Apple to Fruux: When I look at you, I see myself

Written on 16th December 2008                                                                                                              5 COMMENTS
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur

Fruux, the free alternative to MobileMe, has been deemed too similar to Apple’s own MobileMe solution. The developers behind Fruux submitted their desktop App to Apple months ago to be featured in Apples’ Software Download Page. Yesterday they received this short but clear message:

Hi,

fruux’s feature-set is too similar to Apple’s MobileMe (http://www.me.com).

Regards,

Apple Downloads

Duh. That IS the whole point!
Fruux is similar to MobileMe except for one notable difference: it is free!

Fruux was planning on offering an iPhone version of its software too but is seriously reconsidering that now. If they can’t even get a link from Apple’s Downloads page they can be pretty sure they won’t be accepted in the iPhone store either. Why spend money, time and sleepless nights on a product you know won’t ever be officially accepted?

Apple thinks competition is good. Except when you are competing with Apple’s own products.

Apple, competition, denied, fruux, mobileme

5 Comments »

Fruux – MobileMe sync without MobileMe

Written on 22nd September 2008                                                                                                              2 COMMENTS
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur

MobileMe just works for me. But if you take a look at the blogosphere sometimes I seem to be the only on in the world who has a positive experience. Either way, some companies are using MobileMe’s bad rep to launch their own and competing products.

You could use Gmail, Soocial, Plaxo and, since last week, give fruux a try if you are fed up with MobielMe.

fruux is the latest entry into this market. It is a small and convenient system preference pane, that syncs your AddressBook between different macs. fruux supports sync conflict resolution which will help you when you changed a contact on more than one machine.

fruux is a Germany based student start-up. They launched their public beta before the weekend and it is currently localized to German and English. Calendar and bookmark syncing will be added in one of the next updates.

It’s still beta software, so (although nobody managed to kill his AddressBook with fruux yet) we strongly recommend having an AddressBook backup. On the other hand we strongly recommend having a backup even if people don’t try fruux! When was the last time YOU back-up your AddressBook?

Their Road map looks pretty interesting too:

- Bookmark Syncing
- Calendar Syncing
- Preferences Syncing
- “Social Syncing”
- iPhone Sync Client
- fruux Webapp (Addressbook/Calendar/Bookmarks on the go from any internetconnected device)

Download the App for free at the fruux blog or check out this gallery with a few screenshots:

AddressBook, Apple, fruux, mobileme, plaxo, soocial

2 Comments »