Clearer help when a private reply can't be sent If your account is protected with Sign in with Apple and the app on your phone isn't signed in, private replies used to fail with a confusing "status 404" error. Now Vorail AI explains what happened and shows a Sign in with Apple button right in the reply screen. Your recording is kept, so once you sign in you can send it without recording it again. If your sign-in has simply expired, the app now refreshes it and tries again on its own. Car Mode also explains the problem in plain words instead of reading out an error code.

Better recovery from alerts and calls: + Vorail now handles interruptions more smoothly. When a phone call, Siri, or a critical alert from a device like a Dexcom CGM or Tandem pump cuts in, playback now shows as paused instead of looking like it's still playing. When the interruption ends, your clip or spoken intro picks up where it left off. In Car Mode, spoken feedback and VoiceOver focus now recover after an alert, so your swipes keep working without restarting the app. The Direct Touch Area (Car Mode) opens where you are: + Say "car mode" from the Inbox, Questions, Answers or Subscribed questions, and Car Mode now opens on that same feed, so you pick up right where you were. The spoken confirmation names the feed, for example "Opening Car Mode on Inbox". From any other screen, Car Mode opens on Questions as before.

The Local tab's buttons now match the rest of the app: (Refresh, +, and ⋯ ) and the Calendar's subscribe instructions moved off the page and onto their own screen.

Direct Touch (Car Mode): + Hear the current item and its position in Questions, Answers, Inbox and Subscribed questions after sending a message, closing a profile, blocking a question or returning from a thread. Dissolving, muting or blocking an item also announces its replacement. + When “Listen to all answers” ends, hear “Returning to the Answers feed,” why playback ended and your position on the question you started from. + A three-finger swipe up when already in the feed announces the current item and its position. + After recording an Inbox reply, choose “Dissolve and send” to send it and remove the original from your Inbox, or “Save and send” to keep the original. Swipe down once to select the default, “Dissolve and send,” then double tap to confirm. + Returning to a feed after sending, posting or discarding a recording now plays the item you land on. Display names: + Display name changes in the You tab take effect immediately. Your next question, answer or message uses the new name, whether posted by tap, voice or Car Mode. Question titles: + After recording an ask-all question, tap “Suggest a title” to generate a short title. Edit it, clear it or use it as suggested. Requires iOS 26. + Your recording is transcribed on your phone. Only the transcript is sent to generate the title, and nothing is posted until you tap Post. + VoiceOver announces that the title is being generated, reads the suggestion aloud and moves focus to the title field for editing. More navigation: + Screens opened from the More tab now have a top-left back arrow that returns to the More list. VoiceOver reads it as “Back to More.” + The VoiceOver escape gesture, a two-finger scrub, now also returns to the More list. Organization events: + When an event’s live audio room is open, tap “Join live” directly on its calendar row. + VoiceOver announces “Live audio room is open” when you reach the event. “Join the live audio room” is the first rotor action. + The button for posting an event to the calendar now appears at both the bottom of the form and the top corner.

For organizations: Live audio events. An event on your Local Town Square calendar can now have a live audio room right in the app. When the organizer turns on "Live audio room in the app", a Join live button appears on the event 30 minutes before it starts. Everyone comes in unmuted and can mute or unmute themselves; the host can mute anyone, and a raised hand tells the host you'd like to speak. Every change is spoken, so you always know what just happened. Also new for organizers: "Put this on the calendar" turns any ask-all into an event.

Message in a Bottle: + MiB AI announcements in the Questions and Answers feeds now include the bottle’s title for new bottles and replies, helping you find the bottle in the Bottles tab. + VoiceOver now makes clear when the bottle count includes only bottles loaded so far and that more load as you scroll. Once the entire feed has loaded, it announces the full count. Start tab (for new users): + New members now open on Start, which shows one question at a time with Answer and Skip buttons. Other members can find Start at the end of the More tab. + Brief hints after your first answer, third answer, and first question explain what happened and what comes next. + To open on the Questions feed instead, tap “Don’t open on Start next time” at the bottom of Start. You can also choose an opening screen under Settings ▸ Tabs. Settings: + The app’s version number now appears at the bottom of Settings.

