A delay for desktop font sync
Update: The desktop font sync feature is rolling out in limited batches. Read our update to learn how to sign up for early access.
Last month, Adobe announced a bevy of new Creative Cloud software and features. As part of those announcements, Typekit showed a sneak preview of a new feature we’re working on for syncing fonts from Typekit to your desktop through Creative Cloud.
Today, Adobe announced the launch of the new suite of CC applications and many new features. We hoped that the desktop font sync feature would be ready for today’s launch, but we need more time to get it right. This feature represents the biggest change to the Typekit service so far, and we’re working to ensure that it’s a great experience for everyone. We apologize for the delay.
If you have any questions, you can reach us at support@typekit.com. We’ve also published a desktop font sync help page to answer some of the common questions we’ve been asked since the initial announcement.
Update on June 24, 2013
On behalf of the whole Typekit team, we’d like to reiterate how sorry we are to have let all of you down with the delay of desktop font sync. We’d like to share some more details about the issues we’re working through that we hope will be helpful.
The bulk of the work on the desktop sync feature has been complete for some time. Both Jeff Veen’s demo at MAX and the screencast by Ben Welch were done using a working version of the font syncing service and desktop client. The problems preventing us from shipping the feature have to do with deploying and supporting it at scale. Adobe’s worldwide community is huge, and we expect hundreds of thousands of simultaneous users for desktop font sync once it’s released. We’re working hard to handle that much traffic at the high level of quality and stability you expect from Typekit.
Unfortunately, we failed to reach our scaling milestone before the original June 17 target. Because desktop font sync relies upon Adobe’s file sync platform, which is not yet ready, we can’t give a firm estimate. It’s safe to say that it will be longer than a week or two.
If you purchased a Creative Cloud membership or standalone Typekit subscription after 7 May 2013 in order to use the desktop font sync feature and are dissatisfied, we’d like to help. Please email our support team at support@typekit.com.
We’re excited to bring Typekit to your desktop as soon as we can. Please stay tuned to our blog and Twitter for updates.
26 Responses
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Well this is disappointing… Easily the thing I was most looking forward to with the Adobe CC launch. Hopefully you guys are able to sort things out soon!
Take your time. Do it right.
I am disappointed as well but I agree with Donald. Take your time. Do it right.
Do you have any time estimates?
I actually said “Darn” out loud when I read this. I’m bummed, sure, but I can’t wait to see it when it’s done. Keep up the good work.
Better late and perfect than on schedule and buggy!
Do you have an ETA for this feature? Definitely agree that it’s better to work out more of the bugs before launching, but I was disappointed that this didn’t go live as had been announced.
Oh man! I’ve been checking creative cloud for updates constantly for just this reason. Does this mean waiting for the next CC update, or will it be sooner?
Hate to be rude, but delays seem to be typekit’s MO.
Delays are Adobe’s MO as a whole. They bait you with promises of cool features then make you wait months (while you continue to pay) before they actually release them. And then they’re buggy and rarely work. Remember Creative Cloud Desktop Connection? Biggest feature of CC and didn’t come out until 7 months later?
What kind of delay are we anticipating? Days? Weeks? Months? Years? Could you give some more direction as to when we can expect this to be available. We are designing a new website right now and would really like to use this feature.
Could we get an estimate for availability? If you could provide one before, surely you guys can again; I assume you’re even closer to completion than before. Please give more information.
Wheeeeeeeeeen? I purchased Creative Cloud only because of you 🙂
No more raining in our clouds, please. 🙂
Can you provide a rough timeline. We will have to buy a $600 font pack to complete a project we based partially on this coming, so if it’s going to be weeks, we’ll get by but months and we need to spend that money. I’m going to be really disappointed if we go and spend it and this rolls out in two weeks. Any rough estimates?
To all who’ve asked about a new timeline for the desktop font sync feature:
We’re working to release a great desktop font sync experience as soon as we can, but we aren’t able to give a timeline. We’d like to avoid giving additional estimates that may turn out to be wrong. We’ll post another update on the Typekit blog when we have progress to share. Thank you for your patience.
Ok but TypeKit for Desktop was presented on Adobe Max or Adobe Creative Days Tour, as a future in this update! And you don’t even want to tell us (your clients) when it will be approx. available. So you telling us: Keep calm, pay for the Creative Cloud and forget about our promises.
Wow. That’s a dreadful response. I second Luke. To simply say it’s delayed is not sufficient. I would not say that to a client without indicating the kind of delay. Adobe must realise that we take note of the dates they provide and work to those dates. So like others for me this is causing me delay + money. I have print I need to use fonts on from a web project and if takes much longer I will be forced to buy the desktop version when it should by now according to a promise by adobe (when you say you are giving something on a specific release that = promise) be now available to me.
I am a huge fan of what Adobe are doing with latest updates, and don’t like to moan but this is unacceptable. Yes get it right before releasing but getting it right includes getting your estimations right and realistic. And at the least give your clients a new realistic deadline. I would never say to my client “it’s taking a bit longer…. mmm not sure when it’ll be ready… hang in there!”
very very disappointing and frankly not really acceptable.
