Important! Backup your lists elsewhere beforehand. You will lose all your data in the downgrade process.
To backup you data, in Safari go to this url
clear://export-data
This should open Clear 2 and prompt you to export your current Clear 2.x lists (but not rewards progress etc.) You can save the document file in Files app, and ‘share’ it from there into Clear 2.x to import them.
Next, installing the older version.
You can delete the new version and try installing the older version using Apple Configurator. Here is a backup of Clear 1.17.11 I’ve made for myself: Dropbox - Clear 1.7.11.ipa - Simplify your life
Keep in mind, I don’t know if it’s tied to my Apple ID specifically or not, this will not work if it is.
If this doesn’t work, then unfortunatelly you’ll have to return to using Clear 2.
Mind editing your post to include this info, any other ideas to clarify/make this explicit and unmissable would be helpful:
clear://export-data will export your current Clear 2.x lists (but not rewards progress etc.) You can save the document file in Files app, and ‘share’ it from there into Clear 2.x to import them.
I am ok with people trying but I have to say, the minute someone posts here confused having lost their data without a way we can rescue it for them… might have to remove. And if anyone sends me support messages, I will need to forward them to you. But I like the idea of this helping some of the hardcore traditionalists and I appreciate you trying to help others here.
Would it be hard to include rewards progress too, as well as (especially) all our Themes, Icons, Fonts, Quotes and Sounds?.. I would hate to lose them. Thanks!
This is a support URL for emergency cases, our priority for Clear 2.x on that front will be wrapping up a simple iCloud daily backup/restore system that will include progression and collection etc.
Good suggestion, I’ve updated my post with the backup instructions.
Also, Phill, please, can I ask you to stop saying this
People like me love classic Clear for a number of very specific reasons and you basically are asking us to start loving a completely different app instead.
I’ll make a car analogy. We had a sports car that we loved dearly and sure, it’s been starting to show its age a little, but it still mostly did what we loved… Then you went and took our fun car away and replaced it with a shiny new one, but it’s a front wheel drive econobox.
And sure, most will ask what are we on about, it’s a new car, it’s got four wheels, it’s even the same colour. But to a petrolhead, a front wheel drive econobox will never compare to a sports car, because they feel completely different.
I don’t know why it’s been decided to overwrite the old app instead of hiding it from sale and releasing the new one separately, like 1Password did for example. Would have avoided all this headache thats for sure. Anyway, it is what it is now. We all will just have to live with it.
Well… one analogy I’ve been thinking of lately is Mac OS 9 > Mac OS X, though obviously indie scale, but also with our very limited indie budgets.
Obviously it would’ve been better to have been able to support both for years etc. as Apple was able to do, but also, we can’t afford to commit that level of support
My hope is a meaningful amount of people come back/fall in love over time, in the same way that maybe it took Mac OS X a few years to mature but I would hope most Mac OS 9 holdouts ultimately came back and found much to love in the new generation vs. abandoning Apple entirely for Windows. And that the new Clear is welcoming to a new generation like Mac OS X and the colorful iMacs were for Apple at that time.
I can’t speak for you personally, like you truly seem like you want things exactly the same, no change ever. But I do think there’s a good amount of people in the boat I allude to.
Honestly, for years my expected level of support for classic Clear was at the level of being told it has been sunset and is no longer being worked on. And a link to a new one if I’d like after its release. Especially after hiding the classic one from the store.
I am most definitely not. I was quite excited about one of the betas that introduced a number of cool new gestures as well as some missing old ones.
But then something changed and it went in a completely opposite direction. First, all those new gestures were shelved, then that tap area above home bar was added, then even classic gestures were gimped further. And now, new Clear is almost a checkbox in front on an item away from being just like any other listing app on the app store, but with less features. At least to my eyes.
Anyway. Point being, to me, Clear is a gesture driven UI first and foremost in its nature. And I expected for new Clear to push this concept even further, and up to a certain point in the beta it did. But this new, and arguably much less interesting direction, on top of a number of other small niggles I had, is whats making me react the way I am to new Clear.
Oh ok, my bad I had forgotten there was something in the beta you were excited by. I mean, the personalizable gestures + actions/shortcuts I’m still interested in (p.s. the kind of thing I wish we had focused on to start in early Clear 1.x roadmap vs. diving immediately into other platforms/sync), but it was such a big jump in scope that we felt we had to rein it in towards the end vs. biting off more than we can initially chew for this launch.