Organizations: + Take part without a subscription if your organization’s calendar or town square is hosted by Vorail. On the membership screen, enter your organization’s invite code and sign in with Apple once to access its Local Town Square. + Access your organization’s questions, answers and calendar, along with profiles, hearts and messages. The public Global Town Square still requires a paid membership. Local Town Square answers: + Answers to ask-alls you post in your Local Town Square now appear in your Inbox under Ask-alls, alongside answers from the main feed. Each answer identifies its town square. + Play an answer, open the full conversation, reply in your town square or dissolve the answer. Car Mode: + Car Mode now reads Local Town Square answers, including how old each answer is and how long it lasts. To reply, use the Local tab.

All changes below apply to the Local tab, where organizations and their members use private Local Town Squares. Vorail’s main feeds are the global town square. Hybrid events: + When creating an event in Local, choose “In person and online” under “Where.” Add an address and instructions for joining by phone or video so members can attend either way. The event page includes a “Join online” link. Questions and answers: + Use the bell on a Local row to subscribe to a question. Each time you open Local, the row shows how many new answers have arrived since you last listened. A line at the top of the feed shows the total. Opening a conversation clears its count. + Question and answer rows in Local now match the layout and actions in the main Questions and Answers feeds: listen to all answers, answer, like, subscribe, and a ⋯ (overflow) menu with Follow, Block, Mute and Report. All actions are available through the VoiceOver actions rotor. Links in questions: + Attach one web link before posting a question in your Local Town Square. Members can see that a link is attached and where it leads. + Vorail AI plays audio and video links in the app with controls to play, pause, scrub and change playback speed. Web page links open in the appropriate app or browser, such as YouTube for a YouTube link. + VoiceOver announces that a link is attached and identifies the destination site. Choose “Play or open the link” from the actions menu alongside answering and subscribing. Calendar: + Each Local Town Square event now includes “Add to Google Calendar” alongside “Add to my phone's calendar.” + To subscribe to your square’s full calendar, select “Keep this calendar on your phone” at the bottom of the Calendar list. After subscribing in Apple Calendar, Google Calendar or Outlook, new events, time changes and cancellations update automatically. + Your calendar subscription link is private to you and stops working if you leave the square.

Local Town Square Calendar: + Find events described by organizers in their own voice. Sign up by saying your name and what you’re looking forward to, and hear who else is coming before you arrive. + Continue conversations in the Local Town Square thread between sessions. The thread stays open for alumni after the class ends. Local Town Square: + Tap a person’s name to open their profile, tap the heart to like them, or tap the bell to receive notifications when they create a new ask-all or answer. + Record a reply directly from any answer in a conversation, as well as from the question. + Use the Refresh, sort order, and Ask buttons in the Local toolbar. Pull-to-refresh now works properly. + When you’ve heard everything in a Local feed, a message replaces the blank screen, with an option to change “Hide played items” there. + Answer rows now include “Answer to:” to distinguish them from questions.

Direct Touch (Car Mode): + Spoken intros now include when an item was posted in Car Mode and during Play-all, Listen-to-all-answers, and message-history playback across the app. Subscribed questions announce when the thread last had activity. + Landing on an inbox item now announces how long ago it was sent and the recording length. Private messages include these details too, matching questions and answers. Local Town Square: + Switch between Questions and Answers feeds at the top of the Local tab. + The Answers feed lists every answer in your town square and names the ask-all it answers. From any row, play the answer, open the whole conversation, or record your own answer. + Both feeds follow your existing Newest/Oldest First and "Hide played items" settings.

Recording: + Fixed one cause of Stereo recordings starting quietly before reaching normal volume. + You can now send a recording report from Settings, under Recording. The button opens an email with levels and timings from your last three recordings, ready for you to review and send. No audio is included. + Measurements are captured when you press Stop. You can record, listen, and discard the recording without posting anything. Local Town Square: + Organizations can now have their own Local Town Square with a dedicated feed. Ask-alls are visible only to their members, with answers from others in the organization. + Join using an invite code from the organization running the square. Spaces, dashes, and capitalization do not affect the code. + Use the same recorder, playback, and VoiceOver rotor as elsewhere in Vorail.

