I have been using Clear since the start. Now, it no longer supports the sync to my Mac. What happened? Is there a new service I am not aware of?
Also, does the date reminder function no longer work?
Help!!
Hey, you can trigger reminders by swiping right past checking off.
But yes unfortunately we had to retire the sync and original clients because they are ancient and breaking down, sorry to let you down there. We do hope to rebuild back up to that someday.
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@phillryu I know you’ve said this elsewhere, but it was/is an unbelievably huge fuckup to unilaterally break a feature as basic as sync without letting users know. Like… what were you thinking? How did you think this would go?
Anyway - your complete honesty and transparency on these forums is refreshing at least, and the only thing keeping me around. I strongly, strongly encourage you to put a message in the app itself though - it was extremely hard to figure out what the hell was going on for me, and a lot of what comes up in search points to confusing troubleshooting steps that only apply to the old version of the app (e.g. ‘enable iCloud sync’ button - which isn’t in the new one for obvious reasons).
One thing I do need to confirm though: I know sync is not possible, but is data at least backed up? For something as core to life management as a task/list app, critical data loss is not an option. You need to be clear about this - whether, all information is local only. If i lose my phone, I can’t afford to lose the contents of my head that I trust to an application like this.
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If you have full device iCloud backups on, Clear’s local data is included in those. That’s been saving some people in a last resort situation where during this crazy process there were deletions of the app happening etc.
I would expect to see us ship a simple iCloud backup/restore system along those lines for Clear itself, as another layer of redundancy in the next few months. We don’t want to rush this out, but it’s also order(s) of magnitude less complex than full blown sync to tackle.
Finally this is more of a support URL but until we ship that, you could use this to export snapshots of your Clear 2 lists into Files app say for occasional manual backups:
clearx://export-data (note, this only backups your lists atm, not your reward progress etc.)
I know it seems insane, and it really was. There was various rationale like – we had looked into updating Clear 1.x to message this, but found no way to simply target the message to anyone currently syncing vs. the bigger group who don’t. And when looking into this, (after having sunset Clear Mac), we also realized it would be a major project just to get the project building and submitting updates again. I had also over the past 7+ years answered so many support emails about the sync breaking down… that I frankly thought we were down to a small minority who were actually finding it usable day to day without it jamming all the time.
But… we should’ve done it. Delayed release. Made a couple serious and poor decisions towards the end feeling pressure to finally get this out there… we were very late at that point. I don’t know if it has to be said after all that but huge regrets for sure.
When I read your lengthy comment in another post, laying out the factors, I definitely understood a lot better what was going on. My sympathies - I have been in the fuckup zone before on projects, more than once. The only way out is through.
I would just put a contact/further info/support link of some kind in the app and point people here, and sticky your latest detailed update. Currently there isn’t anything in the app itself that helps resolve or clarify - and because of the ultra-minimal UI it took me a while to be confident I hadn’t just missed some swipe or other gesture to access settings…
FWIW… people are so bad because Clear is so good, and they love it so much. In a perverse way, that’s a good problem to have. Best of luck.
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Yep I agree, will try to get that in-app support presence in asap, hopefully by 2.0.3. And that has been keeping me sane through it for sure, I agree there’s that foundation of love that’s fueling the deserved anger.
I mean it when I’ve been saying, anyone upset has been rightfully so, I would’ve been too put in the same place. But yeah hopeful we’ll win many a meaningful amount of you over some time with communication and work/good updates.
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I’m just mad because I had long since dropped off using Clear, and when I saw media coverage, kinda fell back in love with it again… only to then start seeing the issues. Not as big a headache for me as some. I’ll be around!
It is great to see renewed support energy - another of my very favourite apps from a similar era, Paper by 53/WeTransfer, has been languishing, and I’m not seeing any signs of life there sadly 
I think platforms need better plans and support for stable software continuity, that don’t rely on devs having to make money continuously over a long time… that’s probably never goign to happen though.
See you around!
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I loved Paper too. Andy Allen from there has been making a series of apps under the company Not Boring, you should check them out. They are not the same aesthetic but definitely an example of more indie personality-filled apps, and it seems like he’s been able to build a sustaining solid business with them! We have been chatting, and yeah hopeful we’ll be able to get there with new Clear too.
Regularly recurring revenue is important, but the shop today looks like it will sell ~325 units. The promising part is this is a best shop sales day since launch over a week ago. I’m not expecting it to hold or grow without Clear 2 connecting with some new generation of people over the year BUT, if we are able to, this might actually work! And that would be a kind of preciously unique business model that suits only us in the space.
Have a good evening!
For me, the killer features of Clear were:
- simplicity
- sync between ios and desktop
I’m sorry to say this new release set me back. If I don’t have sync, my Clear workflow is not really worth it. I’m sure you don’t have an ETA for an updated desktop app with sync?
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I was a big fan and full-time user of the old Clear app. Had to stop using it when sync stopped working. I use: an iPhone + an iPad + a MacMini. It is absolutely essential for me that these sync, otherwise it just doesn’t work for me. When I’m on my mac, I don’t want to reach for my phone to add something to a list. Cumbersome and sometimes I want to copy something from a page or mail or something. No Mac app and no sync = then sorry but it’s not usable for me.
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Understood. I do wonder if in some of those cases (like copying a list) you could actually use iCloud clipboard to then paste it into Clear iPhone. But I get that’s clunky vs. syncing.
Similarly the 2.1 widgets will mean that they can show up on your Mac now, mirroring lists on your phone. So, an interesting improvement over the current situation, but not quite there either.