We opened Tact private beta and the project website in early 2021. Today, we are entering the next phase of Tact evolution, in the form of public beta. Tact is now in public beta.

Get the software

‍For iOS, join our public beta TestFlight.

For macOS, download directly from this link.

Share your bug reports and ideas

‍Visit the Tact public beta community site on Github.

Tell your friends

Share Tact with your friends, so you actually have someone to chat with. In the Tact app, go to “New Chat“, “New Direct Message”. You then get a Tact invitation link that you can share with your friends, even if they don’t yet have Tact.

Write us directly

‍If there’s anything you’d like to discuss that you don’t feel belongs in the public discussion area, you can always write to us at support@justtact.com.


What’s the difference between Tact private beta and public beta?

‍Two things.

First, how you obtain the Tact software. During private beta, you had to e-mail us to make the case for joining. We’d receive your e-mail, add you to our beta by hand, and manually reply to you with the download links and more information. Everyone that you’d like to chat with in Tact had to follow the same process, which is obviously not ideal.

The public beta of Tact is “self service”. You no longer need to e-mail us to ask to join. For iOS, you simply join our public beta TestFlight with this link. For macOS, you can directly download the app here. The macOS app has an auto-update facility, so it automatically prompts you to install new builds as we release them.

The second difference between public and private betas: we’re now more open about what Tact looks like and how we build it. For starters, you see what it looks like on justtact.com. We also have opened our Github community site at github.com/tact/public. On that site, we provide technical information, issue reporting, and a discussion area to help you make the most of Tact during our public beta, and help us improve it.

Didn’t you say previously you want to launch a paid product? What’s with the public beta?

‍Our initial plan was to go straight to iOS and macOS App Store with public version of Tact, which includes payment. This remains our goal and our next milestone, but we introduced the additional step of public beta for two reasons.

First, figuring out the exact product packages, implementing the subscription payment, and making sure it all works well are bits of work we just haven’t yet done. We’ve so far focused on the main product features and quality and decided to tackle the payment as our next thing, while the rest of the communication features of Tact are already usable and testable.

Secondly, the product quality is not yet fully there. Tact is entirely usable for daily communications, but there are more details we’d like to fix and polish before we can in good conscience ask for payment. So we decided to open the full Tact experience to the public in the form of public beta, and ask for your assistance in testing and polishing it.

When will you launch the public paid version of Tact?

‍When the product is ready. We aren’t under external time pressure to do so, but also, we can’t endlessly finance and bootstrap the project ourselves. We expect to have more news on this some time in 2022. ‍

How has Tact evolved in 2021? What have you accomplished during the private beta period?

‍On the product side, we have solidified the technical foundation, outlined the Tact character and experience, figured out our design system, and implemented many features, from the obvious (create 1:1 and group chats, upload large pictures and files both from the main app and iOS share extension in a stable and reliable manner, “like” everything) to the quirky and unique (emoji mood and emote).

On the team side, we’ve assembled a small close-knit team of designers and engineers who greatly enjoy working on Tact and would very much like to continue with your support and blessing. To date, we’ve operated in a bit of vacuum, which feels lonely at times. One of our goals with the public beta is to get some external feedback and validation to keep us going.