Affinity Photo v1 no longer available in App Store

[Chriz]

Hi,

I totally love your work, but I just got a new iPad and wanted to install Affinity Photo v1 which i purchesed earlier. I know that you can‘t find the app through the normal search functionallity, so I went to ‚my account‘ —> ‚purchased‘ and was able to find the app. Unfortunately, when I tap on the app the AppStore tells me that a connection is currently not possible.

I doubt that it‘s really a connection problem, because all other apps work normally. I assume it‘s because the app was removed from the App Store.

I got confused and slightly angry, because I purchased the app and now I‘m no longer able to use it. Only because there is a paied updated - which is totally fine when you are not forced to update, but as I understood I have no option now.

 

Do you have any solution to get my purchased app again?

[walt.farrell]

3 hours ago, Chriz said:

Unfortunately, when I tap on the app the AppStore tells me that a connection is currently not possible.

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums. Sorry you're having that problem.

It should work. If it's still not working I would suggest you try fully restarting your iPad. If it doesn't work after that your best approach may be to talk with Apple Support, because it's their Appstore app that you're using, and which is having the problem.

Sorry I don't have anything better to suggest, but I doubt Serif can help resolve this.

[Dan C]

Hi Chriz,

Yes unfortunately we do not have any control over Apples App store, and your v1 app must again be downloaded from the App Store.

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT211841

If you have issues with this I recommend speaking with apple support.

https://support.apple.com/en-gb

 

[Marius87]

I cannot find Affinity Photo V1 in the App Store...

I purchased a new iPad Pro and the Affinity Photo version 1 is no where to be found in the Apple App Store. It's no longer under the developer apps list either. Please send me a fresh download of the old Affinity Photo version 1 or refund me for the version 2 which I was forced to buy it to get a client's photo project done in a timely manner. 

[MikeTO]

3 hours ago, Marius87 said:

I cannot find Affinity Photo V1 in the App Store...

I purchased a new iPad Pro and the Affinity Photo version 1 is no where to be found in the Apple App Store. It's no longer under the developer apps list either. Please send me a fresh download of the old Affinity Photo version 1 or refund me for the version 2 which I was forced to buy it to get a client's photo project done in a timely manner. 

Hi @Marius87 and welcome to the forums. You can find any app you've purchased from the App Store, including Affinity v1 or 2 by going to My Purchases in the App Store. Here are the steps from Apple: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT211841

[David Colman]

I had to erase my iPad Pro just now but I am having the same problem that the others are — I can't find Affinity 1 to put back on the iPad in the Purchased Apps section of my App Store account, and I looked under two Apple IDs to boot.  How am I supposed to get this $$ back? I am not about to start another subscription to use your new-model 2.0. 

[MikeTO]

11 minutes ago, David Colman said:

I had to erase my iPad Pro just now but I am having the same problem that the others are — I can't find Affinity 1 to put back on the iPad in the Purchased Apps section of my App Store account, and I looked under two Apple IDs to boot.  How am I supposed to get this $$ back? I am not about to start another subscription to use your new-model 2.0. 

I believe the problems the others were having were resolved after they found the Purchased list. The above instructions should take you to a list of every app you've previously downloaded and it should be there.

[Alfred]

13 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

I believe the problems the others were having were resolved after they found the Purchased list. The above instructions should take you to a list of every app you've previously downloaded and it should be there.

If you type Aff into the Search box, the ‘All’ tab will show all of the matching purchases (whether you’ve previously downloaded the apps or not) and the ‘Not on this iPad’ tab will show only those apps that are not currently installed.

 

[David Colman]

As I said in my post  — I thought pretty clearly — Affinity Photo is NOT in the "purchased" list of my apps, it's not in the complete list of my purchased apps (since these two things are now quite different), and not in ANY LIST RELATING TO MY ACCOUNT AT ALL. I hope that is clear.  

[walt.farrell]

15 minutes ago, David Colman said:

As I said in my post  — I thought pretty clearly — Affinity Photo is NOT in the "purchased" list of my apps, it's not in the complete list of my purchased apps (since these two things are now quite different), and not in ANY LIST RELATING TO MY ACCOUNT AT ALL. I hope that is clear.  

Are you looking in the App application on your iPad?

Have you moved to a different region, or changed your Apple ID? What Apple region are you in?

Did you read both of the posts in the FAQ?

 

[Alfred]

1 hour ago, David Colman said:

As I said in my post  — I thought pretty clearly — Affinity Photo is NOT in the "purchased" list of my apps, it's not in the complete list of my purchased apps (since these two things are now quite different), and not in ANY LIST RELATING TO MY ACCOUNT AT ALL. I hope that is clear.  

If ‘the "purchased" list of [your] apps’ is quite different from ‘the complete list of [your] purchased apps’, I’m afraid I don’t understand the difference.

[Paul Mudditt]

Agree this is worrying, following the link to the old apps gives the cannot connect message.

