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Google: Do what you want with Reader, but don't kill CalDAV
- nlawalker 14y agoThe MSFT change in position on supporting CalDAV (and the linked Win8 help page) is news to me. My Windows Phone 8 is still syncing with Gmail calendar. Does anyone know what's really going on here?
- r0ll3rb0t 14y agoI wish I knew, but this seems to be getting out of hand today. What happened to Google supporting open standards?
- spiralpolitik 14y agoGoogle only supports open standards when it is convenient for them to do so. Now its no longer convenient for them to support CalDav out goes the open standard. I'm sure IMAP support in Gmail will be next on the chopping block.
- Finster 14y agoMy initial reaction to this comment was: "But Google would NEVER drop IMAP support in gmail! That would be beyond ridiculous!" I probably would've said the same thing about CalDAV last week.
- anonymfus 14y agoPOP3 is used for migration from Gmail by major competitors, I am sure that Google will drop it before IMAP.
- simcop2387 14y agoThat would bum me out because I don't like their IMAP for grabbing emails. I've had a number of messages have weird issues where the rest of another email is appended to it at the end.
- air 14y agoGoogle is still supporting ActiveSync: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/01/gmail-activesync-gets-6-month-reprieve-for-windows-phonebut-not-windows-8/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/01/gmail-...
- pstatho 14y agoGoogle is extending EAS for another 6 months and msft announced they will support CalDAV and CardDAV, though this may now change: http://blogs.windows.com/windows_phone/b/windowsphone/archive/2013/01/30/synching-google-services-with-windows-phone.aspx http://blogs.windows.com/windows_phone/b/windowsphone/archiv...
- notatoad 14y agoCalDAV is the spring cleaning killing that I'm most surprised about. It should have been obvious to everybody that reader was on track to be killed, but I would have thought that google would be eager to support any product that involves you telling them what your schedule is, whether that's through their calendar app or any other calendaring app you've got connected to their backend.
- Selfcommit 14y agoIf you throw out all the 'tit-for-tat' assumptions, it really makes sense. Google has an API for nearly everything. I could easily see this as a standardization approach. Personally, I'm not effected at all between using the Google calendar website and my android based phone. I think Google's goal is to push everyone to use the API for their calander in future apps. I don't mind doing that for what they provide. I could easily imagine that use of their API could allow for better data gathering than using the open standard.
- sangnoir 14y agoMicrosoft recently filed an amicus brief supporting Oracle's position on API copyright. I wouldn't speculate that this is the motive, but it would be interesting if Microsoft is pressured into using Google APIs
- cube13 14y ago> If you throw out all the 'tit-for-tat' assumptions, it really makes sense. Google has an API for nearly everything. I could easily see this as a standardization approach. Except caldav is just a protocol. It's not an API. Google could have made an API that supports the caldav protocol, but chose not to. This also effects me a lot, personally, because I have a Kindle Fire and an iPhone, and I use my Google calendar to sync up everything between the two.
- Selfcommit 14y agoSo then the Google calander API has always been used, but the data is delivered in CalDev format? This move would then represent Google refusing to accept that format? I didn't read things that way. It makes good business sense - look at Maps API. You can get X number of free calls, but if you go over a certain limit you need to pay (That limit is pretty high if I recall) So now fast forward to Microsoft and Others incorporating that API into their products - am I understanding correctly Google could charge for API calls similarly?
- wooster 14y agoCan anyone recommend a good email/calendar host for custom domains? Edit: I have several Google Apps for Business domains. I'm looking for alternatives.
- 3825 14y agoExchange server is $10 per month at Rackspace [1] I've heard good things about Microsoft Office 365 as well. Then, there's always Google Apps for Business... [1] https://www.rackspace.com/apps/email_hosting/exchange_hosting/ https://www.rackspace.com/apps/email_hosting/exchange_hostin...
- eknkc 14y agoBeen using Office 365 for a year now. Never had any problems. I'd suggest it over GApps for business if you are looking for a paid service.
- 3825 14y agoAre you paying $150 per user per year? What is the most important feature/component for you?
- hiddentaco 14y agoHaving transferred companies to both O365 and GApps from Exachange I really have to say that O365 is a horrible product. It is slow and nearly everything about the back-end seems like it was put together in haste.
- josephlord 14y agoI'm looking at eumx.net at the moment. Fastmail.fm and Polaris were other possibilities.
- rdl 14y agoI use Kerio (which is available either hosted or you can do what I do and self host). I'm technically a reseller, although I've never sold their hosted product. I think pricing is lower than Google Apps for Business, but who cares within a factor of 2 or so? It's exchange/activesync. Works great.
