Are you working on sync?
TL;DR — We have been working on sync but it's proving very problematic due to the nature of how Momento works. At present we have put the project on hold until we can find a simpler solution.
Sync is an on-going effort of ours but it isn’t something we’re working on all the time. As a small team we can only focus on one thing at a time. Other features, enhancements and bug-fixes may take priority and become our focus temporarily, slowing progress on sync.
For now we have put this project on hold until we know we can dedicate the time and resources necessary to complete the project. We have spent a considerable amount of time and money working on sync and unfortunately it simply isn't sustainable for us to continue at this time.
Until we find a simpler solution, we don't know if and when sync will be completed. We're sorry this has been such a slow development.
Why is it taking a long time?
TL;DR — Sync isn’t simple, and with a small team these things take a long time to get right.
Whilst Momento may appear to be a simple app, there’s a lot of complexity behind the scenes which adds certain requirements to how it needs to manage and store data. This makes syncing significantly more complicated than an app which stores and syncs its data using documents — such as apps like Pages, Keynote and photos editing apps.
Technologies such as iCloud and Dropbox have made document based syncing a lot easier for developers, and some developers of non-document based apps have shoehorned their data into documents in order to sync this way. This has been a rocky road for many, and developers have struggled to make this a seamless and reliable experience. Throughout the past few years iCloud has also notoriously been problematic for many developers (see The Verge and Ars Technica articles on this), and these problems coincided with many development efforts of ours.
Document based syncing isn’t the solution with an app like Momento. Even if it was, it would come with significant drawbacks (reliability/performance) and limitations which would hinder future development. In all of these cases we’d be painting ourselves into a corner.
We have tried multiple approaches to sync, all of which have taken a significant amount of time (and money) for us to plan and develop before we can get to a stage where we can properly put them to the test.
As a self-funded indie development company with a small team (one backend dev and one fronted dev) we can only focus on one thing at a time. Throughout our battle with sync we’ve also had to branch-off to fix bugs, support new technologies and release new features.
Why not build your own sync-service?
TL;DR — We did but it wasn't sustainable.
In 2013, after setting aside iCloud and Dropbox as sync solutions, we began working on a whole new approach — building our own sync solution. This was no small task, impacting all aspects of the product and the business, requiring a lot of planning, research, development and money.
It became very clear this was going to take longer than we initially estimated and cost more than we expected. We could fund the development but not the deployment. Storing, processing and syncing everyone’s memories securely and reliably is not cheap, especially when you have a large user base — most of which have spent a couple of dollars on an app and weren’t prepared to pay that every month.
It was a long-play and without venture backing (which comes with a lot of caveats itself) we couldn’t provide the product and service at a competitive price which would be sustainable.
So, what is the solution?
TL;DR — We believe utilising CloudKit is the way towards a solution.
CloudKit is the ‘behind the scenes’ technology used by iCloud which Apple made available to developers in 2014. CloudKit is predictable and efficient, and provides us with enough control to be able to manage and sync data in the way that we require. Importantly, this allows us to provide a reliable experience to our users.
CloudKit gave us opportunity to adapt the product we had planned for our own sync service and implement a sync solution at a development cost we could fund ourselves. Furthermore, it would allow users to store their data on a platform they already trust with their other personal data at a low cost.
We were hoping to deploy this with the release of Momento 3 but during testing we encountered some performance issues which required further work. Alongside fixes, enhancements and other priorities since the release of Momento 3 we had to postpone our immediate focus on sync.
After additional work we have identified that the sync performance issues could not be resolved without a significant amount of work re-writing how parts of the apps function. For now we have put this project on hold until we know we can dedicate the time and resources necessary to complete the project. We have spent a considerable amount of time and money working on sync and unfortunately it simply isn't sustainable for us to continue at this time.
Where’s the iPad app?
Our iPad app is all ready for release but without sync it doesn’t offer the complete and expected experience. Momento for iPad will be released if and when a suitable sync solution is found. Until then we have no plans to release Momento for iPad.
How can I stay up to date with the progress?
We’ll keep this support article up to date with our progress as well as our Development Status page. Any major announcements will be released on our Blog.
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