Will need to make sure I have a backup of my iPad on a desktop otherwise next time I do a restore from iCloud it won’t install.

EDIT: added recordings showing that the V1 apps have been deleted from the app store just like some of my really old 2010 apps.

Edited March 14, 2024 by Paul Mudditt
Added screen recordings showing how Affinity apps are just like some of my really old 2010 apps that were removed from the app store.

[Paul Mudditt]

11 hours ago, Alfred said:

If ‘the "purchased" list of [your] apps’ is quite different from ‘the complete list of [your] purchased apps’, I’m afraid I don’t understand the difference.

Alfred, will be interesting if you can download V1 Affinity Photo which it doesn't look like you have installed?

[Alfred]

23 minutes ago, Paul Mudditt said:

Alfred, will be interesting if you can download V1 Affinity Photo which it doesn't look like you have installed?

I had left it uninstalled to save space, but I’ve just installed it now without any issues. I was interested to note that the ‘Not on this iPad’ list doesn’t auto-refresh: I had to tab away to make Affinity Photo disappear from there.

[Paul Mudditt]

36 minutes ago, Alfred said:

I had left it uninstalled to save space, but I’ve just installed it now without any issues. I was interested to note that the ‘Not on this iPad’ list doesn’t auto-refresh: I had to tab away to make Affinity Photo disappear from there.

Thanks Alfred, must be just a glitch at my side, still comes up with cannot connect message so doing a secure backup just in case.

[loukash]

15 hours ago, David Colman said:

Affinity Photo is NOT in the "purchased" list of my apps, it's not in the complete list of my purchased apps (since these two things are now quite different)

Have you hidden some of your earlier purchases?
Check out the corresponding settings in the Apple ID section of the Settings app.
(Caveat: the hidden purchases list is pretty buried.)

[Alfred]

5 hours ago, loukash said:

Have you hidden some of your earlier purchases?
Check out the corresponding settings in the Apple ID section of the Settings app.
(Caveat: the hidden purchases list is pretty buried.)

You're not kidding about its being 'pretty buried'!

In the Apple ID section of the Settings app, I had to tap on 'Media & Purchases' and then 'View Account'. The 'Hidden Purchases' section is under the heading 'Downloads and Purchases' in the Account Settings panel that pops up.

My Hidden Purchases list is empty. It isn't obvious how or when any purchases would be put there automatically, and I can't see how to hide purchases myself.

On a side note, why would anyone want to hide their purchases unless they were sharing their account with other people? They wouldn't really be hidden, anyway, since anyone with access to the account could do what I did.

[Alfred]

11 minutes ago, Alfred said:

I can't see how to hide purchases myself

I've just found Apple Support: Hide purchases from the App Store.

[walt.farrell]

34 minutes ago, Alfred said:

I've just found Apple Support: Hide purchases from the App Store.

That's mentioned in the Affinity FAQ (second post):

 

[Alfred]

55 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

That's mentioned in the Affinity FAQ (second post):

 

So ’tis, but a Frequently Asked Question isn’t necessarily the same as a Frequently Read Answer!

 

[David Colman]

AS I ALREADY SAID, THE AFFINITY APP DOES NOT APPEAR ON ANY — ANY, ANY, ANY, ANY — LIST IN THE ACCOUNT SECTION OF THE APP STORE. YES THAT INCLUDES HIDDEN APPS (WHICH WOULD HAVE REQUIRED ME KNOWING HOW TO HIDE APPS, ANYWAY!!!!)

I HOPE YOU CAN STOP ASKING ME QUESTIONS ABOUT THAT NOW.

[walt.farrell]

As I asked before, 

Quote

Have you moved to a different region, or changed your Apple ID? What Apple region are you in?

 

[Dan C]

Hi David,

The people above are taking the time out of their day to assist, so it's best to be polite, even if in your case their advice has not been the solution to your issue.

In your case it looks like the only approach is to contact Apple support as we have no access to any of this information.

https://support.apple.com/en-gb

Lee

[emmrecs01]

@David Colman

Out of curiosity (and a desire to try and be helpful) I decided to check the situation on my iPad.

I accessed my account in the App Store, went to Purchase history and it defaulted to showing the "Last 90 days" as a link.  Clicking that link led to a screen Date Range.  I selected Custom and could then choose a year (in my case 2021, which was the year I first bought an iPad).  The first option under 2021 was "All year".  I chose that and then clicked Apply on the next screen, scrolled through the list and found Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo, both version 1, clearly.

Does that help you?

[loukash]

11 hours ago, Alfred said:

You're not kidding about its being 'pretty buried'!

In the Apple ID section of the Settings app, I had to tap on 'Media & Purchases' and then 'View Account'. The 'Hidden Purchases' section is under the heading 'Downloads and Purchases' in the Account Settings panel that pops up.

Yeah, thanks for clarification. I didn't write down the exact path because our iPad as well as our iPhones are running in German, and I don't know the exact English names of these sections.