I’m back from my vacation in Thailand and what good is a vacation without some Daylite Touch sync testing?
In this test, my objective was to sync Daylite Touch using my 2G (unlocked – cough) iPhone from as many locations as possible:
- I synched from the airport lounge here in Toronto on EDGE
- I synched from the airport in Hong Kong – on EDGE using my Rogers SIM and on a free WiFi hotspot
- I synched from Bangkok using a local SIM (dtac, pay-as-you-go with EDGE/3G). The engineers had to change something on the server so I had to re-initialize my database. I did that on WiFi in the hotel lobby with no problems (EDGE would have been too expensive – even in cost effective Thailand)
- I then went to the beautiful island of Samui. Unfortunately there was no EDGE or 3G signal there, but I was still able to add and view things in Daylite. I then synched when I got back to Bangkok a few days later (WiFi hotspots where available for a small fee, but I didn’t bother)
- After Thailand, we stopped over in Tokyo, Japan for a few days. I was able to sync from there as well using my Rogers SIM card, but then the SIM card stopped working and I had no voice or data signal at all. Since I was on vacation and in amazing Tokyo, I didn’t bother looking into it. (The SIM worked fine once I got back to Toronto)
As you know from my last post, our basic sync platform was working, but we found many ways to make it fail. Our focus since then has been to make the system much more robust and I think with the exception of a few small things (which we are working on), we’ve largely succeeded.
We still have lots of work to do and our release target remains early 2009.
I was super impressed with both Thailand and Japan and I’ll be going back to that part of the World in the near future!
Until next time…
AJ
Andrew says:
Might have already left this remark. Sorry, if i’m sounding repetitive. Any chance of releasing a Daylite Touch Lite before then? Something with just the implementation of tasks?
I really don’t want to switch over to Things for a while, only to switch back.
Will there be a beta?
Ryan Vosburg says:
thank you for this update! I am thinking about purchasing daylite and this will be the deal breaker for me… will be checking for updates often
Derek says:
In response to Andrew, I have always hated the way that Daylite handled tasks. If you deal with a great deal of tasks, you are probably better off just using Daylite as a contact manager.
I keep track of all my contacts, prospects, opportunities, contact-related notes, and appointments in Daylite. I use Omnifocus for task management (which requires more customization, but is much better than Things) and Evernote for general reference.
AJ says:
@Andrew – As mentioned before, we can’t release it in pieces because the bulk of the work is in the plumbing and not necessarily in the app itself. It’s only a few months away and we are working at a feverish pace.
Unless Apple changes the way the AppStore works (unlikely), the beta will be limited to 100 devices.
AJ says:
@Derek – You will see an improvement to the tasks area. We’ve streamlined a few things.
Jonathan says:
Not a DayLite customer yet but it’s been on my radar for a while. Keep up the great work and thanks for all these blog updates.
Eric Philpott says:
I look forward to the improvements in the task area. It still has some unrealized potential, in my opinion.
Thanks for these updates. Looking forward to the complete Daylite-Daylite Touch system!
Bas says:
Will this be a major update (e.g Daylite 4) or a small one (e.g. 3.8)
In any case I am looking forward to it. It would mean I can travel without laptop! (if only it would be possible to edit word and excel on a iphone too…)
AJ says:
@Bas – it will be free upgrade for Daylite (probably v3.9), but each Touch device is licensed separately.
T Hayes says:
Have you tested the application on a stock configured iPhone/3G that isn’t unlocked yet?
AJ says:
We do most (90% +) of our testing on stock iPhones and iPod Touches. We only use unlocked iPhones when traveling. The roaming and long distance changes are outright ridiculous.
Peter K. says:
Will Daylite Touch app work on iPod Touch as well as iPhone?
AJ says:
Currently it works on both the iPhone and iPod Touch and we hope to keep it that way – however it may end up that it is an iPhone app only.
Renaud says:
Can’t wait for Daylite Touch ! It will make me buy an iPhone as soon as it will be released.
About task management : I will also be happy if it becomes more flexible. For exemple, the ability to promote a task to a project.
The way iGTD works seems a good bencgmark to me.
AJ says:
@Renaud – that is something we have on our list for future improvements. I’m not sure that will make it in — we have lots of work.
Fritz says:
AJ –
Can’t wait for Daylite Touch. Question… I work pretty much with Daylite on my local hard drive solely, will I need to install Daylite Touch Server to get OTA data syncing? Can’t this be done in anyway using bluetooth/airport?
@Andrew and @Derek, I’ve been using Jott for my tasks which is web-based (jott.com), desktop-based (with a free app) and iphone-ready (with a free app). It’s really a great instant capture tool for tasks that come to mind or to cut and paste major tasks from Daylite into—this way they’re always with you. Just an FYI. Hope it helps.
AJ says:
@Fritz – You’ll need to install the server and have it on while you sync over Airport/WiFi. It’s pretty painless.
Lathe says:
What’s the latest?
Lathe
Renaud says:
Will Daylite Touch be able to synchronize groups of contacts ?
I miss a synch of groups between DL and Address Book.
Nils says:
Hi AJ,
do you plan a German localization for Daylight and Daylight Touch? I´d like to offer our help in translating if needed.
Nils
Lathe says:
Any updates?
byan says:
When will the final version be ready?
AJ says:
@Nils – Touch is likely to be localized in German before the desktop version. No timeline on that yet. We need to ship first
@ Lathe, @byan – We’ll have an update soon. Our release target is still the same – Early 2009.
Thanks.
liam says:
can you make daylite better at managing projects? Like timesheets and gant charts? Time alloted – Time used = Time billed? Can we make the estimating part better?
Never mind the iphone integration we just need one app – no excell + daylite + merlin + MYOB +++!!! I have one studio to manage and want one killer app to manage it! Am i really asking too much!!
Give me Day-Pro, not Day-Lite!!
David says:
Will the touch server be accessed by notebooks? In other words, can I expect improvement with remote access on my notebook? I’m not a fan (at all) of off-line databases, and DL over Wi-Fi leaves much to be desired.
This is the area where SaaS is sneaking in.
AJ says:
@David – Offline DB’s won’t access the Touch server because the end point is fundamentally different (mobile device vs laptop for example). However we are reworking the offline sync system to use technologies we have developer for Touch to make the whole process more modern and much much better.
I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised when we come out with that in early 2009.