Since the last update, there have been a few changes from a variety of contributors that improve the overall EteSync experience. As always, we'll go through them platform by platform, and then wrap up with an update about pricing and the announcement of the fair pricing initiative.
EteSync DAV (desktop proxy client)
The changes in the desktop proxy were mostly about making it easier to use. There have been improvements to the README to make installation and configuration easier, as well as a new systemd unit file for running etesync-dav in a systemd based sandboxed environment.
Android client
You can now control whether to show or hide the "Change notifications" that pop when a journal has changed. This was originally added as both a security measure, and a way to know when people add items to shared calendars, but some people found it annoying, and so this setting was added.
In addition to the above, there were many bug fixes all around, that increase the stability of the app.
Web client
We have finally implemented a long awaited and much requested feature: display of recurring events! At the moment, you can't edit the recurrence rules, only view the event, but this is already a huge start and solves the more common use-case, of just checking your agenda on the desktop.
The rest of the changes were mostly about the infrastructure. We updated the underlying widget library, Material-UI to its latest version. There have been many breaking changes in Material-UI so upgrading it was not trivial. This should improve the overall performance of the web client, as well as reducing the app size.
Production server
We increased the capacity of the EteSync service so it should now work faster and support heavier workloads. We have also fixed a small billing related issue that were causing the server to error when using some invalid cards.
Pricing update
Starting from the 1st of December, we are raising the subscription price from $1.17 a month to $2 a month. This will only apply to new subscribers who have registered after the 1st. If you created your account before the 1st, you are not affected!
When we started EteSync, and set the pricing, we underestimated the amount of support, maintenance and human-touch required for running such a service. This pricing update just puts the pricing in line with those.
Fair pricing initiative
On a related note, following a comment by a user (thanks!), we have recently been thinking about pricing in different countries. While $2 is roughly a cup of coffee in some countries, it's a daily salary in others. This means that EteSync is out of reach for some of the people who need it the most!
Therefore, we would like to offer discounts to people who can't afford EteSync. If you think you deserve a discount, please let us know!
Call for help
As usual, 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.
In addition, your contributions are always welcome! Be it testing, design, code, reporting issues or helping us spread the word! Every bit helps in making EteSync better for everyone. If you are interested in contributing and don't know where to start, please, just contact us!
Until next time…