Time Capsules: + With VoiceOver running, flick down to “Who is in this time capsule” to hear the full list of voices, starting with the count. This also works while a capsule is playing and tells you if no voices are listed. Recording: + Longer, fuller haptic pulses make recording feedback easier to feel: one pulse for recording, two for paused, and three for finished. + Recording now starts as soon as the beep ends, removing a delay that could cut off the start of your first word. Battery: + Fixed four sources of background battery drain. + A new one-press battery report at the bottom of Settings lets you send information about app usage and its effect on battery.

DirectTouch area (Car Mode): messaging someone is now as quick as answering. Sending a private message from the Questions or Answers feed used to open a recording screen over Car Mode, which can feel slow and cumbersome. Now it works exactly like adding an answer: choose "Message [name]", wait for the beep, say your message, swipe to finish, then double-tap to send. Same gestures, spoken every step of the way. Saying "message" and a person's name does the same thing, and keeps you in Car Mode instead of dropping you out of it.

Refresh, everywhere, however you like. Every feed can now be refreshed three ways: pull down on the list, pick Refresh from the ⋯ menu, or just say "refresh." Subscribed questions gained the Refresh button it was missing, and now answers the voice command too. Pull-to-refresh also works on the screens where it was quietly absent before — when a list is empty, or didn't load. Those are the ones you most want to refresh, so they now respond to the same pull as a full list. For VoiceOver users: the three-finger swipe down refreshes any feed, with the cursor anywhere in the list. The Refresh item in each ⋯ menu now mentions it, so it's there to find the first time you go looking.

When Vorail won't open, it now tells you why Vorail used to stop at "Recognizing you…" and then say only that something went wrong. Now it names the problem. If your phone can't reach Vorail's server, it says so and suggests turning Wi‑Fi off to try on mobile data, that one step tells you whether your network is the cause. Being offline, or the server having a bad moment, each get their own message, and every message shows an error code you can read back to us. Vorail asks iCloud who you are before it can open. If iCloud doesn't answer, Vorail now waits a few seconds and says so, pointing you to Settings, instead of waiting forever.

DirectTouch Area (Car Mode): + Double-tapping a private message in the Inbox now plays the entire message history with that person, oldest message first, with no menu and no need to look at the screen. + Vorail AI announces whose conversation it is and how many messages it contains, and introduces each message by who said it. + A three-finger swipe up returns to the Inbox.

VoiceOver improvements: + The ⋯ (More actions) button at the top of the screen is now announced consistently across all areas, including the Answers feed, Inbox, user profiles, and Questions feed. + This button is now labeled More actions rather than More to prevent confusion with the More tab located in the same bar on iPad. Direct touch (Car Mode): + In Car Mode, a double-tap now navigates directly to all answers for the current item, including questions, answers, or replies in the Inbox. + This removes the previous requirement to swipe up or down to select the Listen to all answers action before double-tapping. + If a specific action has been selected, a double-tap performs that chosen action, and the app announces the action that was performed. + Holding a finger down performs only the chosen action, preventing unintended activation from a hand resting on the device. + When there are no answers to play, a spoken reason is provided instead of the app remaining silent. + This functionality works across all four Car Mode feeds: Questions, Answers, Inbox, and Subscribed questions. Subscriptions: + Offer codes for organizations that share Vorail with their members can now be redeemed directly from the subscription screen. + A Redeem an Offer Code option is located next to Restore Purchases, which opens the standard App Store redemption screen. + Memberships activate immediately upon acceptance of the code by Apple.

Dedicated Podcast Feed: + Tapping a show's title (like "SmartLess" or "Modern Wisdom") in the Podcasts feed opens that show’s dedicated page. + Browse the latest releases, play full episodes straight from the publisher, or download them for offline listening. + VoiceOver users: Each episode acts as a single, easily navigable item. Double-tap to play, and use the actions rotor to quickly download or delete. See Who Asked the Question: + When browsing the "Asked" or "Answered" list on any profile, the app can now display who actually asked the question. + Turn this on by heading to Settings ▸ Display and toggling on "Show who asked, on profiles." Alternatively, simply say, "show who asked" or "hide who asked." + Member history is preserved: The name displayed is the exact name the asker was using on the day they posted. If they've changed their Vorail handle since then, the historical recording keeps their original name intact to reflect that specific moment in time. + Fully VoiceOver supported: The asker's name is read seamlessly between the date and the question. Other Fixes & Improvements: + Fixed a scroll jump issue. When navigating back from the "listen to all answers" full thread view, the profile feed will no longer instantly rocket back to the very top of the page, keeping the screen exactly where it was left.

