SugarSync: Now in Alpha For Mac

Posted by Jacob Schulman on 02/22/08 in Featured, Fun & Unique, Home & Personal, Internet, Office, Organization, Utilities, Web

iDisk used to be the most efficient online file service on the Mac platform, but a new competitor seems to be looming on the horizon. SugarSync allows you to get your files from virtually anywhere.

Previously only compatible with PC and mobile devices, the folks over at SugarSync announced today an alpha release for Mac. SugarSync allows you to upload your files to their service, and then access those files from anywhere with an internet connection and a browser.

Once downloaded, SugarSync will ask you to log in with the e-mail address you have used previously, or you can make a new e-mail address to use with SugarSync. After picking a cute icon and naming the computer that you’re setting up to use with SugarSync, you are then prompted to choose the folders/documents that you want to sync. As far as I know at the moment, SugarSync provides 1 GB of free space. It’s not clear whether SugarSync will offer options to pay for more storage, but if I had to venture a guess, I’d have to say that it’s a very likely possibility.

SugarSync Screenshot

After you log in, you are presented with a window to choose what folders you want to upload. For the purposes of this early review, I took a folder that I had with some of my school-related stuff in it, and uploaded it to SugarSync’s servers. The upload went really quickly, even on the crappy internet connection in my hotel in California.

After the initial upload has completed, you’re finally presented with SugarSync’s main window. This is where you can manage everything that gets uploaded, is uploaded, and other options for your sugarsync.com personal file site. The UI is super clean and simple.

SugarSync Screenshot

SugarSync Screenshot The web service is super easy to use and very user-friendly as well. You simply log in to *yourusername*.sugarsync.com and you can then access all of your files and other items that you’ve uploaded with the service. It allows you to download your documents from wherever you are, and upload from other locations as well.

Also really nice is the mobile interface. I gave it a try on my BlackBerry and it worked perfectly. It was a little quirky to get set up at first, and I’m still not sure 100% about how it exactly works, but it seemed pretty nice. SugarSync also seems to have an iPhone/iPod touch version which looks very nice as well.

Overall, I’m super impressed with this new service. It also seems incredibly stable for an alpha release (*crosses fingers*). The SugarSync Mac alpha can be downloaded from SugarSync’s website, and for now is free while in alpha/beta stage. It’s unknown what SugarSync will cost (if anything) when it leaves beta, but you can certainly enjoy it in the meantime.

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8 Comment(s)

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Mike Abdullah said on

February 22nd, 2008 at 11:44 am

You’re kidding me right? That UI is absolutely awful.

* Completely non-standard controls (buttons, text fields, outline views, scrollbars etc.)
* Missing minimize button rather than greyed out
* OK/Cancel buttons the wrong way round (and really ought to have better titles)

Bizarrely from your screenshots, the web UI actually fits in better with the OS X desktop!

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Peter said on

February 22nd, 2008 at 1:50 pm

So does that mean that if you use the alpha/beta and they choose to only offer it for a fee when they get to release, they’ll simply make all your data disappear if you don’t pay?

Gand said on

February 22nd, 2008 at 2:16 pm

They say “100MB Free Disk Space”, not 1GB.

-1

Rees Maxwell said on

February 23rd, 2008 at 1:31 am

Considering that price per GB is about 29 cents right now, It is hard to fathom a service that doesn’t at least give 10 GB. You know they’ll find a way to pump ads through their service, so that will help cover some expenses … and if they’re smart, they have some investors pumping in money and are probably just hoping to hold out until some major online company comes along and buys them.

The more sinister side of me would love to see MS come in and buy this company, then roll all the Mac users in to MS Live Storage & Calendar (or whatever). Then MS could get their logo onto more Macs and Mac users stuff. Not likely to happen, but sure would put a smile on my face.

-2

abramelin said on

February 23rd, 2008 at 4:20 am

Well, at least its got to be better than iDisk which is unusuable on any computer other than your home Mac. Open up iDisk on a pc and if you have more than about 12 folders, you are totally shafted - the stupid thing doesn’t allow you to scroll down. I know scrolling a window of folders is super advanced stuff but you’d think Apple would have been able to figure out a way for this to be done eh?
Once the pricing is sorted out, this is something i would use. I definitely wont be renewing my subscription is useless iDisk.

SugarSyncer said on

February 25th, 2008 at 2:10 pm

During beta period, SugarSync offers upto 11GB for free (1GB by default, with an optional free upgrade for an additional 10GB).

They key differentiation of the service is that it automatically synchronizes changes made anywhere — online or on a Mac or PC or mobile — everywhere else.

Regarding suggestions for improvements, the Mac client is still in alpha, so you can expect a lot of the issues alluded to above to disappear soon.

The service will be a paid service, cheaper than iDisk, and there will be no ads.

If you’d like synchronize multiple Macs, or a Mac and a PC, or just don’t want to deal with manual uploads and downloads to backup stuff online and remotely access them, try out the service.

Walter Mitty said on

February 27th, 2008 at 1:40 am

Does anyone know of a free service that does what this does? (Destitute college student here.)

Dave said on

July 21st, 2008 at 6:33 am

You might want to watch the progress of the project Fruux. They currently don’t have any iDisk-like features, but since they want to replicate the DotMac/MobileMe syncing feature set, FileSyncing might appear, too.