Announcing the FastMail Calendar

http://blog.fastmail.fm/2014/06/23/announcing-the-fastmail-calendar/

by sygma • 12 years ago

121 36 12 years ago

blog.fastmail.fm

vayan• 12 years ago

I'm waiting contact synchronisation and I'll only need google for the play market ! pretty neat.

Rudism• 12 years ago

I've been waiting for some way to synchronize contacts on FM for years. According to posts on the support forum, they are pretty close to having CardDAV support implemented. Fingers crossed that they roll it out soon.

dublinben2• 12 years ago

You should check out the alternative app store F-Droid. It is completely free software apps, and all are Ad-free and high quality. There are alternatives or replacements for just about anything you might want, and you don't need Google anything.

joelrunyon• 12 years ago

I like this - really looking forward to a full featured google services replacement coming out of them.

dewey• 12 years ago

This is awesome, especially the two-way sync with iCloud is really neat if you want to use it on devices with no iCloud support.

TarpitCarnivore2• 12 years ago

I was excited to see this, and it works quite well, my only wish is that I could manage one calendar and have the changes push out to all connected calendars.

ericcholis2• 12 years ago

This might be the feature that makes me switch my personal email.

webjames• 12 years ago

I switched about a year ago now (from Google Apps), and very happy with the email service. However this and 'contact sync' (coming soon) will make it a very real possibility for a lot more people. Well done fastmail! At the moment I still have my calendar with iCloud, contacts with Google and email with FastMail.

ericcholis2• 12 years ago

It's worth asking, is there a similar set of services that one could run on their own? Controlling one's own data and all that...

TarpitCarnivore2• 12 years ago

I guess you could try OwnCloud, but I'm unaware of it supports mail in any capacity.

dublinben2• 12 years ago

Kolab is pretty much a drop-in replacement for Google mail, calendar, etc.

BozeWolf• 12 years ago

Why would you switch? The only benefit to me is: my mail/calendar is not on the servers of big companies like Google or Apple.

I somehow (not objectiviley) like the impression Fastmail gives me. The cowboy-ish yet serious way they try to compete with the big ones. That might be a reason to join too.

adestefan• 12 years ago

Because Fastmail's sole reason to be in business is to deliver robust email services. It's unlikely that they're going to pull out the service from underneath you at some point when email isn't fashionable.

They also have stellar support.

Semaphor2• 12 years ago

I switched around a year ago. Another reason is that the interface is faster than google.

Also the features are different, Google has some FM lacks vice versa. Depending on the features you need that might be an advantage or a disadvantage. Personally I only miss "Send & Archive" from Google.

nicwolff• 12 years ago

The primary benefit for me (besides the infinitely nicer Web app) is that FastMail lets me send "From" any of my addresses without leaking my fastmail.net address in a header, which GMail kept doing no matter how many hoops I jumped through (SMTP AUTH to another mail server, &c.)

ppetty• 12 years ago

This is great! Well done. And not just from the Google Apps alternative perspective, the user interface is different. People might debate some of the major differences; but the infinite or continuous calendar scrolling feature along with the toolbar at the bottom makes navigating your calendar(s) easy. It feels more natural than Google’s … The syncing was easy to set up too; and will make transitioning off of Google a breeze.

sinisterz06• 12 years ago

This is excellent, I've been very happy since switching to FastMail and now this just adds even more value. Keep it up FastMail!

Oculus• 12 years ago

What are the security benefits gained by using FastMail over Google (in the context of a state-level eavesdropper)? Is it that FastMail is a smaller target? If you take all your centralized information from Google and move it over to FastMail, it's still centralized - what am I missing?

bradfa• 12 years ago

From a government spying perspective, I'd say there's no benefit. Fastmail servers, at least for US customers are in the NYC area at nyi.net, iirc.

I imagine most customers (myself included) are using fastmail instead of Google to avoid Google, or similar, not to avoid the governments.

tombrossman• 12 years ago

This is exactly why I switched to Fastmail. It isn't for the 'tinfoil hat' crowd, who already know to avoid any service with assets in the US. Some of us think having an advertising company handle our email no longer makes sense.

I think anyone looking for a third-party commercial email service free from government snooping is already off to a bad start.

opendais• 12 years ago

Really the only thing is the local legal environment.

http://blog.fastmail.fm/2013/10/07/fastmails-servers-are-in-...

jstalin• 12 years ago

I switched from gmail to fastmail about six months ago and I'm very happy. It's fast, relatively cheap ($40 a year for 15 gigs of storage) and they aren't scanning my email to serve up advertisements. The addition of calendar is just another bonus that I'm immediately adopting.

Another great feature is the ability to use as many domains and email aliases as you want. I have all of my custom domains set up with both send a receive service, including DKIM. Also, if I ever need a throwaway email address, I just set it up, send an email, and then delete the address.

Dorian-Marie2• 12 years ago

Here is an actual screenshot of the calendar: https://www.fastmail.fm/static/homepage/images/calendar.png

toomuchtodo• 12 years ago

I'd argue its a better presentation than Google Calendar, and I love Google Calendar.

Dorian-Marie2• 12 years ago

For comparaison: http://i.imgur.com/8i7w27C.png

I still prefer Google Calendar or Apple Calendar interface:

https://www.apple.com/osx/apps/images/galleries/calendar_her...

leejoramo• 12 years ago

Very nice. Unfortunately for iCloud sync, you need to provide your Apple iCloud account email and password. Not a very good security practice, but Apple doesn't provide any other way to accomplish this.

Fastmail does use Google authentication to access the Google Calendar.

2mur• 12 years ago

Interested in switching off gmail. How are folks getting new email notifications on mobile?

keidian• 12 years ago

I'm using fastmail and https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.onegravity... on push notifications, no issues at all. Very happy with it

garblegarble• 12 years ago

What I'm really wanting is the ability to have completely separate IMAP accounts for my various domains, but it's good to see they're adding calendaring, that seemed like an odd omission

hga• 12 years ago

I know they've been working on it for a while, I remember reading at least one progress report or the like.

They undoubtedly got diverted by being bought by Opera when they sold the company to it in 2010 and did various things for it, then bought the company back in September of last year. Now that they're again their own masters, we've been seeing a lot of improvements ... and I myself am happy that I can continue using their older "classic" UI because I don't think their New and Improved one is, at least for myself and how I use it.

sandstrom• 12 years ago

Good to see someone taking up competition against Google/MS.

If only they'd move their servers to Iceland (they already have backups there).

winestock• 12 years ago

There are only a handful of independent nations in the world. They are Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and "the international community."

Iceland is a part of the empire. I wish that it weren't so. I do sympathize with your wish for privacy.

jackvalentine2• 12 years ago

I've been putting off switching away from google apps for my personal domain until fastmail had the tripod of mail+contacts+calendar in place, now to wait a couple of months for the initial bugs to be ironed out and it's happening.

conradk• 12 years ago

I've ben using beta.fastmail.fm since I signed up. The calendar has been in Beta for months. Big bugs would most likely already have been fixed.

jackvalentine2• 12 years ago

Always there is a difference between "bugs discovered in beta" and "bugs discovered when you let your application loose on the wider public". I don't have time to deal with bugs in my calendars, so will wait.

Announcing the FastMail Calendar

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