of a tall stack of four pills. Sentence-length choices still get full-width rows.
Quiz selection has a tactile feel. Cards get a subtle drop shadow that deepens when you tap them, on top of the purple border and light fill.
Better labels on picture quizzes. Mare and pare read as "Friend (Female)" and "Friend (Male)" instead of "Sis" and "Bro." Anak shows a baby being carried by a parent instead of a generic boy headshot.
Navigation feels like iOS. Edge-swipe back from any subpage. Tap a tab while you're on it to pop to that tab's root. Tactile haptics across every transition.
Smarter streak reminders. If you've already finished your daily goal, Tarsier won't nag you about your streak being at risk later that night.
Settings reorganized. Section headers are plain uppercase labels now. Every row has a tinted squircle icon on the left (red for Community, orange for Notifications, purple for Subscription, blue for About, green for Goals, grey for Advanced) and an affordance icon on the right (chevron for push, arrow for external). New "Community" section holds Rate Tarsier, "Write a review" (App Store deep link), Join our Discord, and Give us feedback. About is its own page (Fact Sources, Privacy Policy, FAQ). External links open in your default browser instead of an in-app sheet.
App starts faster. Plus uniform pace across all Tagalog voice playback so back-to-back phrases inside a lesson feel consistent.
Polish across the board. Status bar shows in dark text app-wide (iOS clock no longer disappears on white quiz screens). Settings rows fully tappable across the row. Scroll indicators no longer sneak behind page headers. Scenario answer text wraps instead of truncating. App stays in its designed light appearance regardless of system dark mode. "Already subscribed?" restore link on the welcome screen now works after reinstall. Header ube and streak counters share one consistent style across Learn and the lesson HUD.
Initial release. Hello, world!