CC has kind of been a golden boy to Apple in promos--as a featured developer, winning an Apple Design Award for their desktop version, and becoming a featured app on the iPad page. To boot they have a very snazzy website with a designer who can do great pen and ink infographics on their blog posts to add an air of sophistication and diligence to their brand. But it's all gotten to their head and combined with stiff competition from OmniFocus it looks like they simply had their motivation shot and has reasoned that it would make more sense to sit back and milk the free Apple publicity cash cow. Look at their iPad product page. It's been like that since April. Through all of the sheen, there are cracks.
What's sad is that it's the worst kind of corporate laziness and suck to throw up gorgeous graphics (ex:http://culturedcode.com/status/) and create a false connection to reliability and customer commitment. These guys have lost a lot of trust and there is no evidence that even after this release that they'll continue innovating at any reasonable rate.
Implementing syncing as an independent developer kind of sucks. You have to deal with the huge support burden of an audience that's going to run into every edge case in it and complain very publicly. They're taking their time and trying to get it right.
Also, if you bought a product, you've signaled that the current feature set was worth the price. If the developers want to add new features for free, that's a nice bonus.
>>Also, if you bought a product, you've signaled that the current feature set was worth the price.
I question whether this is the consumer expectation for iOS apps. Updates for apps are fast and free, and oftentimes apps are sold with the explicit promise of future updates that will contain various anticipated features. This and the fact that many apps are platforms that consumers expect will be maintained over a reasonable amount of time verses those of competitors.
> Implementing syncing as an independent developer kind of sucks.
But they have syncing. You can sync between your iPhone and Desktop copies of Things just fine with a cable. Extending that to work over a network connection with a third pseudo-device in the cloud shouldn't be two years worth of work.
Wifi/Cable syncing of a desktop and phone app is a completely different beast to doing so over the internet. The difference is that when you connect your iphone to your laptop and sync, the app determines which one has the last state and updates accordingly. Over the air syncing would imply the possibility of different mediums having different states and having to consolidate all the data into a definite final state, preferably by updating, deleting, or creating single objects instead of a complete store of the data. Trust me, it's not that easy and lot's of implementations done already on other apps are not quality implementations. Actually a lot of implementations are really a hack plugged in to deliver the functionality asap. That being said, it's not something that should take two years in the making. Nevertheless, Things is already a great application in it's current state and well worth the money.
> the app determines which one has the last state and updates accordingly
Have you used Things' desktop sync? I have. It didn't do that. I frequently updated items on my phone while I was out, then did some work and added/completed other items on the desktop before I sync'd. It handled everything well.
I'm not saying Things isn't worth the money; I bought a copy and frequently recommend it.
That isn't exactly true. Part of the reason I went ahead and bought minecraft the other day was because buying it in alpha gives all updates (and expansions!?) for free.
OT: How did they change the color of highlighted text? I've never seen that effect before!
Edit:
Found it in case someone else was interested:
/* Mozilla based browsers */
::-moz-selection{background-color:#e12000;color:#fff;}
/* Works in Safari */
::selection{background-color:#e12000;color:#fff;}
Right. And also keep in mind that Firefox will change the selection color based on the inherent background color of the element being selected.
So, if you've got a black background of a super-parent element, and an light-colored image background for the parent or the element, your text will highlight white, ensuring that selected text is unreadable in certain situations.
Either the posted hack or setting a background color fixes it.
> Ignore the fact that they wrote a slightly patronizing post detailing what OTA sync is
Wow. This has to be the fastest I've ever stopped reading an article halfway through.
Has this guy considered that, just maybe, the world does not revolve around him, and that other people might not know what OTA sync is? Especially considering the audience of Things.
I've been using Things since it came out for the Mac and I've been wanting OTA sync since the iPhone came out, but it isn't completely necessary. It is a nice to have feature, but I would rather have it done right than rushed to production.
By his logic, Apple waiting months before letting the iPhone have 3rd party apps should've killed it; or Apple not having copy+paste until version 3.0 should've killed it. But neither of those happen because Apple was patient enough to do it right the first time.
Cultured Code ALREADY has app to app syncing via WiFi. This works pretty well to sync your tasks between Mac, iPhone and/or iPad. They have had this feature for YEARS.
They don't have Cloud Syncing yet, and that would be very cool and useful. If all they wanted to do was replace WiFi syncing with the Cloud, they could probably have used WebDAV, iDisk, Dropbox, etc. They have stated that they considered these options.
Based on what I have read over the years on CC's website, they are looking to Cloud Syncing for a far larger solution than syncing your personal tasks between your devices. I believe they are planning to add Groups and Workflows. Presumably, you will be able to delegate tasks to other users and monitor progress. This adds much more complexity to the server infrastructure and the software design.
