If they don't shut down, I still learned something new! But usually they do.
In this case, I landed on Fantastical [1] — it's a little pricy but completely worth it. (Mac/iOS only.)
We should appreciate when its pricey. That's motivation for the product to continue to exist. Otherwise, "OurIncredibleJourney".
I throw a quid down the toilet? That's fine, I don't mind. I throw a fiver or a tenner? Woah dude, that's like, a Starbucks latte! Totally different (or not, but hey, that's what it feels like).
I wish Apple would start allowing time-limited trialware. The IAP machinery is already there, they just have to allow apps that stop working after 30 days if there is no payment. After 30 days, I have a pretty good idea whether an app is worth £1, £10, £50 or 0.
At least, until they reach a level of self-operation that makes it clear that if they are bought, they'll be kept.
I still use Sparrow for email on Mac. Would use it on iOS too, but it's quite buggy in iOS9. Spark is _almost_ as good as Sparrow on iOS, but it's free which makes me wonder whether they're doing some kind of data mining for revenue and how long they will be around.
P.S. +1 for fantastical, it's great!
> This application is temporarily over its serving quota. Please try again later.
It's 50€ in a world where premium calendar apps are 3-4€. It better be good to justify an order of magnitude price difference.
I've just gotten used to the UI.
Can anyone commit to building a proper business? Is Sustainability no longer a virtue of creating a service/application?
Unfortunately, I realize this attitude might make it harder to actually make a sustainable business around solving a non-trivial problem, but as a user I've been burned too many times by companies suddenly getting acquired and then ceasing to exist.
If anything, look into the mission of the company and how they make money. i.e. look into their business. If it's all doled out for free, it's a good idea to give them a miss.
How about we users commit to building the tools we need, and forget about relying on businesses to do it for us?
That's what free software is all about — head on over to the Free Software Foundation and pitch in today!
It's sad when we pay $5 for a coffee made in 5 minutes that we'll drink in 3... but not $5 for an app that took 5 months that we'd use daily for a year.
I wish the Chicago FSF had two or three offices in town, a local administration, weekly meetings, classes daily, and that I could send them $25 a month to remain in good standing.
In the long term Free software can't help but win, unless Stallman gets hit by a bus. Stallman will eventually be hit by a bus.
edit: and by all that I mean that Free Software needs to build a proper business.
One of the things that that comes up a lot with new ventures is that they don't know the answer to those questions when they start, but they do when they either die or succeed. In this case it seems that its financially feasible as a "feature" of Outlook rather than a standalone business.
Is that the case? They were bought by Microsoft, but does that mean they weren't making enough money before?
Basically, this. Start-ups and their investors are looking to cash out. Imagine if Apple or Microsoft had been bought out by IBM in their early years, instead of them both disrupting the space drastically.
For the record, from a Microsoft stand-point, I think this makes perfect sense. They were acquiring talent and a user base it's foolish to have two competing products in your portfolio. From a user standpoint, it probably sucks (I've never used Sunrise, and actually already use Outlook's calendar.)
They got bought out. That presumably made them money.
How is that not a proper business?
I'm definitely an oddball, but I would rather want to be part of a business to serve people and solve problems. I don't want to be rich, just make enough be comfortable enough to work on the problems that I want to solve.
Maybe getting bought out on my first successful product affords me the freedom to do so.
Kind of sad that the explosion of clever email and calendar apps a few years ago has collapsed into a handful that aren't as good as we used to have.
Or is/was this FUD?
https://blog.winkelmeyer.com/2015/01/warning-microsofts-outl...
Aside from being a massive security risk.
You'd choose some available times, it gives you a link which you send to whoever you want to meet with, and the recipient books a time slot with a couple of clicks. It updates in real time so if you book something new, the slot disappears. It even has a little iOS keyboard to generate these links.
Does anyone know a similar replacement service? Nothing beats just pasting someone a link and letting them pick one of three times you chose.
Meet allows you (the requester) to set the times available for meeting and send a signup page to a single respondent.
It's not about group meetings, or about "office hours" that anyone can sign up for. The use case is surprisingly broad: a small window of availability for a single meeting.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/invite-microsoft-garage-proj...
> Today, we’re excited to announce that Sunrise is joining Microsoft. For Sunrise, this is just the beginning.
> Sunrise will remain free and available for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Android and Desktop – we’re not going anywhere.
Sort of unrelated, but Outlook for Android also still cannot handle recurring all-day events. They will appear in the calendar on incorrect days. Also tested this across multiple servers.
I use Nine for email, which blows Outlook for Android out of the water. Business Calendar 3 is the only Outlook (Desktop) equivalent calendar I've found for Android.
> It’s almost time to say goodbye
> as all good stories go, there’s a sad bit to it: we’re not able to support and update Sunrise anymore. No new features. No bug fixes.
1. Their business plan
2. Long term vision for the company
3. How they plan to sustain themselves in the short run (1-2 years with no/little revenue).
4. What they would do if they get acquisition offers.
etc.
The startup can remove the canary once they decide to change their direction.
Any alternatives?
Sunrise best capabilities are likely being built into outlook, they have a team that they know can execute and a percentage of sunrise users will move to outlook.
I only installed sunrise last week (when I moved to Android) but I found it a bit odd that I was using a different calendar app. I came from Windows Phone where messaging and calendar was baked in really nicely. So far my Android experience isn't as good but maybe outlook with sunrise will complete this circle for me.
So based on this, I assume that all access to your calendar server (iCloud, Exchange, Google Apps, etc) was managed through a centralised server(s) that Sunrise used... for something.
Maybe the next time someone claims to be a funky new take on <boring office task> just do a little checking. We've had desktop and mobile device clients for mail, calendaring, contacts etc for literally decades. Why now, when we have more computing power available to us than ever before, do we need another server (operated by a company that's more likely to disappear than not) between us and our mail/calendar/contacts?
Is it impossible to have apps that don't go either Microsoft or google? I don't want to be locked in an ecosystem.
I will miss it.