- bschlinker 14y ago"Google's CalDAV page already lists the API as being "deprecated." A note on the page adds "If you think you have a compelling use case and would like to be whitelisted for the new version of CalDAV API, please fill out this form." ... Google, however, confirmed this will not impact the agreement with Microsoft and that the Softies will still be able to implement CalDav support on Windows Phone." http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-in-the-clear-to-add-google-caldav-support-to-windows-phone-7000012633/ http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-in-the-clear-to-add-google-ca...
- spinchange 14y agoThat article, and many of the others linked from within show that it is very unclear what's going on exactly. It would appear that Microsoft is only planning on implementing CalDAV in Windows Phone but has, as of yet, not confirmed it. It does appear that they have confirmed not supporting CalDAV on Windows 8, RT, or Outlook. And since Google is phasing out support for ActiveSync come 7/31/2013, the only way to sync with Google calendars and contacts is from Outlook 2010 and earlier, and only if you are a paid apps user. (using ActiveSync)
- vxNsr 14y agoI would reply that at least the windows issues will be solved with Blue coming to screens near you this spring or early summer.
- cooldeal 14y agoIs there any stated reason for deprecating CalDAV support? I hope the new Calendar API is open enough for platforms like Blackberry, Ubuntu Mobile, Jolla and Firefox OS etc to tap into. It's increasingly looking like Google is making it hard for other platforms except it's own Android and iOS(can't ignore iOS because of the number of users) to interoperate with its services like Youtube, Gmail, Calendar etc.
- guelo 14y agoThey're going down the Facebook route, they want to lock you into their AOL-style walled garden. I was surprised the other day when I went to share a video from Google+ to Facebook, turns out I couldn't, it wasn't a youtube video as I had expected.
- niggler 14y agoWas that Google+'s fault for not giving an easily-embeddable link or Facebook's fault for refusing to show the goods?
- orangethirty 14y agoJust like PG said in one of his essays, Google is now the new Microsoft. It used to be about giving hackers tools to build on top of their services. Now, its all about turning the search engine into a social network. And before the Google army comes in, let me say one thing. I used to love Google. Used all of their services. Built stuff with their services. Each computer I touched got Chrome installed. I was a fan boy. But then they started changing. Ever since G+, they just seem hell bent on becoming a social network. That shit really pissed me off. How do you simply go from awesome company to this? I'll tell you how. Because its now being run by people who put profits first, and not the users/programmers. They seem to have forgotten that it was us who gives them the profits they get. Such is the reason I'm building Nuuton. Because fuck you Google.
- holri 14y agoVery suited for the next week upcoming Document Freedom Day: https://www.documentfreedom.org/ https://www.documentfreedom.org/ Google is risking their credit in supported open standards.
- guelo 14y agoI'm getting really nervous about relying so much on Google. I'll be working on transitioning off of them from here on out for all my projects and recommendations. I just learned about the Leaflet map library for example.
- pkfrank 14y agoI recently caught myself thinking: "How much would someone have to pay me to never use another Google product?" While contemplating my use of gMail, Search, Calendar, YouTube, etc., I wrapped my head around how powerful and irreplaceable Google and its products are to me. Now that they're winding down Reader, I'm reminded at how vulnerable we all are given this reliance.
- gwern 14y agoI've actually been putting numbers on this: there are many fans of NewsBlur, apparently, as a replacement for Google Reader, so that's $12 a year; I'm worried about being tied to my Gmail address, so I finally got around to setting up a vanity domain address which forwards to Gmail and that's going to be about $10 a year. So I'm up to $22 a year, and I haven't looked into any free or paid replacements for Google Calendar or Analytics...
- niggler 14y agopobox.com (http://pobox.com/pricing http://pobox.com/pricing) is a fairly stable domain for email with lifetime hosting for as low as $20/yr (forwarding only) or $50/yr (hosting)
- gwern 14y agoI think NearlyFreeSpeech.net is probably about as stable a forwarding host, and cheaper. (I host my http://www.gwern.net http://www.gwern.net on Amazon S3/Cloudflare at ~$4/month or $48, so pobox.com wouldn't be cheaper in toto unless you meant web hosting rather than email.)
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- nemothekid 14y agoWith all the reader noise I missed CalDAV would be killed. I just checked Apple Calendar and realized that its set up to sync with my Google Calendar with CalDAV? Does anyone know if Apple is one of those whitelisted developers?
- glasshead969 14y agoI hope they are, but there is no information on who is going to be whitelisted.
- rythie 14y agoSurely this breaks calendar syncing with iOS http://support.google.com/calendar/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=151674&topic=13950&ctx=topic http://support.google.com/calendar/bin/answer.py?hl=en&a... please tell me I'm very wrong about this?
- cobbal 14y agoPure speculation, but I would assume Apple will be a "whitelisted developer".
