Making plans shouldn't be this hard.
Middle Ground is an iPhone app for the plans you make with other people. Dinner. The weekend. Who's actually free on Thursday.
The problem
Having the idea is easy. Making it happen is not.
"Dinner Friday?" turns into eleven messages, two maybes, and no booking. Nobody said no. The plan just never became a decision, and then it scrolled away.
Group chats are great for talking. They're terrible for deciding.
What the app does
Ask properly
Send a real invitation with a time and a place. It gets a yes or a no. It doesn't get ignored.
Suggest another time
Can't do Friday? Offer Sunday. If they say yes, the plan moves to Sunday. No re-reading the thread.
Ask if it happened
Afterwards, the app checks in. Over time you get an honest picture of who actually shows up.
More than two of you
Send a plan to the whole group. One person dropping out doesn't cancel the night for everyone else.
Talk it through
Ask a question about a plan without accidentally changing it. Replies tuck under the message they answer.
A friendly scoreboard
In a group of friends, see who turns up most. Never between two people — that one stays off, on purpose.
Somewhere to sit
Once you've agreed on a place, book it in a tap. The time and the number of you are already filled in.
Spot the clashes
It quietly checks your calendar and warns you if you're already busy. Your calendar never leaves your phone.
Say when you're not free
Block out a day and your group sees it. Only the days you block — never your actual calendar.
Make it count
Both of you can put points on a plan happening. Show up and you both win them back.
"I'm five minutes away"
Share where you are around the time of a plan. One tap, no tracking, and it's gone afterwards.
What we won't do
The hard decisions in an app about relationships are the ones about what to leave out.
Couples never get scored. Friends get a scoreboard. Couples never do — not as a setting, as a rule the app won't let you turn on. A score your partner can throw back at you isn't feedback, it's ammunition. Two people are two people whatever you label the group, so the app checks the number, not the name.
Location disappears. You can only share it around the time of a plan you both agreed to, and it's deleted afterwards. There's no tracking, and nothing runs in the background.
Nothing gets sold. No ads, no data sold on, no selling your plans to anyone. The app is about private things between people who trust each other, and that only works one way.
Where things stand
In private testing now, with version 1.0 submitted to Apple.
We ship constantly. The changelog is the full record, and the timeline shows what's coming.