I'm trying to understand the essence of Affinity.

[Joschi]

First of all, there's no question that working with Affinity Apps follows a different philosophy and approach compared to the apps from Adobe, Skylum, Capture One, Corel & Co. There are many functional similarities - which is important and makes sense - as well as special features that other apps do not have.👍

Don't get me wrong - I'm glad the Affinity apps exist! I bought all the apps and books from Affinity - even the Affinity T-Shirt :D. So it's safe to say that I'm very fond of your apps. Great compliments and praise must also be given to you for the way you presented yourselves as a company in the midst of the Corona crisis, giving freelancers and companies the opportunity to use your products free of charge for a long period of time - and providing financial resources on top of that. Not to forget, the regular fair discount offers during the holidays or special promotional periods. On a human level, you seem to be doing a lot right in my eyes. 👏

 

However, my perception of how I understand Affinity is also increasingly changing.
Because there is also the other side of you - namely the economically and strategically related side of your company:

Your poor communication within the community and unclear attitude of long-term plans and visions make me doubt, if Affinity is going the right way. I know it's impossible to try to please everyone. Making good products takes time. Especially in the fast-paced and fast-changing media industry, it's not always wise to follow every new trend. All that I really understand! 

The reason I bring this up is, because sometimes I get the impression from you guys that you don't really know who your primary target audience is, and how you're going to keep them in the long run. I also understand, that you jeopardized your future with the complete restructuring of the architecture of your programs. Which totally paid off in your case, when Apple launched its new processor architecture. We all know your success story since then. Of course we must not forget that your programs are also available for Windows.

However, it cannot be overlooked that you are far too clingy towards Apple!
It's great that your programs run very well under Apple - and that should continue to be the case. In the long term however, you should have a Plan B in case Apple sherlocks you! Apple has been investing millions, if not billions, in the Apple TV+ division for the last few years and as a result, it is also investing a lot of money in its own creative native apps (Photos App, Apple Motion, Final Cut Pro, etc). Since the iPad Pros with the Apple Pencils have been on the market, Apple has not only stirred up the creative media industry, but also changed it for the long run. Now, it's also clear that Apple wants to take full advantage of its own technologies by also focusing on the software industry that targets media professionals. This can also be seen very well in how successfully Apple tries (in an aggressive manner) to enforce its proprietary file formats (such as ProRes) as industry standards. My fear is, that if you're not careful, you'll make yourself obsolete faster than you'd like.

Which brings me to the next point:
I'm amazed at how fast, progressive and numerous the competition in the creative software industry market has grown.
These are definitely golden times for creative content creators!
I noticed a few things that almost all competing products have in common:

• Regular and active participation in the community (forums and social media)
  --> I mainly see reactionary behavior from you:
  For example, you only participate if technical problems are described in the forum or questions are asked about individual functions inside Affinity. Another example would be, when your social media accounts are mostly retweeting content from artists/agencies who have used Affinity. While this may be nice and interesting to see/read, it lacks structure and order. It would be better to create a separate account for Affinity Spotlight and move the content there.
  You make apps for creative content creators. Therefore, you should be just as creative and actively involved in social media.
  Ask, share useful short videos that show what your apps can do. Be nerdy and share expertise (memes too, if that is what you are into), or take actions to get your apps more attention, and by that I don't just mean "fun photo contests" but things like looking for creative tutorials with good content. Or with the next major releases, the most popular content creators who work with Affinity can present these features... and lots of such promotions (similar with what you have done during the Corona crisis). It's up to you what you prefer, but do it and be active and not just reactive!

• A public roadmap (schedule, to-do lists, priorities)
  --> Your apps are not only aimed at hobbyists, but also at people who work with them professionally. A public roadmap is a great help, especially for agencies that have to plan for the long term: Do apps X and Y have the features we need? If not, what alternative solutions can we use? And if it is planned to give these programs these features: How long do we have to continue using the alternative options in order to be able to save costs afterwards?
  Of course, as I said before, it's impossible to please everyone, but a roadmap gives customers a clear view of what you're working on, what features are ready for the new releases, and what features will be worked on next!
  It's not about your customers wanting to check, whether you're even working on your feedback and taking it seriously.
  It's much more about giving customers a realistic view of the direction in which your products are developing.
  Even if you're not working on specific feature requests, it's still a great win for customers, because they know that specific tools needed to do the job need to be sourced elsewhere, and these can then be added to the Affinity programs.

