One of the big announcements yesterday from Apple was that it is replacing its .Mac service with MobileMe, a new service that will sync your email, contacts, calendar, photos, and files between your iPhone, Mac desktop, and a Windows PC. It will cost $99 per year. But if you want most of the functionality of MobileMe without the cost, you will be able to download an app from Funambol at the official iPhone App Store on July 11 that does many of the same things.
Funambol offers open-source mobile syncing software for email, contacts and calendars. It works with Exchange, Domino, POP, or IMAP email servers, and already supports hundreds of different phone models. It even works on current (jailbroken) models of the iPhone. Funambol’s jailbroken iPhone app has been downloaded more than 100,000 times. The company hosts its own synchronization servers a beta site, myFunambol, which support Outlook, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. Says CEO Fabrizio Capobianco:
Now, with the SDK on July 11 when the new iPhone comes out, we will have our synchronization product ready. It will be a free, open-source competitor to MobielMe, which is $99 a year and completely closed.
The software won’t sync your files or photos, but since it is open-source there is nothing stopping other developers from building such services on its underlying synchronization engine.
Sweet. Competition is good.
Support for Domino?! This is going to be killer!
this is great, couldn’t be happier!!
“The software won’t sync your files or photos, but since it is open-source there is nothing stopping other developers from building such services on its underlying synchronization engine.”
http://forge.ob...cm/?group_id=96
195Meg snapshot
That’s too much to commit to an iPhone synch app. I bet nobody does it.
forge.objectweb.org/docman/view.php/96/29/howto%20build.txt
Build requires cygwin???
“It’s open source, it MUST be convenient to mod, what a great upside”
I’m sure that was the sentiment.
I checked out the lates snapshot here
forge.objectweb.org/cvssnapshots/sync4j-cvs-latest.tar.gz
The iPhone app is not even in there.
sync4j-cvs-2008-06-11\3x\clients
Blackberry, ipod, palm, winmobile, but no iPhone client.
So downsides are wont sync photos or files and I assume movies which i discovered mobileme will. So whats the storage ? Mobileme is 20gb which is decent and that photo app looks awesome on mobileme. So this doesnt sound that great so far to me. You get what you pay for I suppose though.
I don’t trust it
. I am not sure if my data will be safe and I have no idea how they will make money. Their biz model could as well be ransom down the line (pay to get your data back once they switch to a pay model).
Awesome move by funambol.
@DaveS, i have been using Funabol since they were in Private Beta, about 3 years ago. They make money by selling the Software and support. (The last time i checked) Companies can actually buy the software from them.
@matteo actually Funnabol have had this service way before mobile me. So Apple is new in the space not Funabol
#4 you are one dumb bunny. The sync server software is huge and there are like 15 different projects in the 195MB snapshot.
The clients are like 30K or something silly like that. If you’re going to pretend to be a freaking geek, be a geek. If you’re a pathetic pozer who thinks that because you can run an Excel spreadsheet that you’re some kind of wacking genius, think again Chris.
You are a foolio and not coolio.
i noticed there was a cheap new developing service for rates. i think all of the new features are cool, but i’m getting tired of paying for r&d. Thanks for the info. It is about time they paid us by crowdsourcing or syncing us up for a change.
http://namethis...p/referral/9123
This is great news in that it’s a good opportunity to implement an easy and affordable mobile syncing solution for our Network, Doorbell and Buzzer apps. We’ll definitely check this one out.
I’m curious – they say they will be in the apple store on 7/11, but:
do they have a cert?
has their specific application been approved by Apple already?
has Apple given them permission to talk about it? otherwise all of this is under NDA
Good PR move – coverage on the initial “annoucement” and then more stories either way this breaks – “see, we’re live” or “evil Apple is keeping us out”
Apple must have discontinued its .Mac service with MobileMe as it offers more features and compatibility to more devices
This is great news in that it’s a good opportunity to implement an easy and affordable mobile syncing solution for our Network, Doorbell and Buzzer apps. We’ll definitely check this one out
This will provide an interesting wrinkle in the landscape that will become that marketplace. I am sure that there will be switchers… “If its FREE its for me!!”
I played with funambol a while ago, and seriously was it rough… You pay for services like MobileMe because they’re seamless, intuitive and easy to use, not because they’re a ‘cheaper option’. Imagine what would happen if your mobile phone’s sms had the performance of Twitter
What about push? {seesmic_video:{”url_thumbnail”:{”value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/MlGuEbxC24_th1.jpg”}”title”:{”value”:”What about push? ”}”videoUri”:{”value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/gSLp3mFxNg”}}}
Syncing is (going to be) big and beautifull and I totally understand that apple jumps in and wants to make it easily available to the consumer market.
But Mobileme is closed and therefore they deside to build or not to build syncing options for any open standards loving services out there.
For a consumer like me that’s a bad proposition. They deside my workflow and what apps I should use or not. I have no direct control.
Within the open source community I could ask a developer to build stuff I need synced (i’ll pay) that will help my personal workflow and maybe others.
So I like funabol. And will be a user in about a month time. I would even pay for the service.
Competition is great but with this app it won’t automatically sync contacts whenever they are changed, like MobileMe does, you have to manually sync it. This means that it’s better then nothing but still not the optimal solution.
A bit of a correction on the article, as you can see by the first screenshot, it only syncs contacts.
Not free, but Nexthaus SyncJe for iPhone, has been out January, and syncs contacts/cal/notes, with automatic sync. It’s not free though, but free to try.
http://nexthaus.com/iphone
…and lots more to come
Is it just me or does MobileMe sound so microsoftish?
and loots more to come:D
im not sure but I think
Awesome! MobileMe and .Mac should have a free-service tier. Period. (Like Box.net, Microsoft’s own sync service, etc. etc. etc.) I’m an admitted Apple fanboy, and have been for years and years. But sometimes, their greed astounds me… Continuing to charge $99 p/year for 10 gigs of space is WAY out of line for online storage/syncing services. They’re fleecing their users here — even MICROSOFT is offering 5 gigs of free storage/syncing. WTF APPLE!
I used myFunambol sparingly for 2 years. (before it was dubbed myFunambol). Current service quality is unacceptable for many kind of mobile users. SyncML based contact and calendar syncing generally spits out random errors. Such as just “null (0)” and sync fails. To be honest I’ve never lost data due to a technical problem but unsuccessful sync attempts are rather disturbing.
The most bugging thing about myFunambol is both sync and web front speeds. I don’t know the exact root of their slowness problem but generally it’s unbearable.
Current visual design of myFunambol is a disaster by means of HCI (human computer interaction). Most experienced users can not figure out where the logout button is or how to change settings, etc.
Anyway, competing with Apple is just about usability. Only a tiny fraction of users care about subscription fees. Given the productivity terrorizing design of myFunambol, maybe TCO can be higher than MobileMe
If you don’t trust those online service provider regarding to privacy, you may install Funambol server on your local computer, and sync everything through your local computer. Free too, provided you are computer literate.
Where can I get the entire sourcecode of funambol in a tarball?
thanks
Got it! Second one is recommended for the latest checkout.
wget -c http://forge.ob...s-latest.tar.gz
or
cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.forge.objectweb.org:/cvsroot/sync4j login
cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.forge.objectweb.org:/cvsroot/sync4j co .
thanks anyways
Check out my video interview with the CEO of Funambol! http://talktech...-with-funambol/
this is great LOL
We a have Alternatively, you can create an avatar that will appear whenever you leave a comment on a Gravatar-enabled blog great website.