Your Tana in your pocket

Installing it and signing in

The iPhone app is a beta in Apple's TestFlight, for iOS 26 or later. On the Mac, press ⌘K and pick Install mobile app: the Help tour opens on its phone page with a code to scan and the TestFlight link (First steps shows it). On the iPhone, the link is testflight.apple.com/join/wgcnRVKx.

The first time you open it, Orbital shows Tana's own sign-in, the one you use on the Mac. Once you are in, it opens on the Timeline. If Tana cannot be reached, or has not answered in 30 seconds while the Timeline builds itself, the app says Can't reach Tana with Try again; Details shows what sign-in and loading did, to copy or share when something goes wrong. When Tana answers late after all, the Timeline appears by itself.

There is no iPad version. For Android, see Android.

The Timeline

The app opens on the Timeline, drawn as the Mac draws it (Chapter 5): a rail with the time on the left and what happened on the right. At the top, by Now, sit Today's Tasks, the free time before your next meeting, counted down, and Upcoming meetings with their times and the faces of who is coming. Under them come the days: Today, Yesterday and the days before, newest first. A blue dot marks what is new. Titles you hid on the Mac (Edit hidden items), like Block or Lunch, stay out of all of it.

• Tap a task's box to tick it off or back on; the phone gives a short buzz when it is done. An Inbox task has a dashed box, and its first tap accepts it.
• Tap the words of any row to open it (below).
• Pull down to read the Timeline again, and Show three more days at the foot reaches further back.

The Timeline you saw last is on screen the moment the app opens, while Orbital connects to Tana; the page building itself shows only the very first time.

Long press a row

A long press on a task or a node opens what you can do with it, as a right-click does on the Mac:

• Assign to … lists your workspace's people, searchable; a tap gives the task to that person alone, and Unassigned takes everyone off it. When the person cannot open the task, Orbital asks once: Grant access shares it with them, Keep private leaves it as it is.
• Your linked agent (Settings) is at the top of Assign to …, under its own name, like Echo; on a note it is all the list has. A tap asks what it should do: write it, or tap the microphone to say it, and tap Assign. The sheet closes at once and the + turns while the request is on its way, so you can go on; if the agent does not take it, Orbital says why and the sheet opens with your words the next time. It reads the node in Tana and keeps its last line saying how it is going, as on the Mac (Chapter 11). While it has the node it is ticked, and a tap on it takes it back, as Unassigned does.
• Move to Inbox sends an accepted task back to the Inbox.
• Pin to Today puts it in Today's Tasks; on a pinned node it reads Remove Pin.
• Mark as Sensitive hides its words (below); Not Sensitive shows them again.
• Delete moves it to Tana's trash, where you are allowed to delete it.

The menu and your saved searches

The ☰ button at the top left opens the menu, and so does a sideways swipe anywhere on the page. The menu lists the Timeline and, under it, your saved searches (Chapter 7), each with the icon you gave it on the Mac. A tap opens one; a tap on the page beside the menu, or a swipe back, closes it.

To change their order, long press a search and drag it. The order stays on this iPhone; the Mac's sidebar keeps its own. The gear at the foot opens Settings.

A saved search opens as its rows, in the sections it was saved with: here My open tasks, grouped by Inbox and Mine, with when each changed and who has it. The rows sit close together with no lines between them, closer still under a heading.

Opening a node

A tap on a row, a mention or a reference opens that node over the page, and the back button at the top left returns. What you see depends on what it is:

• A document or a task shows its outline, every row unfolded. You read it here; writing in it is for the Mac. A mention in it opens the node it names. Above the outline, Assigned to and Visible to say who has it and who can see it, and a tap changes either, with the same Grant access question as Assign to. Handed to your Dot, it also shows Agent, its name and how it is going (Assigned, Working, Completed or Failed); a tap asks it again or unassigns it.
• A meeting lists the documents it holds, such as its notes and write-up.
• A chat shows the conversation (below).
• A saved search shows its rows, as from the menu.

With Auto-translate on, a note in another language reads in yours, with a small translate glyph to say so.

Ask Tana and chats

The box at the foot of the Timeline, Ask Tana, starts a chat with Tana's AI. Type a question and tap the blue arrow: the chat opens at once, and Tana's answer appears as it is written, after three dots. The box in a chat, Follow up, carries the conversation on. Your messages sit in blue on the right; Tana's are written across the page, with what it did while thinking in grey and the documents it touched as chips you can tap.

While you type, the box also has a microphone: tap it and speak, tap ■ to stop or ✕ to throw the recording away, and your words land in the box to send. Your ChatGPT account writes them down, so the first time it asks you to sign in with ChatGPT and to allow the microphone.