  A public roadmap helps to set priorities and makes it possible to respond flexibly to customer requests from the community.
  --> If your current day's agenda is to work on Feature A and B, but a large part of the customers would rather have Feature C, because Feature A and B are already used by other programs, then you should re-prioritize your schedule and work on Feature C (Feature A and B should of course be added at a later date). Of course, it is your right to implement your own ideas and plans.
  The important thing to remember is, that not only are your priorities important, but so are those of the customers who will ultimately buy your products.

• Interdisciplinary communication, cooperation and projects with other companies
  --> Major international corporations such as Apple, Amazon and Adobe have almost limitless resources and are developing tomorrow's applications that help companies save time and effort. Just think of applications with artificial intelligence. Especially for the media industry, sooner or later this will become an indispensable part of everyday work. That's why many other companies are working together to somehow keep up against the big corporate powers.
  
  You can't afford to do everything on your own. Please work together with other companies (not just Apple! ...or Windows) to stay viable and relevant in the market. I can't think of any examples specifically for the 2D graphics industry, but I can think of some from the 3D graphics industry:
  
  There they agree on standards (be it for file formats, or program functions, such as USD) and support each other by defining which program functions should follow certain standards and conventions, so that there are no problems to exchange and read files among each other. In the case of Affinity, I don't mean just opening files (e.g. vector files exported by other programs), because that has been possible for a long time. But beyond that, the "understanding and reading" of content that has been created with other programs and is then to be further processed with Affinity.
  
  In my eyes, you are still too closed in and isolated. Especially for the Affinity apps it would be good if there is the possibility to use real third-party plug-ins (some Photoshop plug-ins may work - even if limited - but there you make yourself too dependent on Adobe and that also has its limits). You could add value to your programs by opening up, co-developing features with other companies (e.g. Nvidia, AMD), or incentivize program developers to develop plug-ins for your suite.
  I don't see any other way you can build on your success in the long term.

• Crucial functions that bring real added value to users (and have been thought through to the end)!
  --> No question you have integrated many useful functions: Be it studio link, the personas, snapping functions, border tools, etc. All this results in a coherent concept.
  
  At the same time, however, it often happens that you haven't thought the introduced functions through to the end. You can see that quite well in the forums. There, most of them are very happy with the newly introduced functions, but then they quickly reach their limits. An attempt is then made to explain to the Affinity team how the corresponding functions can be improved or supplemented. This often leads to misunderstandings (Forum: "You can't do X and Y in Photo, Designer, Publisher!" Affinity Team: "But you can do that!" Forum: "No, you can't !" Affinity Team: "Yes, you can! Just do this and then that!" Forum:"No, that's not the same thing we are talking about!" Affinity Team: "Why do you really need that?" -> Functions/Tools have not been thought through to the end!).

  It's also common to see that many customers complain that it lacks many basic tools that are found and taken for granted in almost all other competing products.

  If you think you can be funny, and instead introduce gimmick tools - such as the Liquify tool - although the development of other features should have higher priority, then don't be surprised why this annoys many customers who earn their living with your software. (Not to say, that the Liquify Tool is useless ;).

  While it's good to be able to offer unique and wacky tools that other programs don't have, it really needs to be thought through.
  This brings us back to the problem of finding the right priorities. Gimmick tools should only be developed and introduced when the majority of users have been given all the features that are necessary for everyday work and have been properly developed!

• Concentration on the essentials (and delegation to everything secondary)
  --> You can tell, that you prefer to do everything alone. But some things should be better delegated.