Hey Sean,
Thanks very much for the update, there is always disappointment in situations like this, but thanks again for giving us an update.
I think I speak for the group (well perhaps apart from Luke), we’re all really looking forward to this integration and want the software to be released when it is good and ready.
I and a lot of the group are really looking forward to this new feature, and I know there is always a big fear of miss setting customer expectations for delivery dates. But would you be able to give us some bracketed idea of when we can hope to see it, are we talking a couple of weeks, a month, a couple of months kind of thing?
We can then all make our individual choices on what we’ll do in the interim for designs / website mockups etc.
Thanks
Sean
To follow up, Sean your reply isn’t helping us. I get that you all don’t want to miss the mark again, but as others have said, we’ve got projects in progress that were based around this release. I would rather you tell is “there is no way it’s coming in June or July” so that those of us that need to deliver can move on. But if it’s a “we’re fixing one or two things and trying for a week or two, but it MAY NOT work out” we would appreciate that transparency.
What I don’t like is checking Twitter and this blog post twice a day for any update and being met with silence and unknowns. I half expect to be checking this blog post in October with no updates. We just want to know what the heck is going on and why it wasn’t tested before. If you hadn’t promised something most of us would have been happy waiting knowing it wasn’t slated for mid June with the rest of CC. But others, like me, are now stuck deciding whether we need to spend thousands on a font or wait just a matter of days or weeks.
We’re not getting any help and I think as loyal customers from the outset we are owed that level of authenticity from a brand that we’ve promoted and helped build.
Here’s my interpretation, based on nothing but being 53 years old and having been around small businesses with money and other problems a few too many times over the last four decades.
No, this isn’t a small business, and I hope the problem isn’t that corporate is limiting the budget to get this done.
But having read the thread, I pick up a strong scent of it’s gonna be a while.
So if you have to, buy the font or find another one – or maybe limit the seats to just the bare minimum, to get the first deliverables out the door? – and for the sake of your sanity, plan to check back around Labor Day.
That way, if we get good news anytime before that, it’s good news!
Yeah – you will be out the cost of the fonts you were counting on NOT buying. Maybe you can split it with the clients when you explain the situation. Maybe it’s just a writeoff in April. You probably have good financial folks you can ask.
But in the meantime: I don’t know about you, but I can probably think of other reasons to check Twitter obsessively. Like being in a sitting position and holding an iPad …
I think you misunderstand. When you announce the launch of a technology product, you’ve tested it and know it works. If there’s a bug at launch, you say, “we’ve got a bug and we’re working on it.” What Typekit isn’t doing is telling us anything. Specifically, is this EVER going to work or did some random thing not perform as expected? So they expect us to believe that at 11pm on Monday when CC rolled out, it suddenly didn’t work. Umm, we build a lot of software and if that’s how you roll out a product, we all should be leaving Typekit in droves because they’re doing it wrong.
It’s called beta testing, user testing, and bug tracking. This is 101 stuff and we’re owed an explanation for something that was a committed part of Adobe CC just suddenly not working. Not once did they say it was a future addition, it was clearly stated it would be launching with CC. So for those of us that run a business that DOES require the exact right font that we spent months picking and have to buy 25 seats for that ALL HAVE CC (and are giving Adobe a total of $1,250 a month, it is a big deal. For this particular font, that’s almost $9,000. $9,000 that we can’t go back and ask the client to pay for. Have you tried doing that, yeah, it doesn’t go over well. So I do think it’s a good reason to check Twitter obsessively.
“When you announce the launch of a technology project, you’ve tested it and you know it works.”
That would certainly be the case if you or I were running that project. Or almost anyone we would care to work with. It was likely true of pre-Dobe Typekit.
What I have gleaned from 24 years of marriage to an engineering manager in the defense industry is that things are very different once a few vice presidents decide they have to put their stamp on the proceedings. Plus, Typekit could well have some hangers-on at lower levels whose agenda is not to meet deadlines but in fact to keep evert step going as long as possible (along with their own employment,)
I agree, which is why I’m livid. Not directed at you, I’m just mad on behalf of our community that Typekit went about it this way and is now just being silent. It’s just not how you run a business.
Brad entirely agree with all you say. And I’m not that guy who likes to moan on posts as those people generally annoy me – in fact I barely comment at all. However in this situation I don’t think this response from adobe/sean is any way acceptable. And I fear the insight @marybaum may be accurate.
I responded to Sean above at June 18th before reading down to your comments Brad – so thank you from saving me a further rant as you have articulated exactly my sentiments.
We can accept reluctantly that things go wrong – but give us a date or a ball park estimation
Please.
The other thing that may have happened – beyond Vice Presidents – and by that I mean the ones who only heard of Typekit the week after Adobr acquired them – is lawyers.
Remember how it took 15 years to get type on the web?
For all we know, the tech might be ready – but three corporate counsel have slow-tracked the licensing for reasons only their paranoid gluteii can comprehend.
We’ve heard your questions and concerns, and we’ve updated this blog post with more details about the nature and scope of the delay that we hope will be helpful. If you have additional questions, please contact us at support@typekit.com or on Twitter at @typekit.