Some thinking aloud on the iCloud syncing issue

[Steven J Klein]

Kyle Baxter is the developer of Basil, an iPad recipe app. He describes some of the problems he’s run into in getting his app to sync over iCloud. Here’s a link to his blog on the topic. And here’s an excerpt:

 I’ve also been thinking very hard about what the next big version of Basil will look like and so naturally I’ve also been thinking through how syncing should work. This seems like an easy question to answer: iCloud. If only. I wish it were that easy, but it’s not.

Developer Drew McCormack has written a few blog posts covering some of the technical issues he’s faced in getting iCloud Core Data syncing to work for his app. I linked to one in an earlier message. Here’s a link to another one, and an excerpt:

You don’t have to look far in Apple’s developer forums to know that Core Data syncing is one of those rough spots. An appeal on Twitter, and extensive Googling, led me to just one shipping app that currently offers Core Data syncing over iCloud: Time Butler. I know of no other shipping app that is using it, and certainly no apps from well-known, established developers.

…

I’ve spent the last 3-4 months integrating Core Data syncing over iCloud intoMental Case for Mac. It is not in the wild yet, but we have started beta testing with a limited audience.

To say it has been a challenge would be an understatement — it has probably been one of the hardest tasks I have ever undertaken for a Mac or iOS app…

I’m of two minds on this issue:

1. BareBones relied on Apple, and Apple dropped the ball.BareBones

2. BareBones customers have a relationship with BareBones, and they hold BareBones (not Apple) accountable.

Yojimbo users are at the mercy of BareBones, and BareBones is at the mercy of Apple.

Some advice, useful to everyone, but especially applicable to BareBones:

1. Try not to make your product’s success be at the mercy of 3rd-parties. Apple learned this lesson in 1985 with the MacBASIC fiasco.
2. Don’t ever make promises that depend on something beyond your control. You may as well try making promises about the weather!
3. People are more willing to forgive someone if all the facts are known. I’d like to see daily (or at least weekly) updates from BareBones telling us how things are progressing. Even if all that update says is, “Still waiting to hear back from Apple.”

BareBones could have architected Yojimbo around a BareBones-controlled syncing server. Expensive and difficult, but if they owned it, they wouldn’t be at Apple’s mercy. If, at this point, their developers find themselves sitting on their hands, waiting for Apple to fix and document Core Data Syncing, then perhaps they could use this free time to brush up on SQL, and start building their own syncing server—one that’s not dependent on any 3rd party. (Yes, they’d probably want to contract out the actual hosting, but there are thousands of hosting companies, and if you don’t like the pricing or service from one, you can always move to another.)

(Another idea: If the Yojimbo developers are sitting on their hands waiting for Apple to fix this, why not volunteer their services to Apple? I don’t know if Apple would allow it, but if the BB software engineers make Core Data work, it’s a win/win for everybody.)

Regards,
-- 
Steven Klein Computer Service
Apple & A+ Certified
Your Mac, PC & Network Expert
Phone: (248) YOUR-MAC
    or (248) 968-7622

[Seth Elgart]

On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 12:24 PM, Steven J Klein <ste...@yourmacexpert.com> wrote:

perhaps they could use this free time to brush up on SQL, and start building their own syncing server—one that’s not dependent on any 3rd party. (Yes, they’d probably want to contract out the actual hosting, but there are thousands of hosting companies, and if you don’t like the pricing or service from one, you can always move to another.)

Not to be the wet blanket guy, but would you as a user be willing to pay for this? I don't know how many Yojimbo users there are but that could make a big difference as to how this might work. For a few hundred users BareBones could set up a server and get things syncing, but that sounds like a lot of work and expense, and it would also make programmers start doing IT things instead of spending their time programming. On the other hand, if there are 80,000 or 200,000 or 1,000,000 users, that's way beyond what a single server sitting on a desk somewhere would be able to handle. Either way, you're asking BareBones to either turn themselves into a hosting company or it's going to cost a pile of money to handle the load. 

Are you willing to pay a monthly fee to cover their hosting costs? How much would you be willing to pay? $1 a month? $10 a month? That's the beauty of ceding control to Apple for this. You lose some control of things but there's no extra costs for you or your users. I'm certainly willing to pay for an upgrade for stronger syncing (not that I actually have any use for it though), but I'm pretty sure I don't want to pay $100 a year for that privilege. How many Yojimbo users would be willing to pay $25 per year, forever and ever, just to get sync? I don't think I'd want to pay anything for it really as I'm happy to use the direct Mac-to-iPad sync I have now to be honest. 

I just think that if you take the economics of hosting and syncing into account, I'd rather have BareBones put their time and money into programming rather than anything else.

Seth

[Rhet Turnbull]

> privilege. How many Yojimbo users would be willing to pay $25 per year,

In 2006, I bought Yojimbo specifically because of .Mac (aka MobileMe
aka iCloud) syncing AND paid $99/year to Apple for .Mac specifically
because of Yojimbo. Together, Yojimbo and .Mac were a killer app.
Separately, neither had tremendous value to me. I would be happy to
pay for a syncing solution that worked. I continued paying for the
service until it was shut down because I placed great value on Yojimbo
syncing.

As for setting up your own syncing solution -- Evernote does it and it
works great. Evernote gives away syncing for free (but puts a quota
on it) and charges customers for a Premium account to get more syncing
quota at $45/year. They are apparently successful at this as they're
still in business and they release new updates far more regularly than
BareBones. I'm happy to pay Evernote $45/year for syncing that works
to all my devices (including my Android phone, something Yojimbo will
never do).

There are several things about Evernote I do not like, most
specifically their poor handling of of encrypted notes. I have been
testing their service as an alternative to Yojimbo though and I think
I can live with Evernote's shortcomings as currently they offer
syncing and Yojimbo does not. Even when Yojimbo gets iCloud working,
and I'm confident they will, it won't help me. I own multiple Macs
that are not Lion / Mountain Lion compatible and thus won't work with
iCloud. Apple's left me behind along with the many other users who
were willing to pay for .Mac/MobileMe and tried to force us to upgrade
our hardware. My hardware works fine so I'll look for non-iCloud
syncing solutions.


Cheers,
Rhet

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