  The Affinity Store, for example, comes to mind. Of course, it's cool when your store sells brushes, textures, filter effects, and more. But it's starting to look really overloaded and the store isn't really varied - rather monotonous in style. I would leave that to the free market if I were you. It's best to open a separate platform and leave these things to the free market (you can even earn some from it).
  This takes away some of the pressure of having to do everything and helps you to be able to concentrate on the essentials.
  Of course, it must be said that today's society has become very impatient.
  However, the lack of delegation would explain why no regular announcements or teasers are coming from you. In the meantime, it has not become so unusual that a new version with new functions is presented by the competition every 6-12 months. Of course, we don't expect you to have to release big new features every 6 months - that's unrealistic! But 1.5 - 2 years is almost too long - mere bug fixes and a small feature are not enough to attract customers in the long term. This puts the patience of customers at risk. As an alternative, you can compensate for this, by being more actively involved in social media in order to stay relevant. That's why it's better to focus on the essentials and delegate everything that is secondary.

 

I really love your Affinity Apps 🥰, but sometimes I don't think I understand what Affinity stands for, and how it plans to grow in the future. 🤷‍♂️

[Jaroslav]

I couldn't agree more.

Great post. 😊

[Joschi]

28 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

• Photos is a joke app - if it didn't have an Apple logo it would get 1 or 2 out of 5 stars on the App store.
• Motion is very good for the money.
• There has been barely any development on FCP for years - it has completely plateaued. All it gets is some occasional new file formats.

Your point about a public roadmap has been argued about for ages. The A,B,C features would descend very quickly into who shouts loudest. 

I was not saying, they can compete with the commercial counterparts in the media industry (for now!). But it is logical and understandable that Apple would also like to get involved in these areas in the foreseeable future (simply because it fits into the concept of Apple TV+).

And even if Apple's Photos app can't keep up with Photoshop & Co., there are now a considerable number of plug-ins for the Photos app and there is certainly one or the other target group that gets along very well with it and relies on this combination in everyday work.

Of course, it may be that FCP's software development (or the Motion App) has slowed down recently. However, one should not forget that Apple has made great strides with the Media Engine and that many content creators on YouTube rely on Final Cut Pro as their tool. That's a pretty large number of already existing customers - especially, customers willing to pay (and there are also a considerable number of plug-ins for FCP on the market)! Apple does not hide the fact that it has ambitions in these areas. It would be illusory to say that Apple will never be able to keep up with the commercial industry standards. It has the financial means to do so, and above all the motivation to do so in the foreseeable future.

Quote

Your point about a public roadmap has been argued about for ages. The A,B,C features would descend very quickly into who shouts loudest.

For many other media programs, a public roadmap has proven to be the perfect mediator between developers and community/corporate customers.

The claim that only those features are developed that are shouted about the loudest only happens, if you manage this roadmap like a kindergarten. Furthermore, as mentioned in the post, it is not only about feature requests, but to create an overview for both sides. For the development team - so that the right priorities are set; and for the enterprise customers - who can calculate in advance how they can plan and deploy programs.

In doing so, it's not hard at all to figure out which features should have priority:
The features that the media industry absolutely needs, because it is part of the everyday work and makes the work easier. If these requirements are met, everything else can still be developed that hobby graphic artists absolutely want to have.
As a company, you have to think economically. That's flexible and directional for the team behind Affinity, who then don't have to puzzle over what exactly has priority.

The fear that a roadmap only leads to a concert of wishes is a very weak argumentation and in my eyes rather a lazy excuse.

[Joschi]

I don't think you take your time to read and understand what I was saying.

If you think public roadmaps don't help - Then why does it work everywhere else? (even the evil Corporate "Adobe" does this within it's community.)
It's not about "some people making grandiose claims to know what every user wants"!
I already mentioned it should start with what the media industry needs (Newspapers, Advertising companies, Movie & Game Industry, etc.)

Between all the major industries, there is a very large overlap in terms of feature requests. --> You only need to look around the forum to see how quickly the larger studios reach their limits. There it is very often about time saving and reliable tools that are asked for. That is a manageable number of feature requests.

So in my example, that means that you align yourself with the industries first and work down from there to the feature requests that cover a smaller niche in the market. If you don't go that route, you're never going to have the long-term financial resources to be able to please everyone. Make it public. At least people will know!

You seem to have a notion that everyone thinks that the thousand feature requests are all equally important. Of course, you can't respond to all of them. But you have to start somewhere - and above all, you have to communicate that.

