Since our last update in December, we’ve made good progress on our new cloud infrastructure. As you know, we weren’t too happy with the performance previously and how it would affect scaling. We’ve devised new solutions and ways to address those problems. We are implementing those new systems and applying rigorous tests to everything. The testing methods we are using are adding time to the implementation, but we think it is worth it. I must say, this new infrastructure stuff is very exciting! It will open up so many more possibilities for us.

As of right now, we are not prepared to announce an exact date or timeline, but rest assured that we are working very hard to ensure cloud will be something we all are truly proud of. We will post another update at the end of next quarter.

We want to clarify to our customers that the cloud solution we’re working on will not be a web-based version of Daylite. Instead, we are talking about an approach that allows customers to use the native Mac & iOS version of Daylite (and CalDAV/CardDAV clients) and removing the need for Daylite Server and its various complex administrative needs for backups, server side networking etc…

If you are awaiting the release of cloud instead of making the decision to purchase Daylite now. Don’t worry, we will prorate the amount you paid in licenses towards your cloud account once it becomes available and offer to migrate your data. You can start using Daylite today, without the fear of losing money down the road.

We appreciate your patience and will continue to provide updates and more details as the time draws closer.

Until next time…
AJ

Our partners at iOSXpert have just released an awesome new Daylite plugin to help further increase your productivity.  The ProductivityTools Plugin extends several features in Daylite to improve your workflow.

Some of the many productivity improvements include:

• The ability to duplicate appointments.
• Creating a new appointment for an existing task.
• Sending tasks and appointments through email. Includes free configurable templates for appointments and tasks that can be easily edited.

Try ProductivityTools free for 14 days by downloading here. You can also buy now by visiting the iOSXpert store and save 50% by entering the code: PRODUCTIVITY50PROCENT

For installation and setup instructions please refer to the ProductivityTools for Daylite 4- Setup video.

As you know, we are really excited about our upcoming cloud offering for Daylite. The same beautiful, native application without the worries of networking or a server, giving you the best of both worlds. We’ve been working hard at it but we’re not happy with the performance as of yet.

We’ve learnt a lot about cloud infrastructure this past year and the challenges it poses. We are applying those lessons in the app, the backend infrastructure (you won’t notice most of these) and operationally. For example, our response times to Billings Pro Cloud issues have been under an average of 10 minutes during business hours and the frequency of issues has significantly dropped with Billings Pro 1.6 (which unfortunately has not been approved for the Mac App Store yet, but is available on our site).

We’ll post another status update towards the end of the first quarter 2013.

Many people have asked if they will be able to migrate from self serve to cloud when it becomes available. The answer is a definite yes, we will provide a migration to cloud. The details of the migration will be released as the time gets closer. We’ll also apply a loyalty break for existing customers that opt to migrate to the cloud.

We are really excited about this and want to get it out asap, but we can’t rush it too much.

Until next time…
AJ

If you have been keeping tabs on our Mountain Lion compatibility page, you know that we have tried to make DMI (Daylite Mail Integration for Daylite 3) work on Mountain Lion. Unfortunately, after several attempts, we have been unable to get DMI to work on Mountain Lion. This is due to a combination of the fact that we used Apple’s ‘Distributed Objects‘ (which we architected everything around) as our communication mechanism and the fact that Apple Mail is now “Sandboxed” for security on Mountain Lion.

We’ve been using the DMI code base since Mac OS X 10.3 and have offered free updates for Mac OS X 10.4, 10.5, 10.6 and 10.7. Unfortunately, in 10.8, that code base just doesn’t work anymore because of sandboxing.
You can see that a number of developers are being affected by sandboxing here, here and here (these refer to the Mac App Store, but the issue is the same – constraints imposed by sandboxing since Mail is sandboxed and we cannot ask for entitlement changes).

We really thought that this last technique we tried would work, but unfortunately it didn’t and we are out of options other than a major rewrite.

Fortunately, DMA (Daylite Mail Assistant for Daylite 4) is a rewrite and it works on both Lion (10.7) and Mountain Lion (10.8). We used a different integration technique that gives us more options.

I realize that this news is going to cause pain to our existing Daylite 3 users who want to upgrade to Mountain Lion and still stay on Daylite 3 (with DMI) for a while. And for that, I sincerely apologize. All I can say to these users is that you’ll need to stick to Lion (or older) and plan for your eventual upgrade to Daylite 4. Development on Daylite 4 has been agressive and I hope we can share some of these developments with you soon.

Keep in mind that Daylite 3.15.2, which will be out soon (beta available), will work fine on Mountain Lion with the exception of DMI.

If you’d like to discuss your upgrade concerns with us, please send us an email.

For better or for worse, we are all in the Apple ecosystem and Apple waits for no one and doesn’t like to carry baggage. They jettison technology that doesn’t work which allows them to move forward unlike any other before them. It causes significant difficulties for developers like us (big native apps) and our users, but in the grand scheme of things, I think it’s the right thing to do as long as they are not too aggressive.

Until next time…
AJ

We are excited to announce that the latest versions of Daylite 4.0.5, Daylite Server 4.0.5 & Daylite Mail Assistant 4.0.5 are now available.

Version 4.0.5 is compatible with Mountain Lion and brings several enhanced features, addresses numerous bugs & crashes.

The complete Release Notes can be found in the Knowledge Base.

You can easily update Daylite directly from the Mac App Store.

All existing users on the mailing list will receive an email with instructions on how to download and install Daylite Server & Daylite Mail Assistant. If you’re not on the mailing list you can visit the Get Daylite Page and sign up.

The Marketcircle Team

We’ve posted our Mountain Lion compatibility page. We are working hard to get the needed updates out to you as soon as possible.

Please check this page regularly.
Generally, we would recommend you hold off upgrading to Mountain Lion until all the products you need are marked as fully compatible.