Flexibits’ contact app Cardhop gets fresh revamp, added to Fantastical subscription

Flexibits — best known for its popular calendar application, Fantastical — has a new, overhauled version of its contact management application Cardhop out today, which updates the app with new features and a fresh coat of paint.

But most importantly, like Fantastical before it, Cardhop is also switching to a subscription model. The contact app is being added for free to the existing Fantastical Premium subscription that Flexibits introduced last year. And to mark that expanded scope, Fantastical Premium is also getting a new name: Flexibits Premium.

The original Mac and iOS versions of Cardhop previously cost $19.99 and $4.99, respectively. However, similar to Fantastical, Flexibits will now be offering a more limited, free version of both of those applications to anyone, with more advanced functionality (including many of the new features being introduced with the new version of the app) locked to subscribers.

Flexibits, crucially, isn’t changing the price of its subscription program to go with the newly added app. Flexibits Premium will still cost $4.99 a month or $39.99 a year for an individual user, or $7.99 per month or $64.99 per year for up to five family members.

Existing Cardhop owners will still be able to access any features that were already present in their existing apps from before the switch to the subscription model without having to pay (also similar to the Fantastical switch). They just won’t get any major new features going forward.

Cardhop 2.0 does add a variety of new features, though. There’s a new Relationships mode, which can generate family trees for contacts that you’ve set relationships between or — if you have Google or Office 365 accounts linked — org charts.

The iOS version of Cardhop has a new business card scanning feature, which does exactly what it says on the can, and there are new widgets for both macOS and iOS that can be customized to add quick links to call, text, or interact with a contact using any of Cardhop’s actions. (Want a link to quickly FaceTime a friend? Now you can.)

And given that Cardhop and Fantastical are now bundled together, there are also some deeper ties with the Flexibits calendar app. A new “Invite with Fantastical” action makes it easy to invite contacts (or whole groups of contacts) to events. Scanning a business card also gives an option to quickly follow up with an instant calendar meeting.

The new version of Cardhop is available to download now for Mac, iPhone, and iPad.