CC has also said they looked very closely at how GIT works. Clearly, CC does not think a simple solution will fit their use case.
Yes, they have been slow to deliver both Cloud Syncing and work groups. Maybe they are clueless or taken on too much at the expense of a steady stream of smaller improvements. But I do believe CC is trying to solve a much bigger problem than simply syncing devices belonging to one person.
They got syncing nailed down. It's the cloud infrastructure and ability to resolve conflict all while setting up for some new platform they are probably building. I wouldn't be surprised to see some sort of web-based Things when the cloud stuff goes live.
They already have conflict resolution implemented for multi-device sync over Wi-Fi. It's not clear to me why they can't re-use the algorithm they've already created for this purpose.
The cloud infrastructure I'll grant them, but 2 years is certainly longer than I anticipated waiting as a customer... mostly because of statements made by the company in question.
Start off by not writing my own cloud database. Putting stuff in SimpleDB or MySQL would be easy, a little bit more difficult would be merging. But merging two TEXT BASED, TIME STAMPED and SHORT items is a solved problem for which there are many many implementations. I'd find an appropriate implementation and copy it.
I'd probably do like 1Password does and require DropBox. It doesn't take all the pain out of syncing (there's still a lot of conflict management that the app has to take care of), but it would make low-level stuff easier.
But, it's a moot point. The Cultured Code guys are very technically competent, this doesn't seem like they're unable to do the technology, but rather the project management or discipline to get it out there.
Ever since they released their iPhone app customers have been asking them for sync. This being a productivity app sync is very important. Things for the longest time has had WiFi sync. It is a pain for two reasons:
1. I have to remember to sync my devices every time I make changes. This is not rest of my productivity apps work. My calendars sync automagically, my email inbox sync automagically, my filesystem syncs automagically, BUT my _productivity_ app does not!
2. Wireless syncing doesn't always work because in some environments they block the underlying protocol. Then I have to setup an AdHoc network etc. etc.
Failure on CC's part, IMO, is the lack of understanding, perhaps, of how important sync is to their customers. A good approach would have been to incrementally introduce support for sync, using Dropbox or MobileMe or what not. Instead what it looks like happening is they are building a whole new infrastructure that we will have to use to sync Things. My problem is that I already pay for two good sync solutions that work well. I don't see the point in paying for another one just for syncing.
Totally agree that sync taking so long is really bad execution on CC's part, totally disagree with the entitled hyperbole.
And the most irritating thing of all is the "sync is a solved problem" armchair architect knee-jerk responses. If you really believe that then you're happy with half-assed, poor user experience solutions that aren't tailored to specific data.
That’s the weird part—from their blog post, it sounds like they’ve designed a general solution that isn’t tailored to Things:
“We have created and deployed both server and client-side sync components. Both components are completely general and can be used for any application. They have been successfully tested using a special demo program. We are now in the process of integrating this technology into Things.”
We built OTA sync using Google App Engine for Appigo. Check out https://appigotodo.appspot.com for more info. We have sync'd millions of tasks since our launch in October. It wasn't a trivial development task, but it definitely didn't take us 2 years.
There is a fundamental difference in the way CC is approaching sync. They are trying to sync by moving the actual database around instead of using a protocol based service. They must have some reason for why they need to move the actual database file around but I don't know what that is.
I will say that getting the edge cases for sync is difficult (We also integrate with email which has made it even more complex). Having spent the last several months fighting through it I can empathize with Cultured Code's perspective. But the user community has been vocal about this issue for years. OTA sync is a critical piece of a task management workflow, you've got to have it.
Interesting reaction. I think it is possible to create beautiful interfaces in AIR (I'll leave it up to you to decide if we've accomplished it or not). I haven't heard many people complain about TweetDeck's desktop UI. Realistically AIR represents trade-offs. On the downside you have to install AIR with the software, but it also gives users the ability to run it on any OS from day one.
The development overhead of maintaining separate code for each OS is too great which is why there are essentially no task management tools that cross platforms. I'd like to think that the ability to run on any platform brings considerable value to our users. For those of us that use both Mac and PC everyday, this is something we could never do with Things or OmniFocus.
Give it a second look. It may be worth rethinking the value of AIR.
Agreed in general for stock controls, but stock controls are hardly the stuff of "beautiful interfaces," regardless of the platform. Making something look good consistently across platforms is difficult without using some kind of intermediary (I'll assert that your web browser, in this respect, is just such an intermediary).
Did you look at the screenshots or the actual app, though? Visually, it's clear these people have put a ton of work into making the interface gorgeous, well beyond the "pretty wallpaper" that so many of these apps are touting these days. And they do sync?!! And I can use it on my PC at work? And in offline "airplane mode" too? Sounds like a great choice IMO.