Question titles: + Add a title to a previously asked question by opening your questions and choosing the add title option. + Titles appear in feeds, answer threads, and alerts to increase visibility. + Titles can only be added once to a question that never had one, and cannot be edited. Profile management: + Hide an old question or answer from your profile without deleting it. + Hidden items are removed from public profile lists but remain in your private lists as "Hidden" and can be restored anytime. + Audio recordings for hidden items continue to play in feeds, conversations, shared links, and on the profiles of users who answered. + Added "Hide or show on your profile" to the row's actions for managing item visibility. Car Mode: + Swipe down with two fingers to skip the spoken introduction and immediately start the recording. Settings: + Updated played-history syncing text for clarity. The menu now reads Settings, Sync played history, Sync Now, Last synced. + Added a note indicating the Legacy Vorail app maintains a separate record, with no changes to actual syncing functionality.

Recording Improvements: + Recording begins immediately when the beep sounds, eliminating delay and preventing audio cutoff at the start of a take. + Haptic feedback accompanies recording start, stop and pause tones on iPhone. Navigation: + A dedicated More tab occupies the fifth tab position, providing access to everything, including: Subscribed questions, Connections, Find people, Mute bin, Questions asked and answered, The Daily, The Journey, Car Mode, and Settings. + Tab order remains customizable in Settings > Tabs > Tab Order, where the top four items occupy the tab bar, the app opens to the first tab, and remaining screens are organized under the More tab. Feed Management: + "Mark all as played" is now available directly in the top menu on both the Questions and Answers feeds, with a confirmation prompt and marked count summary. + Action buttons at the top of feeds are standardized, placing Refresh first in the Inbox menu and Play All before Refresh on the Answers feed.

Direct Touch (Car Mode): + A short sound now plays in Car Mode when looping from the end of a feed back to the beginning, or vice versa. This indicates when the feed has restarted and works when navigating forwards, backwards, or while listening to all answers on a question. This feature uses the same sounds as the original Vorail app and can be disabled in Settings under Feeds or by using the voice command "loop sound off." + The two-finger tap gesture in Car Mode for increased playback speed is now customizable. The default double speed can be changed in Settings under Feeds. Car Mode's on-screen gesture list and spoken help dynamically update to state the chosen speed. Subscribed Questions in Car Mode: + A New Fourth Feed: Your subscribed questions are now in Car Mode. Previously, Car Mode could browse Questions, Answers, and your Inbox. The questions you've subscribed to are now a fourth feed alongside them, so you can catch up on the conversations you're following without looking at the screen. + Accessing the Feed: Reach it with a three-finger swipe, by choosing "Go to Subscribed questions" from the car mode action menu, or by saying "subscribed questions." Additionally, the Subscribed questions screen now has a car button that opens Car Mode right on that feed. + Audio Indicators: As each question is announced, you also hear how many unplayed answers it has had in the past 24 hours—the same count that the screen shows—so you know which conversations have moved. Subscribed Questions + Subscribed questions now remain in sync across multiple devices and platforms, including iOS and Android. The app quietly checks for subscription changes in the background each time it is opened, updating the status of subscribed or unsubscribed questions without requiring a full app restart.Here is the updated release notes document with the new section seamlessly integrated and formatted for readability:

VoiceOver: + Added an option in Settings to record via the device microphone while directing VoiceOver announcements and stereo audio to a connected Bluetooth device + Opening "Listen to all answers" now moves focus to the oldest unheard answer and keeps the focus on the active item during playback instead of returning to the tab bar + Simplified the listening screens by removing the redundant "Play or pause" option from the actions menu, which prevents VoiceOver from reading the title over the first seconds of audio. Double-tapping performs the same action without interrupting + Fixed an issue in the Time Capsule feed where VoiceOver focus would unexpectedly jump to the top of the page after playback started Car Mode (Direct Touch Area): + Swiping left while listening to a conversation plays the original question, and swiping left again jumps directly to the most recent answer. Swiping past either end of the list now wraps around instead of exiting the conversation + Added a three-finger swipe up gesture to navigate back from a question's answers directly to the previous feed Inbox: + Clearing a large Inbox now displays the maximum number of items it can show, along with a progress bar and a Stop button + Upon finishing a batch, the app automatically checks the server and offers to dissolve any remaining items waiting behind the first batch + Resolved a server syncing issue that could previously cause dissolved items to reappear in the Inbox Time Capsules: + Cursor focus now remains on the active capsule during playback and advances when the story ends + Swiping to another capsule pauses the current story rather than stopping it, allowing playback to resume from the exact stopping point with a double tap Playback and History: + The "Hide played items" feature retains history much longer by tracking questions and answers separately, preventing long conversations from crowding out previously heard questions + Items played in the Inbox are now marked as played globally and will not appear as unplayed in other feeds + Added a Catch up section in Settings to mark all items currently in the Questions or Answers feed as played + Added a Played history screen in The Lab to view tracked playback data and diagnostic information, for troubleshooting purposes

Car Mode (DirectTouch) improvements: + Car Mode is now accessible with one tap from the More menu in Questions, Answers, and the Inbox, opening directly to the feed currently being viewed. + Swiping up or down to choose an action now automatically pauses the active clip so the action name does not talk over the audio. Tapping resumes playback. + Selecting "Listen to all answers" now skips the replay of the original question and immediately begins playing the answers. Playback and Settings updates: + A new "Startup tab" picker in Settings allows selection of a default launch screen. Choosing Car Mode opens the app ready for gestures, and exiting drops you onto your next tab. + The Questions feed Play All feature has been updated to play each question followed directly by its associated answers. + The device screen now stays awake during long clips, Play All sequences, and while Car Mode is active, preventing the phone from locking and hiding playback controls. This feature can be toggled in Settings under Feeds. + A Play All button is now available on user profiles and in private message histories, allowing hands-free listening of all asked questions, answered questions, or message threads. Other VoiceOver & DirectTouch improvements: + Car Mode (DirectTouch) now retains full control of screen gestures. Brushing the top of the screen will no longer accidentally trigger the Exit button and hand control back to VoiceOver. Exiting can be done via the swipe-up menu, a two-finger scrub, or a voice command. + Actions menus for Subscribed questions, Blocked questions, and Blocked titles have been cleaned up to remove duplicate entries. The action that removes an item is now placed at the bottom of the list to prevent accidental selections. + Starting Play All anywhere in the app now places the VoiceOver cursor directly on the playing item instead of dropping focus elsewhere. Playback also begins instantly without the first item being read twice. + Playing a clip in a message history now keeps the VoiceOver cursor anchored to the active message instead of jumping to the top of the list. Swiping to a different message now stops the current audio.

VoiceOver improvements: + Focus remains on the current item after a clip finishes playing rather than sometimes returning to the top of the screen + Rotor actions apply to the currently playing clip during auto-play instead of the initial cursor position + The reply screen announces the specific question or name being replied to, which can help posting an answer in the wrong conversation + Sign in with Apple provides spoken feedback if a sign-in attempt is cancelled + Sign in with Apple includes a spoken cue while verifying the device + Sign in with Apple provides actionable spoken guidance when notifications need to be enabled Direct touch (car mode): + Inbox is available alongside the Questions and Answers feeds + Three finger swipe left or right changes feeds and tabs + Three finger swipe down refreshes the current feed + Navigate to the Inbox directly using the voice command go to inbox + Inbox items including messages, incoming questions, and new answers are read aloud and play automatically + Reply action operates eyes-free by recording after an audio cue and swiping to finish + Voice or touch actions include Reply, Dissolve, Listen to all answers, View all messages, Mute, Block, and open a profile + Auto-play next setting allows consecutive clips to be announced and played automatically until the feed ends + Review menu offers say a title for hands-free entry or type a title via the keyboard when finishing a new ask-all Time capsules: + Create an ask-all based on the time capsule by recording your own introduction to it, that is combined with the capsule into a single recording for the Questions feed + Answer a capsule to join the original conversation + Listen to all answers to hear the full conversation including new responses + Access time capsules in The Lab under Explore or by using the voice command: "time capsules" Account access: + Sign in with Apple now checks for the required notification permissions upfront + Prompting provides a direct shortcut to Settings if notifications are disabled

This update includes important security enhancements around creating new ask-alls.