Kid Pickup 1.6.2 is on the App Store now, as a free update for everyone on iPhone. If your phone updates apps by itself, you may already have it.

This one is about the parts of the week that happen around a pickup: getting set up, knowing the kids have been collected, the homework and permission slips, and the team schedule that keeps changing.

Getting started, a step at a time

New to Kid Pickup? After you sign up, the app now walks you through it:

  1. Name your family, and give it a picture.
  2. Pick your own avatar.
  3. Add your kids, each with a colour and an avatar.
  4. Invite a grandparent or another helper.
  5. Add your first pickup or activity, typed as a sentence or in the form.

Joining a family by invitation? You get the same steps from your avatar on, as far as your role goes: a grandparent or sitter isn't asked to add kids. Anyone can go through the steps again from Settings → Getting Started.

"I'm here", then "Picked up"

Whoever is doing a pickup now gets a nudge when it's time, with an I'm here button. Then, once they have the kids, one to mark it Picked up (or Dropped off in the morning). Both buttons are on the pickup screen too.

The family gets a notification at each step, and the pickup shows when they arrived and when it was done:

Grandma is at Oakwood to pick up Lily.
Grandma picked up Lily from Oakwood.

If nobody taps Picked up, the app asks again 15 minutes later, and once more after an hour. And marking a pickup done now tells the family whoever taps it, including on older versions of the app.

A To do list

Homework, tests, school trips and forms to sign aren't pickups, and they aren't really appointments either. They're things to get done by a day. 1.6.2 gives them a list of their own, at the top of the Events tab.

  • Add one there, or choose To do when you add something with the +.
  • Give it a day and, if you like, a person. Tick it off when it's done.
  • A reminder at 6 p.m. the evening before it's due, to whoever is on it, or to every parent and guardian if nobody is.
  • Only parents and guardians see the list. A sitter doesn't need the family's school admin, and the list can say what a child is finding hard.

Schedules in, without the typing

Typing a whole soccer season into an app is nobody's idea of a good evening. Now there are four ways around it, all under Import:

  • Paste or Photo a Schedule. Paste the season from the coach's email, or take a photo or use a PDF of the fridge sheet. The app reads it into a list, you pick which child it's for and tick the ones you want, and they're added as open pickups.
  • Follow a Team Calendar. Paste a TeamSnap, GameChanger, school or Google Calendar link, and new and changed dates come in on their own, about once an hour. A moved game moves the pickup and tells whoever had it. A game taken off the calendar is called off, not deleted, so whoever had it can see why.
  • Import File now reads .ics and .csv calendar files properly, into the same list to tick.
  • Your work roster. Under Settings → Work Schedule, read your hours from a photo, a PDF or pasted text. Night shifts now count toward the warning when a pickup lands while you're at work.

Smaller changes

  • React to comments. Hold a comment on a post to add an emoji, the same eight as Chat. Delete and Report are behind the dots at the end of that row.
  • The + is in the bottom bar, between Chat and Events, for adding a pickup, an event or a To do.
  • Family is off the bottom bar. Tap your family's name at the top of Home to open it, or find it in Settings.
  • The plans screen walks through what Kid Pickup does, one feature at a time.
  • Two fixes. Saving a new event no longer flashes a Scheduling Conflict warning about the event you just made, and photos further down Home no longer show as empty tiles after the app has been in the background.

How to get it

Open the App Store, tap your profile picture, and find Kid Pickup under available updates. Everyone in your family can update in their own time. Grandma needs 1.6.2 for the I'm here and Picked up buttons on her notifications. Until she updates, the app still reminds her to open the pickup and mark it done.

New to Kid Pickup? It's a family calendar for iPhone where every pickup gets a name, and grandparents and sitters say "I'll do it" with one tap. One subscription covers your whole circle, and grandparents and sitters never pay.

Missed the last big update? Kid Pickup 1.6 added events that aren't pickups, like the dentist or a school meeting, and put both parents on one calendar.