What's next?

Published: June 5, 2024

Capacities has changed a lot in the last few months! Since our last roadmap update we’ve shipped:

• Capacities Pro
• Tables in Capacities for all users
• A big Menu redesign
• Many usability and UX improvements
• Capacities API & Raycast integration

Here’s what’s currently right around the corner:

• The general release of our updated and much improved mobile app to the iOS app store and Google Play store for everyone.
• The first version of our Web clipper is waiting for approval in browser extension stores.
• Our first version of AI semantic search is currently in the test phase. Semantic search will enable some very cool related features.

Current big projects

Commitment to making Capacities an offline-first application

We recently committed to transforming Capacities into an offline-first application. This was a big step, and here’s why. Offline-first for us means that you can work with Capacities on your device without access to the internet.

We decided to prioritize this for two reasons: First, nobody likes loading spinners. We want the tools we use to work at the speed of our thoughts. Waiting interrupts our flow and our focus, and that’s unacceptable for us. Second, thousands of people rely on Capacities to get critical work done every day. Technology should never stop you from doing that.

You can already use Capacities without an internet connection today, but not all features are available. We’re gradually introducing more offline support over time. If you’re interested, you can read about our roadmap here: https://docs.capacities.io/misc/offline-support

Developing a Beta version of our tablet app (early access for Believers)

We will soon start developing our tablet app and aim to release a beta version for all Believers as fast as possible.

Bringing the time dimension to the next level

Time plays an important role in our everyday work. Here’s what we have planned:

• Date property 2.0: End date and additional settings for dates.
• New date picker with great mobile support and intuitive handling.
• Calendar integrations: Connect your calendars (Google Calendar, Outlook), see events in the Capacities calendar, and quickly create objects prefilled with event information

Media types 2.0

Working with media is an essential part of knowledge work. We see huge potential to bring working with media in Capacities to the next level. These improvements will be split into several releases that will be released sequentially. Here’s what we have planned:

• Overhaul of all existing media types: Standardized views, image zooming, better PDF rendering, audio transcription, a global audio player, and much more!
• Media x Search x AI: Each media type has the potential to be made dramatically more useful with the help of search and AI technologies. Next to UI and usability improvements, this will be the main focus point of our overhaul of media within Capacities. Some examples would be searching the content of images or PDFs, automatically generated descriptions for images or transcription for audio files.
• Video object type: Video will allow you to save YouTube videos and more as your own object types, enabling you to watch them inside Capacities and take notes.
• Email object type: You will be able to send emails to Capacities and save them as email objects. You will be able to take notes, tag them, and search their content.
• A note on media annotations: We decided to move media annotations further back on our roadmap as there are more important features and improvements we should add to Capacities first. This also includes reader integrations. Nevertheless, it will stay on our roadmap and will be added at some point.

Deeper AI assistant integration & smart context

AI is going to be a real game changer for your knowledge work, there’s no question, and we are fully aware of the immense potential. Here are some high-level points on the next steps as they stand right now, subject to change. As not all users wish to use AI for their notes, we offer our AI functionalities on an opt-in basis.

Our immediate focus is on building a robust infrastructure to serve as a solid foundation. This groundwork will enable the following key functionalities:

• AI-Based Semantic Content Search: Implementing AI-driven search capabilities to understand and retrieve content based on its meaning, not just keywords.
• Auto-Suggestions for Related Content: Introducing a semantic-level feature for suggesting related content as another dimension next to our existing backlink section.
• Great search experience combining various methods of search: Developing a streamlined interface that integrates multiple methods of searching (title-based, full-text, and AI-based semantic search).
• Interactive AI-Driven Space Exploration: Enabling users to ask questions and engage in conversations with the entire content space. This includes setting fine-grained, multi-content contexts for AI-driven chats.
• Deep Media Integration: Fully incorporating various media types into the system, optimizing their relevance compared to user-written primary content.

Next up

The following are features and improvements we have concrete plans for but will most likely not be ready in the next couple of months.

Importing from other note-taking apps

While bulk import is still a higher priority for us, there are technical reasons why we need to complete offline mode first. The offline capabilities will mean way less load for our servers and synchronization system. We will also be able to resolve all queries locally. These changes will be especially important when users import large workspaces with hundreds of notes from other apps.

Reader integrations and Annotations

Reader integrations: Integration with readers (such as Readwise Reader) is highly requested in knowledge work. The challenge is to harmonize it with daily notes, objects, and our API services while considering a comprehensive annotation system.

Comprehensive annotation system: We plan a unified concept for annotations across different media and content types. This includes footnotes, highlights, and comments for personal content and media, as well as snippets and highlights from reader integrations.

Simple task management within Capacities

Task actions already allow you to delegate tasks to your task manager of choice, where you can then manage all your tasks the way you want.

Task management in Capacities will be a simple and pragmatic solution with a special object type for tasks. It will integrate seamlessly into the interface and existing concepts. It will give you a birds-eye view of all your open tasks within your notes and several additional organizational properties that will work for most people in most scenarios.

We don’t plan to turn Capacities into a full-blown task manager with all kinds of special use cases. We’ll keep it simple and will offer an option to deactivate it completely.

Our values & long-term commitment

And finally, a couple of words about what drives us and where the company is heading.

Continuous effort towards simplicity and ease of use

We want to stress how important simplicity and ease of use are to us. We see this as a continuous effort, and we’ll aim for it whether we are improving existing features or developing new ones. We want to offer a system that just works for most users and requires the minimum effort to set up. As part of this, we will work on a great onboarding experience and faster ways to set up your workflows. We will also ship continuous improvements based on user feedback. And we will work on performance.

Our vision for Capacities

We envision Capacities as the best “thinking environment” for individuals. We want to enable people to spend more time in a calm place where we can capture, process, think, work, and create amazing things. We want to remove any friction and be a tool that is as useful as possible for you. We want to achieve this goal before we do anything else.

We remain convinced that a relentless focus on users and individuals is best guaranteed by staying an independent and sustainable company, and we are on a great track for that.

Capacities as a company

We already achieved a lot. We’re so grateful for our users and the enthusiasm, excitement, and constructive feedback from our users and the community. We both would have never expected so many positive vibes for our work. Thank you all for being part of this journey.

We’re happy to announce that we remain a sustainable and growing business. Due to the incredible support from all Capacities Believers and Pro subscribers, we continue to expand our team.

Beth (PKMBeth) is now a full-time employee at Capacities. We’re also in the process of adding Luca as a full-time employee to the frontend dev team.

Thank you all for making this possible. We’re so excited for what will come. 🚀