Affinity for Android

[Muttley]

50 minutes ago, Amnesiac said:

And here's the nub; what is 'a substantial number' for a one-off payment app? Developing for a new platform isn't easy it's not a simple matter

Aw, come on... This can't be the point! Subscription plans for software/apps are a rather new kind of annoyance; before that, almost every piece of software was sold on a one-time payment base and this has been working fine for decades – without ruining the respective software companies. And there's still some who do. 

I – for myself – have meanwhile found an acceptable alternative for my Samsung tablet: PhotoPad from NCH software. Okay, it's far from being as great as Affinity Photo would be, but it's subscription-free, has a traditional user interface (rather than a smartphone-centric GUI), allows local corrections and even offers working with layers. And I'm confident that the little it leaves to desire will be addressed in the near future. So in the meantime, I can do without Affinity Photo; I still hope Serif might some day change their minds, but if they don't, I've got something to work with which suits my basic needs. Amen.

[Amnesiac]

2 minutes ago, Muttley said:

Aw, come on... This can't be the point!

Yup it's the point - They're a business. Go cost it up yourself, then look into the market share and what % of the addressable market they might command and then tell me you'd invest your cash in it. I've done this kind of thing for a living in the past & the numbers can be scary.

I'd take as evidence that it's not a guaranteed money maker by the very limited choice of such applications on the Android platform. If it were worth doing there would be a much bigger choice of drawing package on Android tablets; the fact that there isn't would say to me that most people who've done their sums have come to a similar conclusion as Serif.

Now market conditions do change... so there's always hope.

[pixelstuff]

2 hours ago, Amnesiac said:

Go cost it up yourself, then look into the market share and what % of the addressable market they might command

Or look at all the Android apps that do exist like Audio Evolution or LumaFusion and assume they obviously wasted their time by releasing an app on a platform such as Android.

[Twolane]

Yeah, that $13.99 price will help pay Affinity's bills all right. Although, if you throw in the 28 bucks for the other program gratis and not expect any software, it might help pay some salaries in a decade.

[Amnesiac]

On 12/15/2022 at 5:03 PM, pixelstuff said:

Or look at all the Android apps that do exist like Audio Evolution or LumaFusion and assume they obviously wasted their time by releasing an app on a platform such as Android.

Neither of which is a photo editing app, neither of which as far as I am aware has a desktop presence. I am not sure of the point you're trying to make. I don't know the target markets or tooling either vendors (or Serif) have which might make it more of a sensible business decision for one or the other and how much legacy code they've had to port.

All of this is my point. It might look easy to do cross platform software development (in my experience not, and my very limited and ancient experience with mobile devices even less so), and yes there are more and more toolsets to help it get done but without knowing the ins and outs of it then the assumption that seems to be being made that (a) it's easy & therefore (b) Serif must have some ulterior motive not to do it just doesn't hold water for me.

I think that if it were low hanging fruit they'd have plucked it by now.

As I've repeatedly pointed out I'd LOVE an Android tablet version of Affinity Photo.

[DSGNDM]

Affinity designer could work really smooth in my MiPad 5.
The lack of resolving laggy problems in V2 version and the lack of developing for Android...bad signal for me.
Affinity might learn from Sketch where the "only Apple" roads takes sometimes.

[Amnesiac]

On 2/21/2023 at 7:38 AM, DSGNDM said:

Affinity might learn from Sketch where the "only Apple" roads takes sometimes.

Ummm... it is available on Windows... hows that "only Apple"??

If there are issues with the V2 software (I've only noticed one minor bug) then how is developing for a whole new platform going to help that?

[DSGNDM]

I said that because the problems here are from Windows platform... And there is a Designer version for iPad but not for MiPad 5 (android) for example.
Both examples make me think that maybe the devs are really focused on Apple, more than the rest (Windows & Android)

That's why I had written the sentence that you were referring to.

[debraspicher]

(Warning: I have not read the thread, just the initial premise) I don't think that a port to Android would be easily satisfactory. Android's API changes quite frequently. It's also unfair to compare Android numbers against the iPad market which uses a different OS (and for good reason).

I've bought Android tablets with "powerful" hardware in the past and I've come to see they became a bad investment in short order because of the fact they are out of date too much quicker than their price tag warrants. I just tossed several into the bin because even though the hardware is fine. The software support is garbage because the API versions of most modern apps are too high so they can't be installed. Even some basic social media won't run on them anymore and what it will download and support often runs horribly. Those tablets that were once snappy on date of purchase then become ridiculously tedious to use even with a device reset, just because of the way code is supported on Android. Doesn't matter if I update to a higher OS, or whether I bought double the storage to accommodate the additional bloat. It's just down to the way Android recycles (or doesn't) old code and encourages users to constantly upgrade. This is out of sync with Serif's cost-conscious crowd.