Just quietly squatting in the corner because you want your peace and quiet and to do your own thing - you can do that. But that doesn't inspire confidence in the company, if you don't provide insights for the next quarters/years.

I would even argue that this behavior fuels exactly what you want to avoid: Kindergarten screaming!

[Alfred]

22 minutes ago, Joschi said:

As a company, you have to think economically. That's flexible and directional for the team behind Affinity, who then don't have to puzzle over what exactly has priority.

The team behind Affinity absolutely do have to puzzle over priorities! Sometimes it’s not much of a puzzle (for example, providing reliable versions of the basic Boolean operations before adding the ‘Shape Builder’ tool that so many users are clamouring for) but it isn’t always so clear cut.

28 minutes ago, Joschi said:

The fear that a roadmap only leads to a concert of wishes is a very weak argumentation and in my eyes rather a lazy excuse.

It’s neither a weak argument nor a lazy excuse, it’s a product of bitter experience. When there was a public roadmap, every new update was met with cries of ‘Why don’t we have the promised [insert your favourite] tool yet?’ and the developers quickly saw that it wasn’t helping them or us.

[PaulEC]

It may be of passing interest but I really don't see any practical reason for having a public roadmap. I buy software for the features it has. If they bring out a new version, that I have to pay for, I will decide then if I think the new features are worth paying for. I am not going to buy software now on the basis of what may, or may not, be added at some time in the future.

[Joschi]

 

1 minute ago, Alfred said:

The team behind Affinity absolutely do have to puzzle over priorities! Sometimes it’s not much of a puzzle (for example, providing reliable versions of the basic Boolean operations before adding the ‘Shape Builder’ tool that so many users are clamouring for) but it isn’t always so clear cut.

It’s neither a weak argument nor a lazy excuse, it’s a product of bitter experience. When there was a public roadmap, every new update was met with cries of ‘Why don’t we have the promised [insert your favourite] tool yet?’ and the developers quickly saw that it wasn’t helping them or us.

What is so hard to understand the concept of a "public roadmap"? It's not something you post it daily in a Forum.
Of course people will cry and moan, if you do that!
I think Affinity should study, how other companies handle public roadmaps. It's not just a simple list of "Feature Requests" which are currently under development. It's way more than that. A Timeline, shedule, all kinds of tasks (divided in 'done, in progress, pending'), technical situations (e.g. problems that a feature request cannot be completed because certain components from the industry have not yet been communicated and therefore cannot be completed or have to be waited for)!
 

If you as a company take this approach, you not only create transparent politics, but also build up the trust of customers in your company. Even if not every customer request is fulfilled, that's still better and provides relaxation, because the status of the development phase can be understood.

There's a reason the public roadmaps work well for other companies. Because it creates transparency and trust between customers and companies. There is no reason for rational customers to get upset, because then they have no (good) reason to be allowed to get upset.

[carl123]

53 minutes ago, Joschi said:

The claim that only those features are developed that are shouted about the loudest only happens, if you manage this roadmap like a kindergarten.

 

40 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

So tell us how you would manage it.

In a democratic society the normal way would be the "one man person one vote system" where every registered user of the software could state their top 3 requirements for the next version and once all the votes are in, a priority list would become evident

But Serif is not a democracy, it is a business. Only they know what talent pool/resources they have, how difficult a particular function would be to implement, how long it would take, how much money they have coming in and going out each month, their ROI for a particular new feature, where all the various coffee machines are located in the building etc etc etc

I am also a business and aware what some of my customers would like me to do/implement but realistically I can only so much for them so I have to pick and choose which ones and when. Fortunately, I only have one coffee machine and I know exactly where it is.

[Joschi]

35 minutes ago, PaulEC said:

 I am not going to buy software now on the basis of what may, or may not, be added at some time in the future.

Exactly! That's why companies need to know in advance! It's about trust and communication. Once the company has settled on a solid pipeline (and that costs a great deal of money), it won't even bother to try Affinity after a short while once certain features are rolled out. It is helpful for long-term planning!

Freelancers or smaller Studios don't care about that, but Affinity should care because the money that the number of freelancers bring in is nothing compared to what larger studios can bring in financially!