But in theory, that’s the kind of thing that could maybe get you on board again in the future. It’s certainly not ruled out and I still think does fit the personalizable theme of the new design. My main concern is it’s a lot, and it felt wrong to rush it for this release because as you can see, it’s so difficult to put something out there and take anything back, or change it once people are used to it.
Yeah, I loved that particular beta’s direction. I also loved the use of emojis throughout the app at the time. And I love haptics, sound effects and fonts in the new one.
That’s what got me and kept me on board in the first place. So if there is ever a version that further develops the gesture interaction concept as a core of the app like og Clear, I’ll jump right back in.
Though to be absolutely clear, I’m the worst possible customer for your current monetization model, since I don’t care about cosmetics (Heatmap theme is all I will probably ever want). And I don’t do subscriptions for standalone apps out of principle (Still pissed at Apple for effectively killing the upgrade business model).
Ok. I’ll stop now. I’ve shared all the feedback and thoughts I could here and on twitter, do what you will with it and best of luck.
Appreciate it man. And the business model thing isn’t an issue, we know with it it’s never something 100% of our base will ever engage with. We just need enough people who regularly use Clear and love it (and get ongoing value out of it) to support us through it. If we win you back someday maybe you can pick up an app icon or theme that strikes your fancy to support us and then can happily ignore the shop moving forward.
I used Clear for years and enjoyed how I can see it in various ipads and iphones.
Then Clear stopped syncing and the common advice was to delete the app and reinstall which would have deleted my data.
After some fidgiting, Idecided to use the Microsoft OneNote and type in everything from the Clear app.
Without looking too deeply seems that Clear has added more colours and animations.
I suggested an export option a few times but heard nothing.
I won’t use Clear if there are no import/export options as I have yo
Hey sorry about the sync. I wish I had been able to help you with the export question earlier, there is a ‘screenshot to share’ function in the new Clear that pops up plain text for the list, you can tap this to share plain text out.
(And similarly you can paste simple text lists like that into Clear using iOS paste for a new item in a list, I do this sometimes typing a list on Mac notes and iCloud pasting it to Clear phone.)
Nope. We are under the impression that you took something that we owned without warning/asking or giving any choice, rand eplaced it with some joke of an app.
No, we just invested a lot over the years in rebuilding it so it could actually live. In fact we have been subsidizing fixes and work on 1.x just to keep it alive and on the store for years while working on new codebase, so it could make it alive to this transition.
This is a second chance for Clear, that in no way was destined to happen for it. It took a lot of work and a lot of going out on a limb.
Before the new version there was basically no new people or money coming in like this for 8+ years. Clear 1.x was doomed…
I get that your reaction comes from a place of loving the original design, that is why I am engaging with you here, because I love Clear too. I know we both want this app to be thriving ten years out.
But it’s like you’re hugging the app so hard exactly how it was 12 years ago. Clear is suffocating, and we need some space to adapt for the future.
Finally I do apologize about not properly communicating this to you all on 1.x in advance including the update, sync regression, and amount of change. We really messed up there… no question.
Paying for an app 10 years ago doesn’t mean you own the code. The old app was bleeding out and needed a reason to be. What you consider a joke of an app most people seem happily involved with and are just happy it’s getting attention again.
I’ve used clear since day 1 as well and I just don’t see how it’s so radically different that it’s “a joke” or “clownish” etc etc. The core of what CLEAR was is there with room to grow. The main difference is iCloud sync currently and I get that some people feel that’s the end all be all but even CLEAR 1.0 didn’t have that function.
In the end if you have auto update turned on in iOS expect disappointment eventually no matter what apps you use. People seem to expect the world yet won’t take the time to read release notes before manually hitting the update button. Why?
We all bought CLEAR 10 years ago. I’d say we got our moneys worth and we still “own” it. I was glad to test all the betas and be a part of that and hell, I’m just glad to see it still among the living. The other option would be one day waking up to use CLEAR and find it doesn’t work at all. That’s where it was headed.
I had the same idea like you, but unfortunately
I have no copy of my version of the clear .ipa.
Did you made a backup some times ago so you had a copy of yours?
So I tried your version, and you’re right, it sticks to your Apple ID, so it can’t be used. But I try to kick your Apple ID out, well, might be a kind of crack. So after that, the version should run. But it’s none of my core competence. Maybe it takes a while.
Yeah, a week or so before the update. Decided to make a backup after they told us they were gonna nuke the old Clear. (Hate when people do this btw, especially for major redesigns.)
And, that means fairplay drm is already in place when the app is downloaded from apples servers huh. TIL, thanks.
Thanks! 