- philwebster 14y agoBased on Google's previous app releases (YouTube, Gmail, Maps, ...) I wouldn't be surprised to see a native Google Calendar app instead.
- CountSessine 14y agoIt's funny because while I'm bound to my gmail account by my email address, I use google calendars only because of inertia. I would think that it's a huge benefit to google to know about all of my appointments. The day I can't use google's calendar with Mail.app, either on iOS or OSX, is the day I migrate my calendars to iCloud. Google cant be dumb enough to think that iOS users will use separate calendar apps for their exchange and gmail calendars, can they? So what's next - no IMAP for gmail? And then force everyone to use a custom gmail app?
- MrScruff 14y agoIf that's the case, then I'm leaving Google calendar. Apple doesn't get to pick which calendar app I use, let alone Google.
- kalleboo 14y agoMy iPhone syncs to Google Calendar through Exchange/ActiveSync, I imagine that will still be an option. Edit: I forgot they're turning off ActiveSync for free users later this year
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- robertskmiles 14y agoI think Aaron Swartz hit the nail on the head with his "What Does Google Mean by “Evil”?" blog post[1]: > "They specifically name three: showing irrelevant ads, using pop-ups or other annoying gimmicks, and selling off actual search results. Hardly the stuff of comic books. But what do these three have in common? They’re all instances of refusing to make things worse for your users in order to make more money" This is just about the first time I've seen Google unambiguously break their own definition of 'evil'. [1] http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/googevil http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/googevil Edit: On reflection... not the first time.
- niggler 14y agoYou mean Google broke aaronsw's guess at google's understanding of evil. Evil is a relative term, and if Microsoft is seen as the Evil empire then cutting off amicable relations (manifested by open interfaces) can be construed as "not evil" Read the update to the article, where he points out that the entire concept of ads could be construed as evil by some.
- freshhawk 14y agoaaronsw was quoting google sources, not guessing.
- niggler 14y ago"They’re all instances of refusing to make things worse for your users in order to make more money." <-- factual statement However, 'evil' is not defined in context: https://www.google.com/about/company/philosophy/ https://www.google.com/about/company/philosophy/ Therefore, the leap "evil = make things worse for your users" is not from a google source. That's Aaron's attempt to construct a categorical rule from the examples. "Google unambiguously break their own definition of 'evil'." <-- False, since google didn't explicitly define evil. They broke what Aaron believed google meant when they said "evil".
- r00fus 14y agoThere is a continuum of evil - on one end, you have ruthless bloodthirsty organizations who don't balk at breaking all the rules to make a dollar or point, on the other end you have "mostly self-consistent" organizations like FSF and EFF. Microsoft isn't pure evil, they're were just seen as being closer to the bloodthirsty end than Apple or Google. It used to be that Google was seen as closer to the FSF side than, say, Microsoft. Nowadays, it's pretty clear all of these big tech firms are not far apart and moving more towards the ruthless side of the spectrum.
- duaneb 14y agoWell this is disappointing, to say the least. At least replace it with a better open standard, or I won't use google calendar, which is probably my favorite google product after gmail.
- ladzoppelin 14y agoThe real problem for Google is that Microsoft has better products than Gmail and Google Calender. I am completely fine switching to Outlook web mail services and actually want to move after the way they are handling the active sync situation, the redesign and the closing of services. Once I switch, I would still log in for Google Reader but that ends in July. Google is king of search but the game its playing with these other products are dangerous considering the competition.
- adrinavarro 14y agoSadly, Microsoft Outlook Web Access isn't an option — if you're looking for self hosted services, which you should, having seen what's happening now. The webmail interface is just ugly and hard to use when handling lots of emails each day (as most people here do, I presume). As soon as I find something with a decent calendar system (web, CalDav, time zone support, decent interface and subscribing to iCalendar feeds) as well as decent email (useful interface, good filtering, acceptable spam filtering), and hopefully, XMPP support baked in, I'm jumping ship. This is starting to get ugly.
- jcurbo 14y agoI moved off of Google Calendar and Google Reader (and have never used GMail) for exactly these reasons several months ago. I do not want to be dependent on free services or ones that might go away. I know this could be true for any company - but at least for ones I am paying for I have support agreements.
- pyre 14y agoCare to mention whom you moved to for Calendar / Reader?
- jcurbo 14y agoSure. Reader - Self-hosted Fever, although currently evaluating Tiny Tiny RSS. Checked out Newsblur a while back but felt like the interface was too busy/animated (same reason I left Reader). TTRSS feels a lot like Bloglines of old (which I loved but seemed to die on the vine) Calendar - Bouncing between my email host's solution (pobox.com has a caldav/carddav server now) and iCloud, but considering setting up my own caldav/carddav server.
