Contacts get their own home.

October 24 brought shared Online Accounts and a standalone Contacts app, clearer discovery of Ecliptic software, more selective update holds and integration of the speaking installer.

October 24 brought a substantial change to how Ecliptic keeps people and accounts together. Contacts became its own application, with Mail using that shared address book, while sign-ins moved into Settings → Online Accounts. Ecliptic’s own apps also became easier to find, and work on updates and the installer moved forward.

The Contacts and Online Accounts changes reached the development update channel by the end of the day. Checking the installed migration and joining real accounts were still next steps at that cutoff; this is not a public release announcement.

One place for accounts, one place for contacts

Online Accounts gives Mail and Contacts a shared place to sign in. Each account has separate Mail and Contacts choices, so the two apps can use the same sign-in rather than maintaining competing copies of it. The migration is designed to reuse existing Mail sign-ins and preserve Mail’s own preferences.

Ecliptic Contacts provides a searchable list, groups and fuller cards with names, photographs, phone numbers, addresses, birthdays and notes. It supports importing and exporting vCards, and Mail now uses Contacts for address completion and sender actions instead of maintaining a separate contacts editor.

Accounts do not all have to share one address book. Join with my contacts keeps an account in step with the main list. Keep separate gives it its own list, so work contacts need not mix with personal ones. Work accounts suggest keeping their contacts separate.

Support for Google, Microsoft and CardDAV is implemented. That describes the development integrations and their tests, rather than a promise that every provider or organizational account has been verified.

Joining and merging deserve a clear choice

Joining an account can copy contacts between it and the main list. The implemented flow makes a backup and shows a preview before asking to proceed. Cancelling the preview leaves the lists unchanged.

Duplicate suggestions now explain their reasons, such as matching phone numbers, email addresses or related names. A merge view lets you choose which details to keep. Not the same person remembers a rejected match, and completed merges can be undone. Recently Deleted provides a separate way to recover deleted contacts.

These choices matter because changes to joined contacts can reach the connected accounts, including removal of duplicate cards. A suggested match still needs judgment; a confidence score is not proof that two people are the same. The first real account join remained an explicit owner step, after reviewing its backup and preview.

The account migration also gained a protective distinction: an account missing from the shared list is treated as lost, with its local mail retained. Removing local mail requires a recorded removal or switching Mail off for that account. Regression tests cover a missing list, restarting in that state and putting the account back.

Ecliptic’s own apps are easier to discover

Ecliptic Software now puts From Ecliptic near the top of Explore and gives those apps a clear place in search. Searching for an email app, file manager or terminal can find Ecliptic’s own tools alongside the other available software.

The catalog includes names and icons even for apps that are not installed. System components are kept out of ordinary app search results, and packages that form part of the desktop do not present an ordinary Remove button.

Ecliptic AI’s software lookup uses the same catalog. This improves finding the right app; it does not retrain Phobos or give it permission to install software automatically.

Clearer reasons for waiting on updates

The update mirror now distinguishes news affecting Ecliptic’s packages from unrelated announcements. News asking for a particular package update is handled as an update requirement, rather than automatically creating a separate news hold.

Other relevant news holds can approve themselves after four hours from a qualifying snapshot passing the VM checks. An explicit owner hold still stops that automatic approval, and watched major-version changes remain manual. Optional desktop notifications explain when the mirror holds updates and when an automatic approval occurs.

Recorded checks used a controlled clock for the waiting rules and a VM for the notifications. The deployed mirror also completed a promotion with the revised rules. These are specific checks of the update path, not a guarantee that every future package combination will work on every computer.

The speaking installer joins the main build

The screen-reader installer described in the October 22 update was merged into the main project. A new development ISO built from that integration was checked in a VM: the Welcome page showed the Screen reader switch, and Super + Alt + S started Orca and updated the switch.

Earlier branch tests covered an installation using speech and an offline keyboard-only installation. The newly integrated ISO did not repeat that full installation test. Real speakers, multiple sound cards, Wi-Fi interaction and Braille still needed validation. The early encrypted-disk password prompt still has no speech.

What the checks establish, and what remains

The final clean-source review recorded passing Accounts and Contacts suites, together with Mail, Software and AI checks; three Mail tests were skipped. Contact synchronization and merging were exercised with fake Google and Microsoft services and a local CardDAV test server. Isolated window tests checked the interfaces without driving the everyday desktop.

Those results support the implemented migration, preview, synchronization and recovery paths. They do not establish the live Contacts migration, real-account joining or long-running provider behavior. Those checks were still ahead at the end of October 24. Broader hardware and accessibility testing, everyday use and preparation for a public release continue.