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Ubuntu One Gets iPhone App For Contact Sync

Posted by kdawson on from the plays-nicely-with-others dept.

oneone writes "Canonical is bringing its Ubuntu One cloud service (which we discussed last month) to handheld devices with a new mobile contact synchronization feature that is powered by Funambol. Canonical's Ubuntu One application for the iPhone is now available from the iTunes Music Store. Android and other mobile operating systems will be supported with Funambol's standard client application. The mobile sync feature is currently in the beta testing stage but will be generally available to Ubuntu One subscribers when Ubuntu 10.04 is released later this month. Canonical says that it is boosting its Ubuntu One server infrastructure in order to support what it anticipates will be record loads."

3 of 115 comments (clear)

  1. Boosting is still on-going :) by Beuno · · Score: 5, Informative

    Just so everybody is aware, the servers are quite overloaded at the moment, so expect all kinds of timeouts. We didn't expect so many testers :)
    We will be slowly bringing it back in it's feet, so patience is welcomed.

  2. Re:Available only to subscribers by Beuno · · Score: 5, Informative

    No. We partnered with Funambol to provide this service, and it carries a significant cost to both develop and maintain and scale this specific service, as the announcement says.
    Supporting hundreds of different mobile phones is an incredibly expensive task, and on top of that we've added a layer that saves those contacts to couchdb and replicates them locally for you, to be used with any application you wish.
    While we all love and use free software, it's completely unreasonable to demand that services be provided for free. The service also provides a 30 day free trial, where you can perform a one-time sync if you wish to have a backup of your contacts.

    I personally believe that allowing people to sync their contacts from almost any mobile phone into a Linux desktop is a huge step forward.

  3. Re:Available only to subscribers by Macka · · Score: 5, Informative

    There are some SyncML servers, like https://www.mobical.net/ [mobical.net] . They seem to be able to provide the services for free

    Free to you, but not because it doesn't cost them. Their business model allows them to offer you a free service because you're their Guinea Pig. What they learn from servicing you, they sell on to other people. It took me about 30 seconds to find this explanation on their web site:

    "The purpose of Mobical.net is to introduce people all over the world to the benefits of using Tactel’s product Mobical for mobile synchronization. Tactel doesn't make any profit from this service; we only use it to develop, test and market new mobile synchronization technology that we sell to our customers: network operators, handset vendors, service providers, etc. That is how we can offer a free service and still make a business, and that is why we are committed to ensuring the privacy, integrity and security of your data."

    Canonical's business model is different and so they need to charge for the infrastructure (servers, disks, network, etc) required to provide this service. As they said, they have no problem with free software, but free services are a different beast all together. Don't be a tight arse. If you want them to succeed, then support them !!