Chapter 12 covers chats on the Mac, where the same conversations open.

Quick Add

The + at the top right is Quick Add, as ⇧⌘Space is on the Mac. Type the task's title, or tap the microphone to say it, and pick its Type: a plain Task or one of your workspace's workflow types. Under Details you choose who it is Assigned to (you, unless you pick someone), switch on Pin to today, and fill in the type's own fields. Opened on a saved search, Quick Add starts with that search's type and values, so the new task shows up in it.

Add closes the card at once, and a thin ring turns around the + while Tana makes the task, so you can add the next one meanwhile. Only Cancel closes the card without adding; a swipe down does not, so a stray swipe never loses what you typed.

From an image

Under Image, Process image from Photos and Process image from clipboard hand a picture to the AI with your ChatGPT account: a receipt, a whiteboard or a screenshot becomes a task or a note, with a title, the lines worth keeping and the image under it, then opens. The clipboard row shows only while you have copied an image.

From the share sheet

In any app, Share → Orbital sends what you shared: words or a link open Quick Add with them in the title, and an image is read straight away into a task or a note, the + turning while it is.

Widgets, Siri and Shortcuts

Orbital's widgets show what the app read last, so open the app now and then to keep them fresh. Add them as any widget, with a long press on the Home Screen:

• Today's Tasks (small, medium, large): the tasks pinned to today. Tap a box to tick it off; Orbital opens and writes it to Tana.
• Today's Tasks and Upcoming Meetings (medium, large): the top of the Timeline on its rail, with + for Quick Add.
• Activity (medium, large): what happened to your tasks and meetings, day by day.
• Quick Add on the Lock Screen: a new task in one tap.

Siri knows Orbital without any setup: say "Add a task in Orbital", "What's on today in Orbital", "List my tasks in Orbital", "Check off … in Orbital" or "Open … in Orbital". The Shortcuts app has the same actions to build with: Add Task (pinned to today or not), Check Off Task, Uncheck Task, Pin Task to Today, Open Task, Today's Tasks and List Tasks. Spotlight finds the tasks the widgets show. Whatever changes a task opens Orbital to do it, since the app is what writes to Tana.

Sensitive items and demo mode

What you marked sensitive, on the Mac or with a long press here, shows as grey bars where its words were, and a sensitive node opens on a page that says Hidden. Shake your iPhone to show it all; shake again to hide it. Where you cannot shake the phone, Show sensitive items in Settings does the same until Orbital closes.

Demo mode, in Settings, shows made-up words and names in place of yours, for showing Orbital to someone. Nothing is saved to Tana while it is on. Chapter 14 covers both on the Mac.

Settings

The gear at the foot of the menu opens Settings:

• Tana: the account you are signed in with.
• ChatGPT: Sign in with ChatGPT for the AI on the phone (reading images, dictating, Auto-translate). The sign-in stays on this iPhone. Signed in, Models picks the Quick and the Regular AI and how hard each thinks, the same choices as on the Mac (Chapter 15).
• Agents: the agents you linked, and Connect your personal agent, the Mac's page for linking one (Chapter 11): under Add both plugins the Orbital and Tana addresses to add to your agent (a tap copies one), and the ? beside them opens the steps, first for your OpenAI Dot in ChatGPT, then for any other agent. Then Copy the instructions with their code, while the page waits for your agent to use it. Swipe an agent right for Make Default, the one at the top of Assign to, or left to Unlink it, which also takes back the nodes it had. An agent linked here is linked on your Mac too, and the other way round.
• Orbital: Auto-translate, the language notes are shown in, shared with the Mac; Demo mode; Show sensitive items; and the app's Version.
• Log out of Tana, and Log out of ChatGPT when you are signed in to it.

Android

Orbital for Android has the same Timeline, menu, Quick Add and widgets as the iPhone, for Android 10 or later. It is not in Google Play: install it with Obtainium, which installs Orbital from its releases on GitHub and offers each new one as an update. On the Mac, press ⌘K, pick Install mobile app and then Android (First steps shows it), and scan the code with Obtainium on the phone; or add https://github.com/foeken/orbital in Obtainium yourself. You can also download Orbital-android.apk and install it by hand, allowing your browser to install apps when Android asks. Google Play Protect may say it does not recognise the app; you can still install it.

Its three widgets, Today's Tasks, Today's Tasks and Upcoming Meetings and Activity, go on the home screen, the lock screen and a Galaxy Z Flip's cover screen.