Together and iCloud and the Mac App Store

A question I suspect I’m going to get asked a lot is “When will Together support iCloud?”.

The answer is I don’t know. I have spent a lot of time looking at all the things I need to do to make that happen, even done some of it, but I have come to the conclusion it’s going to take a lot longer than I’d like, because both iCloud and Together are all about files and Together does an awful lot with them.

Some of the things I need to do slot in nicely with what is there, but others require significant changes to the very heart of the app, which will take time and need a lot of testing. I cannot even hazard a guess at how long it will take, because everything is new and there are too many unknowns. I want to get it right.

Meanwhile, Apple announced at WWDC that all apps submitted to the Mac App Store need to be sandboxed from November. Application Sandboxing, introduced with Lion, restricts what apps can do in the name of security and these requirements affect both Together and Feeder quite significantly. Without that, I will not be able to deliver further updates to Mac App Store customers. I have completed a lot of work on sandboxing already, and once it is implemented for all three apps I will be able to turn my attention back to iCloud.

In the meantime, I would like to thank all my customers for your patience and understanding.

4 Responses to “Together and iCloud and the Mac App Store”

  1. blau09 Says:

    : ) good things need time!

  2. Avalanche Says:

    I think that Together will support iCloud much sooner…

  3. John Says:

    Just want to let you know that Together is the best app on my mac. Thanks for all you do.

  4. Brendan Says:

    Having read some other developers posts on syncing data with iCloud, I totally sympathize with the delay. Not that syncing was ever elegant with SyncServices, but it worked (most of the time ;). Having said that, I patiently await iCould support and humbly suggest that supporting other protocols may be easier to implement for syncing (e.g. the way 1Password uses Dropbox). Keep up the good work!