It's mind-boggling, how people underestimate the worth of a public roadmap!

 

I would also like to mention that my post is about much more than just a public roadmap.
Appearance in public and social media, long-term planning, entrepreneurial independence and so on!
You can talk about it however you want.
But the hype surrounding Affinity has long since dissipated and the future of Affinity is rightly called into question, if it is not clear what the long-term direction of the company is.

[Joschi]

2 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Right. So these feature requests can't be managed by way of a public forum.

A Public Forum is not the same as a Public Roadmap!

[walt.farrell]

But a public roadmap, published anywhere, will still end up with mamy customers complaining that you aren't working on the feature they really want. Or complaining that you should switch the priorities of the items you are working on because they think the priorities are wrong.

We have already seen that, and that is a major reason why Serif's roadmap is no longer public.

[Murfee]

7 minutes ago, Joschi said:

A Public Forum is not the same as a Public Roadmap!

This is exactly the reason there is no public roadmap, as Walt says it would end up on the forums. 

Then the arguments and insults occur, your type of response proves that point.

[Joschi]

2 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

But a public roadmap, published anywhere, will still end up with mamy customers complaining that you aren't working on the feature they really want. Or complaining that you should switch the priorities of the items you are working on because they think the priorities are wrong.

We have already seen that, and that is a major reason why Serif's roadmap is no longer public.

Of course, there will still be many customer who will complain. But they can't do that in a public roadmap (compared to a Forum, where everyone has a say in it)!
And beside: So do customers everywhere else, whenever a public roadmap of a company is published.

If you look at the overall benefits of a public roadmap and weigh that against a single downside -> lone bitching people, it would still be a lot of upsides outweighing one downside. Because a public roadmap says a lot more than just the number of feature requests that are being worked on or not.

This is also related to my post:
For example, if Affinity opens up to third-party providers who develop plug-ins, then such a roadmap could be indicative of how to address specific bottlenecks.If there is no signal and no communication, then there is also no loyal and solid customer base that can grow over the years.

Then you let those people win who can only do what they do best: scream and complain the loudest!

[Joschi]

3 minutes ago, Murfee said:

This is exactly the reason there is no public roadmap, as Walt says it would end up on the forums. 

Then the arguments and insults occur, your type of response proves that point.

If it hurt you, I'm sorry (honestly!).
But you are confirming your biased view on the subject.

I'm sorry, but I didn't make the mistake of equating a public forum with a public roadmap.
Those are two completely different things.
If you scream one thing, even though you see something else, then you should not be surprised if your reaction is met with resistance.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I find this all the more amusing because the public roadmap was just one of many suggestions I shared in this post.
It was much more about the general long-term orientation of the company. And if it's taboo to question that because you always want to do what you've always done, then you're welcome to do so and hide in the corner.

But then you don't have to be surprised if things are not moving forward and that many customers are losing confidence in these products.

[Murfee]

3 minutes ago, Joschi said:

But you are confirming your biased view on the subject.

I am not biased but I do find your meme to be insulting to another user, that they don’t know the difference,

[Joschi]

1 minute ago, Murfee said:

I am not biased but I do find your meme to be insulting to another user, that they don’t know the difference,

Ok, you are right! This is on me!
Should have done this better!

[Murfee]

6 minutes ago, Joschi said:

But then you don't have to be surprised if things are not moving forward and that many customers are losing confidence in these products.

How do you know that things are not moving forward?

No there is no roadmap but there is other evidence on these forums that things are happening. 

V2 is not too far away

[iuli]

As an iPad-only user, I think that so far there’s very few vector apps coming close to Affinity Designer, hence there’s little competition to Serif on mobile (yet).

Paradoxically maybe (because it’s completely free), the only app that’s keeping up with Serif development on iPad is Vectornator, which has already improved auto-trace features, an auto-closed curve function, artboards and many new functions that are taking shape through numerous updates. They have stability through rich backers and they claim they want to make the definitive vector software for free. (The project was started by a teenager student who didn’t have enough money to afford a vector software for studies, or so the story goes).

