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“So, how do you do it?”

Immediately after releasing Push sync for iOS last night (in 2Do v3.6 – and yes, it’s coming to the Mac very soon), we’ve read some great feedback but have also been approached by the inquisitive and the concerned – and rightly so – asking “So, how do you do it? Does our private data even transfer over a secure connection? Do you save any of our private stuff on your servers? Do you keep track of our tasks in order to determine which device syncs what, when and how? How exactly are you pushing this information from device to device?”

These are all amazing questions, and for all these amazing questions, we’ve got one amazing answer: “Our Push sync solution is perhaps the most secure in the entire universe!”

Woah! Did we just say that? No seriously, we aren’t insane – at least not yet. The question is, how on earth can we make such a bold statement? And to think, we don’t even know how to spell encrypshion (that was deliberate!). You see, the most secure form of communication is … when you have absolutely no communication at all. That’s right! 2Do makes all this happen without actually communicating anything with anyone (communication quite literally involves an exchange of information between two or more parties). It shares no private data, or even public for that matter, with any server / device / human / satellite / living or non-living thing. That’s how we’re able to pull it off on top of all the existing sync solutions supported: Dropbox, Reminders, Toodledo, Fruux, Yahoo! and Custom 3rd party CalDAV servers.

Without going too much into the nitty gritty details, this is how we pull it off:

iPhone: Ya’ll! I just finished syncing.

iPad: Cool! I’ve gotta check this out, now!

iPod: Hey, not fair! I was about to sync some pending changes!

iPhone: Relax, dude. Just shout when you’re done.

In technical terms, this is what we call the Observer design pattern. One device syncs, makes an anonymous broadcast over a secure iCloud connection (zero information shared, just a shout out, absolutely nothing to secure, but the connection is secure any way). Other observing devices see this, and react accordingly. Each device maintains its own, private and encrypted connection to the sync service of your choice, and at no time does any of this information gets shared between devices.

So you see, you’ve got nothing to worry about! Unlike several other services, we don’t make you fill out any forms, force you into signing up to our own insecure cloud, or share details with any of our dodgy partners. While most product developers will explain, “You see, in order to provide you with fast, reliable sync in the background, we just have to implement our own cloud service – and that’s why we can’t support any of the more popular ones that people actually use at home or at work”. Yup, we believe you! Let me go ahead and pour out my life onto your servers for the benefit of your employees during those boring lunch breaks, eh? And then you can email us after a month, advising us to change our passwords, completely precautionary of course, since you care so much. Don’t we just love you for that!

Your data belongs to you. You sync it with whatever service you’re comfortable with. We’re not going to dictate or vouch for one service over another. They’re all awesome. Best of all, why reinvent the wheel when most of these services already do a pretty decent job when it comes to sharing data amongst other 3rd party apps (CalDAV, to name one). We’d rather spend all that energy working on the actual stuff that keeps you productive.

2Do speaks to no motherships. And that says a lot about our respect for your data.

Aug 25, 2015