Although there's little benefit to hosting your own EteSync instance over using the hosted solution, we always wanted to support those who prefer it. Guess what? We finally do!
Here is a summary of what has been going on with EteSync since the last update:
Self-hosting
Self-hosting is very easy, all you need to do is to head to the self-hosting readme, follow a few simple instructions and then add an account and choose your own server instead of the official EteSync one.
If you do, please make sure to follow us on twitter, or subscribe to this feed, so if (when?) there are any security updates available, you'll be promptly informed.
Referral Program
We finally added a referral program! The gist of it: you refer your friends, and you get free subscription periods added to your account. For more information click here!
Better Notifications
Following a request from a user we added notifications when a journal changes (e.g. contact added, modified or deleted), so you can more easily find out when a shared calendar has been modified, like if for example, an event was added.
While this was intended as a usability improvement, it has some security benefits too! Until now, you'd only get notifications if your account was tampered with by an adversary without your encryption password, but if someone managed to get a hold of your password it was game over. With this change, you get notified of any changes made to your account at all times!
CLI Client
We finally have a CLI client for the desktop (in addition to the existing CalDAV/CardDAV proxy). Well, calling it a CLI client is a bit of an exaggeration, it's quite raw and basic at the moment, and only lets you view (in a very raw way), not edit.
With that being said, it's the first step, and is already usable! You can check it out here. Please let us know if you have any feedback, and as always, contributions are more than welcome.
iOS app?
We've been avoiding creating an iOS app for a while, because Apple doesn't let you integrate with the phone's address book or calendar, meaning you would not be able to replace iCloud and just use EteSync. This means that there'll be little benefit in providing an iOS app. Add to that the uncertainty with the Apple app approval process and the closed source nature of the platform, and you'd understand why it's really not at the top of our todo list.
With that being said, we've been getting some requests for an iOS app, so we decided to gauge interest. Would you like seeing EteSync for iOS? If so, please enter your email here.
Future Plans
Work on providing developers with access to EteSync slowed down a bit, but is expected to pick back up soon. As mentioned above, we are considering making an iOS app, and should have a command-line client ready soon too. Got any strong ideas on what we should be working on text? let us know!
I would like to take this opportunity to remind you that we would like to hear your thoughts. Do you have some suggestions? Noticed an issue? Please send patches, report issues, or contact us.