Birthdays, remembered.

Birthdays come in with mates you add from Contacts, and you can type one in by tapping Edit on a mate’s page. Don’t know it? A mate with no birthday has an Ask button that opens your chat with “when’s your birthday?” already typed, and counts as a catch-up. When they answer, tap Add it on their page. You then get a reminder the day before and on the day.

Yes. On a mate’s page, tap Write their birthday text and save it, and their birthday on Today says your text is ready. On the day, Send Wishes on the reminder opens your chat with your words already typed. When you come back, the check-in is waiting with “Birthday wishes” filled in, so one tap counts it as a catch-up. Once the birthday has passed the text clears itself.

Send a belated one: it still lands. The morning after a birthday with no catch-up logged, a card on Today offers Send a belated wish, with a late birthday message ready in your chat. If you already wished them another way, tap Already did and it’s logged on their birthday. After three days it goes quiet.

Yes. Open a mate’s page, tap Important Dates, and tap a date to change it. Under Remind me, pick On the day, Day before, Week before or Both (a week before and on the day, which is where every date starts). A yearly date with a year says how long it’s been, like “10th anniversary” or “Turns 4”.

Yes. Turn on Show Dates in Calendar under Calendar in Settings and every birthday and important date goes into a calendar called Howdy Mate!, kept in step as you change them. Birthdays already on a contact card stay in iOS’s own Birthdays calendar, so nothing shows twice. Turn the switch off and the calendar is removed.

The anniversary of the day you met a mate. Edit a mate and set “Met on”, and Howdy Mate! marks the big ones: one, two, three, five and ten years, then every five. It shows on Today as it gets close (“10 years of friendship”), the day itself brings one reminder at your usual time, and a swipe of the row opens a friendiversary postcard.

Yes, for Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary, France and Italy. If your iPhone is set to one of those countries the name-day calendar is already on, and anyone can pick one under Settings, Notifications, Name days. Each mate’s first name is matched to the calendar (Kasia counts as Katarzyna, Peppe is Giuseppe), and on the day you get a reminder with a name-day postcard ready to send.

Yes. From 1 December, Today shows a Holiday hellos card. Pick Happy holidays or Happy New Year and one of three hand-drawn winter postcards. Mates you’ve drifted from are already ticked and close mates aren’t, since they’ll hear from you anyway. The hellos are spread a few a day, each one a text of its own with the card attached. Nothing is sent for you.

Open their page, tap the ••• menu and choose “They’ve passed away”. Every nudge and reminder for them stops, and everything you logged together stays. Their page says “In memory” and they move to a Remembered list in Settings. If you like, one notification a year on their birthday says you’re thinking of them, and you can pick others in their group to check on. Nothing is set up unless you choose it.