- koenigdavidmj 14y agoSeems like a proxy layer that speaks CalDAV on one end and Google Calendar API on the other might be handy. Any idea of how much the latter API has that would be difficult to translate?
- ratpad 14y agoYou shut up about Google Reader!
- mcintyre1994 14y agoI think this news highlights a more general problem. How can we call something an "open standard" if it's controlled by one company in such a way that they can shut it down at whim. Open sourcing should be a requirement to be an "open standard", or am I missing something?
- ville 14y agoThey are not shutting down the standard, they are dropping the support for it in services they host.
- Nux 14y agoPeople: do what you want, just start running your own shit instead of playing the google roulette.
- onemorepassword 14y agoI'm pretty much done with Google as supplier of business apps. I have to migrate our company's Google Apps account anyway because of a (domain)name change (which is still hell with Google Apps anyway, you basically have to buy and setup a totally new account an migrate everything by hand or with 3rd party tools), so I might as well look for another supplier. As much as I dislike everything Microsoft, 365 currently looks well ahead of Google (everything they haven't killed yet has definitely stopped evolving), and has certainly proven to be a more reliable partner for business use.
- chapel 14y agoYou can add alternate domains to Google Apps accounts which can work just as the main domain. So you don't have to migrate anything, it is the same account just acknowledges and accepts the alternate domain.
- vacri 14y agoYou can alias the main domain, or you can add a new separate domain with its own settings, both of which we use on the one account.
- onemorepassword 14y agoNo they don't. This is the reason why this is such a hell. Yes, the account acknowledges the alternate name, but Google keeps publicly replacing it with the primary name as soon as you do anything. This is not just ugly and confusing from a marketing and branding perspective, it leads to all kinds of complications with software that reacts to email-addresses, or services that are coupled to Google Apps.
- carl689 14y agoPerhaps I am not following 100%, but I believe we have done this without this issue for years with google apps. We have one primary domain and 15 alias domains. Email Example: user@alias.com gets an email, when they reply it stays set to the alias, it doesn't change to the primary domain.
- orionblastar 14y agoWhy can't we just roll our own CalDAV server via open source projects instead of getting upset that Google is dropping it? Google is dropping Reader, but we can use opens source projects to find another RSS reader. Heck I use Thunderbird for my RSS reading.
- spinchange 14y agoFor one reason, Google has a paid enterprise offering that they sell under contract and dropping support for this is the second shoe to drop in breaking one of its most important components for commercial use. Not every small business has the resources or inclination to DIY their own hosted calendar service, especially when they're already paying for one.
- tomflack 14y agoFor me, I have no problem running my own contacts/calendar server with calDAV/cardDAV support. I really hate running email servers though - and it's really nice to have your contacts and calendars integrated with your webmail.
- XorNot 14y agoI've been looking for a good calendar/contacts server, my general requirement being a really understandable backend data format (i.e. so I can just copy my home directory off the server and get everything). Radicale looks nice, but I haven't managed to get it to work properly so far.
- TimCinel 14y agoThere's Baikal Server[1], which is a pretty neat project that allows you to host and manage several CalDAV and CardDAV accounts on a server. Have been running it for nearly two months with absolutely no issue. Nobody's pulling the rug out from under me. Except me. [1]: http://baikal-server.com/ http://baikal-server.com/
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- raldi 14y agoCan someone explain, in a way that assumes no prior knowledge of CalDAV, what the impact of this change will be?
- spinchange 14y agoShort, worst-case answer: Google web calendars no longer syncing with Microsoft or Apple's local ones. There are finer points and some exceptions, but that's the basic bottom line.
- raldi 14y agoLike, right now you can sync iCal on your Mac with Google Calendar, but next year that won't be possible? What about on an iPhone?
- spinchange 14y agoIt remains to be seen. Google has said that they will "whitelist" certain developers to continue using CalDAV which is what iCal uses to sync both the Mac & iPhone. One would hope/expect that Apple will be one of those developers. No one from either company has commented or confirmed it either way. It's a major reason why people are so surprised and incredulous about Google moving away from the standard.
- zmmmmm 14y ago> If you’re a developer and the Calendar API won’t work for you, please fill out this form to tell us about your use case and request access to whitelisted-only CalDAV API I hope a lot of developers write to google and just tell them they simply can't afford resources to support proprietary APIs when perfectly good open APIs exist. That's a good enough reason to me. The idea that Google is going to continue maintaining a CalDAV API but expects legions of 3rd party developers to devote time and effort to making special calendar integrations for their proprietary API is obnoxious. At very least, some more rationalization of this is needed from Google.
- fuck_google 14y agoNomen est omen.