Android has many more users, sure, but each of those users are on a different API version, often much older. This is also counting both phones and tablets. The API changes between versions is often fine for phones as most of the apps developed at that scope port well. If you're a power user looking at purchasing a tablet, however, your options were limited at time of purchase and inevitably become increasingly limited over time. It's not a great experience. Open source solutions often work better in this scenario, hence the prevalence of "rooting" and non-official software environments. (Which Serif can't reasonably support either)

Supporting a number of devices across the spectrum is likely tedious from the point of development by time they release, as that API version will already be quite old. So on top of asking Serif to support multiple API versions (down to whatever version they chose), it's also asking Serif to develop for both UI and stability for phones and tablets and different kernels. That's quite different than just simply porting over UI & code from the iPad. iPad at the hardware level is also much more homogeneous.

We already can see in current development they are attempting to streamline the experience as much as possible between all platforms to keep their ecosystem consistent, in keeping with the vision of "Affinity". Keeping this streamlined with an Android port would be tedious beyond measure. Specifically because Android is meant be run across a spectrum of hardware, there's no easy way to say "Use these recommended hardware specifications" to guarantee the "preferred" experience, because so much of Android is meant to run on even budget devices and their hardware is quite fragmented. As soon as Serif raises the minimum standard API to keep development time within reason, which will likely be more frequent than not, prior support will always be dropped anyway which would invite additional complaints. This means also losing reach. Even if keeping their support window on the narrow end, the amount of testing required to adequately service users this way is possibly out of reach.

And it's not even touching on the economics. So imho, if it happens, it'll be when Affinity has matured considerably and they have the ability to support. Or Google makes Android a better value proposition for power users with tablets to warrant developers flocking to support that hardware.

TLDR: There's a reason Android sees so few power apps for their tablets. Can you imagine grandma trying to edit a cat photo clogging up Affinity support because she's trying to do too much on her potato tablet with a small form factor. How do you tell her which system setting to check when Android settings menu changes faster than a person's underwear? How do you know which she should check when every device configuration is different? How do you service that user properly when the solution is an OS update which that device will never receive? (Search "AMD GPU drivers") That's a big ask of Serif to provide that level of care. A smaller developer who can focus solely on the nuances of Android development and device variability is a better bet. Or, a company like Adobe who can afford to throw money at Android like literal bird seed are more likely to see the benefits. Heck, even Outlook for Android is buggy the last I used it. So I dropped it and searched for a "native" app. Android doesn't cater well to the tablet crowd and is a "master of none" OS, in my opinion. Why buy a $600-1000 device that still manages to run like a potato over a short span of time only for the experience to be completely degraded within the span of a few years? And outright unusable soon after that.

[Amnesiac]

5 hours ago, DSGNDM said:

I said that because the problems here are from Windows platform... And there is a Designer version for iPad but not for MiPad 5 (android) for example.
Both examples make me think that maybe the devs are really focused on Apple, more than the rest (Windows & Android)

That's why I had written the sentence that you were referring to.

OK, I had a look at the Mac and Windows bug tracking fora and they look much of a muchness to me. If there are some definitive relative bug tracking stats somewhere happy to be pointed to them.

I use Affinity on Mac and Windows and don't notice any differences really other than those of the underlying environment.

Serif of course were a Windows shop long before they did any Mac software so I don't think the assertion that they are Apple focused is necessarily true (unless of course they are making a lot more money from that user-base, in which case who can blame them?)

[Amnesiac]

2 hours ago, debraspicher said:

it's also asking Serif to develop for both UI and stability for phones and tablets and different kernels.

[Amnesiac]

I agree with a lot of what you say.

But to be fair Serif don't support iphones only ipads so the comparison would have to be with android tablets.

I do have a 2014 Samsung tablet which sits on my kitchen counter running the apps for all the services I subscribe to. I have an S3 and S7, the latter seems to get updates frequently, but they really don't seem to do much to improve anything. A lot if not all the apps I use on my tablets work across the 3 devices, but, like you I see no value in an android tablet any more. I was never able to replace my laptop with one and the pen API is either so hard to use or such a small market share that there are no good pen interface apps. My 2004 WindowsCE phone had better handwriting recognition and as good drawing apps!

The problem with Android is having made it a success by making it open source Google are bringing back into being a proprietary OS by adding all the value into Google only libraries so anytime anything new and interesting is added the library now is in a Google app not an Android one. Also for Google you the person paying for that device are NOT their customer (you ARE the customer of Samsung etc) but you're the data mine that Google selling to ITS customers so changes that are better for their customers are going to get added in asap regardless of the ecosystem for end-users.

[donka]

With Lumafusion developing for Android, mostly due to the quality of Samsung tablets, I wonder if the market is changing a little? My iPad is almost redundant now compared to my Samsung tablets - the screen and S-Pen combination just works better for me.