From Mac to Win

[Juanpol]

hi guys!

I bought Designer and Photo in the Apple App store and now I want to use my licenses in Windows. How can I do it? Thanks for your help! 🙂

[MikeW]

Affinity application licensing is per OS. Which means you need to purchase new licensing for Windows. 

[Juanpol]

🤔 wow...

[Juanpol]

really?

[walt.farrell]

41 minutes ago, Juanpol said:

really?

Yes.

Even if you had purchased directly from Serif, you would not be able to do it. You will need to purchase again.

Luckily, right now they're both 50% off, so it's a good time to do that if you really want to run them on both OSes.

[Pšenda]

Refunds are possible within a certain period of purchase (14 days?).

 

 

[walt.farrell]

40 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

Refunds are possible within a certain period of purchase (14 days?).

For purchases directly from Serif, yes, 14 days.

Juanpol purchased from Apple, however.

[wonderings]

I do think this is a dated approach to software licensing. Adobe got it right when they switched to CC. It no longer mattered what OS you used (Mac/Windows), all they cared about was that you paid. Other companies have gone this route as well though I think they may all be subscription based. Would be nice for this to go the way of the Dodo, at least for purchases direct from Affinity. Not sure why it would matter much to Affinity if it was only the purchaser using their software. Maybe there are some good reasons, I can't think of any.

[Cecil]

1 hour ago, wonderings said:

Adobe got it right

That  is a personal preference, not shared by many moving to Serif products.  Nice if you business pays or tax write off for subscription.

[wonderings]

5 minutes ago, Cecil said:

That  is a personal preference, not shared by many moving to Serif products.  Nice if you business pays or tax write off for subscription.

I think you missed the context, or I possibly was not clear. Adobe got it right with CC as your purchase does not care if you use Mac or Windows. I could have Adobe on my work iMac and have it installed on a PC laptop at the same time. The OS is irrelevant. 

People paying for the subscription are most likely making money with their Adobe products. They are not hobby tools but pro apps. That being said I hate the forced subscription service but loves the apps. I wish they went back to have options for outright purchase and subscription. Adobe CC did make life a lot easier as everyone has the same version (generally). I no longer need to worry upgrading because one of my clients did and the files they send require me to have the latest.

[Pšenda]

33 minutes ago, wonderings said:

The OS is irrelevant. 

At Affinity too.

All you have to do is buy an OS bundle/pack. It is a bit more expensive - 3x, but then the OS is irrelevant. And for users who are not interested in the possibility of switching to another OS at all, the basic price is still reasonable.

[wonderings]

15 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

At Affinity too.

All you have to do is buy an OS bundle/pack. It is a bit more expensive - 3x, but then the OS is irrelevant. And for users who are not interested in the possibility of switching to another OS at all, the basic price is still reasonable.

You have to buy for a specific OS. Why should buying for a specific OS on the Affinity website store matter? Why not buy the registration key and you decide on which computer you want to use it on, Mac or Windows? That seems like the easiest and simplest way and best solution for the end user as you are not tied to an OS. 

[Cecil]

1 hour ago, wonderings said:

Why not buy the registration ke

I guess Affinity could provide two bundle keys for $100 for AP, I see no serious advantage of having one key.  Affinity offers users a choice of programs and OS, at a reasonable price, often discounted. 

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, wonderings said:

You have to buy for a specific OS.

Yes, but Serif had to pay extra to develop for a different OS, test on a different OS, and support on a different OS. They need to be able to recoup those costs. Additionally, most users (I would guess) do not use both Windows and Mac, but only one, and Serif would like to keep the price low for those users who only want one OS.

Would you rather they raise their standard (US) price from (at a guess) $50 to $75 for everyone, to allow use on both OSes, when most of us want it on only one? I would rather have a lower price, because I know I have only Windows computers and am unlikely to get a Mac.

By the way, if you're a business user willing to do a volume purchase of Affinity licenses, you can get keys that will work on either Windows or Mac.

[wonderings]

15 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Yes, but Serif had to pay extra to develop for a different OS, test on a different OS, and support on a different OS. They need to be able to recoup those costs. Additionally, most users (I would guess) do not use both Windows and Mac, but only one, and Serif would like to keep the price low for those users who only want one OS.

Would you rather they raise their standard (US) price from (at a guess) $50 to $75 for everyone, to allow use on both OSes, when most of us want it on only one? I would rather have a lower price, because I know I have only Windows computers and am unlikely to get a Mac.

By the way, if you're a business user willing to do a volume purchase of Affinity licenses, you can get keys that will work on either Windows or Mac.

I personally would have no issue with the price raised, it is in incredibly cheap for what you are getting as it is and if a higher price point would bring faster change with needed features and flexibility as we are discussing then yes. $75 is still insanely cheap. 

[Cecil]

2 hours ago, wonderings said:

. $75 is still insanely cheap.

I agree Affinity price point is great; however, $75 is not considered insanely cheap by some.  I’m not trying to be uncivil; count your blessings.

[wonderings]

39 minutes ago, Cecil said:

I agree Affinity price point is great; however, $75 is not considered insanely cheap by some.  I’m not trying to be uncivil; count your blessings.

For home users it is not, but you are getting an almost pro level application. Now Indesign CS6 (the last versions you could buy outright) cost around $700, Illustrator $600 and Photoshop another $700. When you can buy the entire Affinity suite for well under half the price of one Adobe application I think that is insanely cheap. Not exactly apples to oranges as Adobe does not sell outright and I have not priced out yearly membership, but basically 3-4 months of subscription from Adobe has bought you the entire suite from Affinity. 

[MikeW]

5 minutes ago, wonderings said:

For home users it is not, but you are getting an almost pro level application. Now Indesign CS6 (the last versions you could buy outright) cost around $700, Illustrator $600 and Photoshop another $700. When you can buy the entire Affinity suite for well under half the price of one Adobe application I think that is insanely cheap. Not exactly apples to oranges as Adobe does not sell outright and I have not priced out yearly membership, but basically 3-4 months of subscription from Adobe has bought you the entire suite from Affinity. 

An Adobe single application subscription in the USA will cost between $18-$21/month depending on whether you can get a deal from Adobe. PS+Lightroom is the only real deal at roughly $10 a month. Otherwise, a full Subscription is roughly $600/year.

After the initial purchase "back in the day," my upgrades (roughly every two years was the release cycle) was ID = $120 and AI = $175. So halve those for a rough yearly cost.

[MikeW]

Not that anyone asked for my opinion regards licensing across OSs...I'm ambivalent about the issue. Probably because of the current pricing, but I haven't put much thought into the subject from a business perspective.

In roughly a decade of using Serif applications, I had two concurrent businesses. I cannot recall a single instance of anyone at Serif telling me how to price the products or services I provided. I'm not about to tell them how to price their products either.