Filed under: Software, Internet Tools, .Mac
SyncTogether - a solid .Mac syncing alternative
One of the key features of .Mac is extensible application syncing. Sure, there have been roll-your-own-.Mac contests, plenty of solutions for individual apps and even a guide for switching from .Mac to Google, but none of these have offered a serious replacement for the entire syncing umbrella that .Mac offers. SyncTogether from the makers of Missing Sync, looks to change all of this.This new syncing app from Mark/Space works with many of the same fundamental apps, such as Address Book, iCal, Mail and Safari, but it employs some unique features. For example, you can chose specific groups in Address Book (instead of simply 'everyone'), and you can then share this information with other users on your home network. Want to let mom, dad and the kids all collaborate and add iCal events for Macworld 2008? SyncTogether has you covered, though it might be a little clunky to work with: local syncs sound easy, but the system requirements state that you must know a machine's physical IP if you're going to sync remotely while you're away from that machine.
For now, SyncTogether is planned to drop Q1 of 2007, and until then, there is least one major question that I haven't been able to answer from Mark/Space's product page: Will it be open to 3rd parties like Apple's Sync Services? As far as pricing is concerned, users who are unhappy with .Mac's yearly subscription model will probably rejoice that SyncTogether's price is already set at a flat $49.95, but those are all the details we have for now.
[Update: Our own Mat Lu clued me in (via email) on the fact that SyncTogether is very likely the product of Mark/Space's acquisition of MySync. MySync, for those who aren't familiar, *did* support any extra 3rd party apps that plugged into Apple's Sync Services, so in theory, apps like Yojimbo and Transmit should already be along for the ride, with no extra work on Mark/Space's part necessary. However, Mat also pointed out, and I agree, that it's kind of strange that SyncTogether's page makes no mention of this extensibility.]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
objcguy said 2:37PM on 1-15-2007
It looks like a reengineered version of MySync, which was acquired by Mark/Space sometime ago. If it is, it should work just like .mac sync as MySync does, because it uses Apple's SyncFramework. It means that if an app supports Apple's .mac sync, it would works with this product without any modification, out of the box.
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Brian Peat said 2:56PM on 1-15-2007
at half the price of .Mac without all the extra benefits (e-mail, photo posting, idisk, etc) I'm not sure how well it'll sell. Especially if you end up needing to buy a copy for every machine (anyone know the answer to that?).
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Twist said 6:19PM on 1-15-2007
Sounds pretty nice but like all the other syncing apps out there it misses the option I want the most: sync to/from an FTP server. I have a couple of files from applications that don't support syncing that I need to be able to easily share with a few other people in order to keep us all on the same page regarding our projects. .Mac's iDisk would be great for this but it is slow and expensive when we are already paying for a web host with cgi and php support (since .Mac offers neither). We never know what our IP's are going to be from day to day. I might be at home or I might be using a wireless hotspot at the local Starbucks or some other place. Same goes for others. I would like an application that can either automatically or with very little user interaction send selected files to an FTP server and then again either automatically or with very little user interaction download those files to the other users machines while archiving the existing local copies. Basically something like Martian SlingShot plus FTP abilities.
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Alan Schmitt said 3:43PM on 1-15-2007
I've been using MySync then SyncTogether for quite a while now (beta testing it), and it's amazing (in the sense I only remember it's there when a new beta version comes out). I synchronize mainly my address book and iCal data, but I used to synchronize Yojimbo when I was using it.
I really recommend it if you own and use more than one computer.
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Peyton said 3:39PM on 1-15-2007
I guess the program is still not what I'm looking for.
What I'm hoping for is a program that will allow us to use WebDav for those of us who have a web hosting account with WebDav. As far as I can tell, this doesn't offer that.
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mds said 4:54PM on 1-15-2007
BTW: How secure is .Mac? I've just noticed that at least the connection in use is not secure (just http://, not https://). That's a pity since I cannot use .Mac with public WLANs without a secure connection... :(
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Jed Adams said 1:59AM on 1-16-2007
if its anything like the terrible Missing Sync software avoid like the plague
i sadly paid for Missing Sync have had nothing but trouble with it
avoid
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Alan Schmitt said 2:58AM on 1-16-2007
As another data point about Missing Sync, I use it all the time and it works great here. I especially like the synchronization of categories (useful when TODO categories are GTD contexts) and folder sync (I keep a lot of reference documents as text files that are synchronized to my Palm's SD Card).
I only synchronize the palm with my laptop, but every change in Sync Services data gets propagated using SyncTogether, and the rest of the data is synchronized using the Unison File Synchronizer (http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/).
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