For me personally Affinity Designer is irreplaceable because of its interface, which I absolutely love. Vectornator as a “pure” graphic software has everything a professional designer needs and then some, I think, but doesn’t have a user-friendly interface, and that alone is enough to keep me away from it. Also they could any time go subscription-based, despite their pledge to the contrary, something I know it will ‘never’ happen with Affinity software.

So I don’t know what the essence of Affinity is, but vector-graphic wise I almost have everything I need at my disposal with Affinity Designer. I wish the app would not go to 200GB over night for no reason, sure. I’d love to just import swatches, which Affinity for iPad lacks. Or to have better saving functions, and other things. But none of them are essential to me. 

Serif is a small team and has its own philosophy and marketing model, which I believe it works. They already have tons of original features, which alone justify a purchase. Their forums are filled (mostly) with kind people (many of them professionals) and chances are that you’re going to get help, work arounds and even your working projects fixed, quicker than you would ever expect.

OK, sorry for my rambling. All the best.

[walt.farrell]

33 minutes ago, Joschi said:

For example, if Affinity opens up to third-party providers who develop plug-ins, then such a roadmap

I would expect that if/when Serif decides to open up Affinity to third-party providers that they would start by contacting some of the well-known providewrs privately and offering a cooperative working arrangement to get their products integrated in some way into the Affinity suite.

That is not something I would expect to see taking place publicly, nor mentioned in a public roadmap. And if Serif were to undertake cooperative arrangements like that I would further expect that some details of what is coming in the near-term would be disclosed to the providers who agree to work with them.

[Joschi]

Quote

If the features you want are not on your proposed public roadmap, is that what you are going to do... bitch about it?

Of course not! Bitching is a waste of time (this I agree with you on this!) 

Here is what I would do instead:
If a feature I want is not on a roadmap, then I would look for an alternative on the market that can offer me exactly this feature that I need for my work in order to be able to do my job (be it as a complimentary tool to affinity or other apps)!

That's how I've always done it, precisely because such a roadmap helped me save time and calculate what I can use in the meantime to counteract these bottlenecks.

Yes, there will always be people who complain, but there are many sensible people who think ahead of time and take this as an opportunity to look for solutions until the problem is solved. If you only look at people who complain, then I understand why you might not like a public roadmap. Or, you can look instead at people who will not complain, find solutions and will compliment the team as soon as a new feature has been added to the software

I don't look at people who complain. I look for transparency, communication and solutions that help me.
As soon as Affinity introduces new features that I don't need, but that other people think are great (and need), then I'm happy for those people, too
 

[Joschi]

17 minutes ago, iuli said:

As an iPad-only user, I think that so far there’s very few vector apps coming close to Affinity Designer, hence there’s little competition to Serif on mobile (yet).

Paradoxically maybe (because it’s completely free), the only app that’s keeping up with Serif development on iPad is Vectornator, which has already improved auto-trace features, an auto-closed curve function, artboards and many new functions that are taking shape through numerous updates. They have stability through rich backers and they claim they want to make the definitive vector software for free. (The project was started by a teenager student who didn’t have enough money to afford a vector software for studies, or so the story goes).

For me personally Affinity Designer is irreplaceable because of its interface, which I absolutely love. Vectornator as a “pure” graphic software has everything a professional designer needs and then some, I think, but doesn’t have a user-friendly interface, and that alone is enough to keep me away from it. Also they could any time go subscription-based, despite their pledge to the contrary, something I know it will ‘never’ happen with Affinity software.

So I don’t know what the essence of Affinity is, but vector-graphic wise I almost have everything I need at my disposal with Affinity Designer. I wish the app would not go to 200GB over night for no reason, sure. I’d love to just import swatches, which Affinity for iPad lacks. Or to have better saving functions, and other things. But none of them are essential to me. 

Serif is a small team and has its own philosophy and marketing model, which I believe it works. They already have tons of original features, which alone justify a purchase. Their forums are filled (mostly) with kind people (many of them professionals) and chances are that you’re going to get help, work arounds and even your working projects fixed, quicker than you would ever expect.

OK, sorry for my rambling. All the best.