I was an early adopter of Things and I too have been disappointed with the multi-year march toward over-the-air synching. One of the things that suggests they haven't taken the issues seriously involves their current support for opportunistic synching over a local network using Bonjour discovery. The problem is, it is not encrypted — the entire contents of your database is sent in the clear on the local network. When the problem has been raised with them they have been dismissive, responding it is easily fixed by simply securing the Wifi network with a password. What that does to prevent the hundreds of others who use the same Wifi network from snooping on your data is not clear.
Fingers crossed they truly have re-architected to something useful. Sure, synching presents some challenges, but it is hard not to wonder how multiple programmers need over 2 years to add their #1 needed feature.
The Things team aren't incompetent and it's not an easy problem. I went way, way over my original time estimate for building sync into my own todo list app and in the end had to leave a couple of things unsolved to just get it out. I really, really feel for them.
I have to thanks Things for teaching me that function over form is critical. Needless to say I no longer use Things, I just use a text file with sections. It's a hell of a lot easier than dealing with cumbersome To Do apps.
Yes, sync is hard, but it is not that it should take that long, especially when it is THAT important. When I was in a process of choosing PIM on iPhone, when gmail introduced Calendar sync I jumped on this feature literally next day. After that I migrated to Informant which does both google calendar sync _and_ tasklist over-the-air sync with RememberTheMilk. It has its occasional glitches but mostly works, and now no amount of other features will make me switch to PIM without OTA.
What the hell is going on here? What is Cultured Code? Why is this guy so opinionated? Who is he? Why should I care? What is this "wallpaper" he is referring to? Are OmniFocus and Cultured Code two competing software suites? What do they do? This site gives absolutely no indication of any context.
Ah, okay. Upon forcing myself to read the rest of the article, I infer that Cultured Code is a blog maintained by the guys who make this software called "Things," which I had no idea existed until just now. And I also infer that the guy who wrote the linked article (I have no idea who, of course, because the site has no author listing for its posts and no "About" link to be found) is kind of an obnoxious blowhard. As a fellow obnoxious blowhard, I applaud his ranting chops, but I guess I just wasn't the target demographic for this post.
What I meant (and failed) to express is not that I eschewed Googling because I'm lazy, but because I had no reason to Google.
In my completely non-expert world view, I think that blogs (and websites in general) have three types of visitors: Committed, Unqualified Leads, and Uninterested.
Committed visitors will dutifully read and re-read all available information, regardless of whether it is presented clearly. These are people with a personal interest or responsibility related to the subject matter, like devoted Apple users reading Steve Jobs' latest address, or competitive Street Fighter players reading about how to execute a special move or winning strategy. As soon as they detect that the information is within their purview, they will consume all of it thoroughly.
Uninterested visitors are simply not in the target demographic; if they clicked on the link at all, they will close the window as soon as they process that the content is not relevant to them.
Unqualified visitors are people who might be interested, or maybe even want to be interested, but require extra context or a "hook" to get them going.
I feel like "visitor interest" is a spectrum, with "committed" on one end, "uninterested" on the other, and "unqualified" representing the vast gradient chasm between them.
TL;DR:
I am probably not the only reader that Brooks Review lost by catering only to committed visitors.
Long version:
Clicking the link for the article, I was an unqualified visitor. I literally had no idea what "Things" was, so I thought "RIP Things" might have been some kind of metaphysical rant about getting rid of superfluous material possessions. Instead I was dropped, in medias res, into a contextless rant about OTA sync (what does that have to do with "Things", I thought?), and how it's "still a few months away." From what? For whom? Then he transitions jarringly into "The Wallpaper." At that point I knew I had to click on the Cultured Code link, because obviously I was missing too much. Upon clicking through, I was faced with an equally contextless long-winded article about "cloud sync" that made no mention whatsoever of wallpaper. That's when I gave up.
All of this could have been very easily remedied if Cultured Code's site had a tiny slogan or product description at the top of their page, or if the Brooks Review guy had a link to something explaining OmniFocus, or a blurb on the page explaining if he has any stake or connections to OmniFocus.
So, to be clear, I did not Google for "Things," because long before the source article mentions that "Things" is something that you can purchase and interact with (and thus, perhaps Google for), I had already given up reading, because I didn't know what OmniFocus was, what wallpaper he was talking about, who the article was written by, who the linked article was written by, or why OTA sync was a big deal, or in which world of computing OTA sync was being discussed, and neither Brooks Review nor Cultured Code had designed their sites in such a way as to explain why I should care.
What's sad is that it's the worst kind of corporate laziness and suck to throw up gorgeous graphics (ex:http://culturedcode.com/status/) and create a false connection to reliability and customer commitment. These guys have lost a lot of trust and there is no evidence that even after this release that they'll continue innovating at any reasonable rate.