iCloud sync deprecation

[etm001]

Hi,

After not having used the flashcard module in quite some time, I launched it today and receive warnings that iCloud sync has been deprecated. I searched this forum and the Apple app store version history updates, but did not find any reference to this. Could you share more details as to what the issue is, and when can we expect an new sync solution for iOS devices.

Thanks!

 

[mikelove]

It was several years ago, actually - we got the impression most people had already stopped using it due to its unreliability. It's pretty much accepted wisdom among iOS developers that you should never rely on iCloud as your only / primary sync solution, it just wasn't as obvious back in iOS 6 or 7 or thereabouts when we decided to add that feature

We're removing it altogether in 4.0, but we're planning to release + maintain a "Pleco Legacy" version for several years alongside 4.0 - basically to have an answer to all of the "why did you take out X" complaints - and we plan to keep iCloud sync support in that one, so if it's working well for you then you should be able to simply move to that version and carry on using it in that.

As far as a replacement, we've done all of the big database schema changes we need (switching to GUIDs for object identifiers e.g.) to support our own record-level sync for 4.0, but we feel like we really have to finish releasing it + porting it to Android before we can spend the time to finish it, so I don't have a good timeline for you on that at the moment.

 

[etm001]

Thanks for the explanation. I had no idea this feature was deprecated so long ago. That's because I used the flashcard module infrequently and likely only on a single device. This came to my attention when I recently started a flashcard test on my phone on a whim.