Don't be sorry  A lot of what you say is true I did not know about the story behind vectornator. That is interesting to know.
As I said in the beginning: I love all the Affinity Apps.
And you are right. The Team behind Serif is small, compared to companies like Adobe or Corel. And so far it has worked out very well for them.
I just think Affinity should start opening themselves up as a company. As soon as a company has reached a certain number of customers, it's time to set new ambitions and goals so that the company can continue to exist in the long term.

[Jaroslav]

@Joschi Huge thumbs up for such a well described thoughts and ideas, as well as the way you're talking. I quite don't understand why some people just right away start to "bite" those who just politely expressed their concerns and thoughts. 

I just wanted to say, that I agree with the main topic of your post - Communication. 

It would be nice to see at least a bit more communication between Serif and their Customer base.

As an example, I would point our Elementor.com. I am one of the early adopters of their software, which pioneered in their category (visual web design and development tool for Wordpress websites). Their level of communication on social platforms, their forums, customer service etc. is just spectacular. Very friendly, opened and encouraging. Makes creators feel like part of one big team/family   . But I have to admit, it's something I pay almost 100$ every year for, so I don't know if that's the essence. Maybe we can't get both. I'm not an expert in this field .

I guess that's what you wanted to express here. 

Have a nice day.

#peace

 

[Old Bruce]

3 hours ago, Joschi said:

Here is what I would do instead:
If a feature I want is not on a roadmap, then I would look for an alternative on the market that can offer me exactly this feature that I need for my work in order to be able to do my job (be it as a complimentary tool to affinity or other apps)!

 

Here is what I do:

If a feature I need is not in the application I don't buy that application.

A map is not the terrain. In other words if a feature I need is on the roadmap it is not in the application, and may not be placed in the application in my lifetime. But it will be on the roadmap long after I am gone. 

[MikeW]

45 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Here is what I do:

If a feature I need is not in the application I don't buy that application.

A map is not the terrain. In other words if a feature I need is on the roadmap it is not in the application, and may not be placed in the application in my lifetime. But it will be on the roadmap long after I am gone. 

Serif didn't provide a roadmap, but rather a list of things they said/wrote would make it into the version 1.x version (i.e., prior to version 2) without comment as to the order or timing of said list. That isn't an actual roadmap.

I mostly agree with the OP, at least as regards having a roadmap. Much of the grief Serif experienced was brought onto themselves. Much of that grief could have been abated by providing a well-thought out written plan as to what, when and why of the items they desired to include in v.1.x...an actual and defensible plan. That is a roadmap.

How Serif sometimes responded to the relatively few people who complained was equally important. Sometimes it was equally acerbic as the complainers. Darn near whiny. Instead of stepping back, rethinking the list and rectifying, addressing, the why people were upset and rewriting the list as a roadmap would have been a reasonable response. Instead, Serif picked up the marbles and went home. And, in a sense, have been cloistered ever since.

Serif's marketing is also partly to blame. The marketing is, well, to put it politely, more ambitious than they have been able to keep up with. The marketing, to me, sounds more like wishful thinking than closer to the reality "on the ground."

All that said, Serif is the captain of their own fate. It is "right and good" for Serif to do as they please without directly "taking on board" my or anyone else's view on the matter. Because, as has been mentioned in this thread and countless statements by others and certain Serif staff: Only purchase Affinity software if it works in the here and now for your purposes. If a user wants to take that further, they have every opportunity to review the list of features, enhancements and/or fixes that accompany every beta release.

Mike

[Snapseed]

10 hours ago, carl123 said:

 

In a democratic society the normal way would be the "one man person one vote system" where every registered user of the software could state their top 3 requirements for the next version and once all the votes are in, a priority list would become evident

But Serif is not a democracy, it is a business. Only they know what talent pool/resources they have, how difficult a particular function would be to implement, how long it would take, how much money they have coming in and going out each month, their ROI for a particular new feature, where all the various coffee machines are located in the building etc etc etc

I am also a business and aware what some of my customers would like me to do/implement but realistically I can only so much for them so I have to pick and choose which ones and when. Fortunately, I only have one coffee machine and I know exactly where it is.

It is also a business that is 100x smaller than the huge Adobe Corporation and people forget/don't know this. I think that under these circumstances they have done extraordinarily well to produce these three competitive cross platform software applications.