Affinity V2, updates, pricing and no subscription (moved)

[GeRo]

5 minutes ago, Ash said:

still got a cat

Not on the old place, right?  ☠️

Edited November 16, 2022 by GeRo

[Murfee]

Thanks for this Ash, I never had the impression that you guys weren't looking after existing customers, 40 % discount is a pretty big thank you

I haven't had much time to explore V2 yet, but I really like what I have seen in Photo.

[Roberto Sdul]

Como usuario desde hace años, gracias por estos productos, que calidad y precio, no tienen competencia, aparte de pequeños errores puntuales, no tengo queja simplemente daros las gracias por cuidar al cliente, y por esta política de pagos, el haber gastado 55€ en 4 años y ahora otros 49€, no entiendo aquellos que se quejan por ello. Yo valoro y mucho lo que hacéis.

Gracias por todo.

[MoonaticDestiny]

5 hours ago, tudor said:

If you had posted this message a month before the release of v2, you would not have had so many negative reactions. Communication with customers is very important.

I went to college for art and design and the number one lesson my professor taught me, and it still sticks me till this day after 10 years is, "Contact and Communication is key." If you just reach out and communicate the problem that you were so worried about will be easily solved and you can move forward. 

[lettersign]

I'm agree with @monzo

How many excuses can you make? Make a free update for everyone who bought the software within a last year. That's fair, truly fair. That's what all respectable software manufacturers do ( for example, font editors, which are released as infrequently as Affinity and cost about the same).

People bought the app knowing they would receive updates without a subscription and could expect to be updated with modern up-to-date features. Instead, they bought 1.10, which will never get any new features. It is very clear from this topic that you knew that such users existed and decided to sacrifice them:

Quote

"We knew a side effect of that would mean some new customers..."

This is not fair and until you ignore the existence of fresh new customers of v1 and offer a fair solution for them, people will continue to be angered.
Admit the mistake, provide a free upgrade for those who bought less than a year ago and the topic will be closed. It is so easy to get the most loyal users for the future and so easy to lose them forever...

Edited November 16, 2022 by lettersign

[MoonaticDestiny]

3 hours ago, GeRo said:

Great text, great V2, Great Britain!

😅😂👏

great britain 😅 

[Sam Neil]

22 minutes ago, lettersign said:

I'm agree with @monzo

How many excuses can you make? Make a free update for everyone who bought the software within a last year. That's fair, truly fair. That's what all respectable software manufacturers do ( for example, font editors, which are released as infrequently as Affinity and cost about the same).

People bought the app knowing they would receive updates without a subscription and could expect to be updated with modern up-to-date features. Instead, they bought 1.10, which will never get any new features. It is very clear from this topic that you knew that such users existed and decided to sacrifice them:

This is not fair and until you ignore the existence of fresh new customers of v1 and offer a fair solution for them, people will continue to be angered.
Admit the mistake, provide a free upgrade for those who bought less than a year ago and the topic will be closed. It is so easy to get the most loyal users for the future and so easy to lose them forever...

You are talking absolutely rubbish!!! - This is a major version!!!! - A free update is normally within two weeks of a launch of the new MAJOR version NOT a year after! As Patrick says, they got eat! If you had bought your copy two weeks ago I can understand but not a year ago! Clearly you are not a regular user and are here for a "Freebie". A lot of effort has gone into the software, and this is not "Shareware!

[debraspicher]

7 minutes ago, Sam Neil said:

You are talking absolutely rubbish!!! - This is a major version!!!! - A free update is normally within two weeks of a launch of the new MAJOR version NOT a year after! As Patrick says, they got eat! If you had bought your copy two weeks ago I can understand but not a year ago! Clearly you are not a regular user and are here for a "Freebie". A lot of effort has gone into the software, and this is not "Shareware!

They couldn't accommodate it anyway based on Ash's post. They don't have the personnel or resource power. So it's a moot point.

The only thing they could do after the launch discount is over is to maybe provide upgrade discount through their own store. Though, it's likely that will cause issue(s) with Apple. Even if they found a way around their TOS, they're beholden to Apple's algorithm spotlighting their product and if they see a sea of customers going to their official store rather than purchasing through Apple, they're likely to lose their sponsorship and search ranking. Anyone who thinks the store ratings/search listings are remotely organic is in denial.

I know it sucks, but Serif doesn't have the kind of sponsorships like a company the size of Adobe so they can't afford to run afoul with Apple. They are reliant on every sale as well to keep up development.

[lettersign]

36 minutes ago, Sam Neil said:

You are talking absolutely rubbish!!! - This is a major version!!!!

Dear Sam, please calm your emotions. Here is a prime example: Glyphs font editor. The release date for v2 of Glyphs is end of 2015. Around 8 years ago. Exactly the same as Affinity.

Glyphs v3 is released in June 2021. And they gave a free upgrade to everyone who bought v2 after June 2020. 1 year. Not 2 stupid weeks. ONE YEAR. Such examples exist and I'm not joking you. It's normal and that's what all design products, that respect their users usually do.

Here is proof: https://glyphsapp.com/news/glyphs-3-make-things-you-love (and Glyphs even smaller editor than Affinity but they think about their new users ahead)

UPD: Another example. Another font editor Robofont. Robofont v3 was released on 5 July 2018, with the free upgrade from v1.8 to those who bought previous license after 8th March 2017. ONE YEAR AND FOUR MONTHS.
Proof: https://forum.robofont.com/topic/489/robofont-3-0

This is normal practice.

Edited November 16, 2022 by lettersign

[Sam Neil]

22 minutes ago, lettersign said:

Dear Sam, please calm your emotions. Here is a prime example: Glyphs font editor. The release date for v2 of Glyphs is end of 2015. Around 8 years ago. Exactly the same as Affinity.

Glyphs v3 is released in June 2021. And they gave a free upgrade to everyone who bought v2 after June 2020. 1 year. Not 2 stupid weeks. ONE YEAR. Such examples exist and I'm not joking you. It's normal and that's what all design products, that respect their users usually do.

Here is proof: https://glyphsapp.com/news/glyphs-3-make-things-you-love (and Glyphs even smaller editor than Affinity but they think about their new users ahead)

UPD: Another example. Another font editor Robofont. Robofont v3 was released on 5 July 2018, with the free upgrade from v1.8 to those who bought previous license after 8th March 2017. ONE YEAR AND THREE MONTHS.
Proof: https://forum.robofont.com/topic/489/robofont-3-0

This is normal practice.

This means nothing! - I am amazed you are comparing Serif to this. I tell you what - Would you like me to pay for your licence? Would this make you happy? is it the £89.00 that is bothering you? You pay 299 for a software and crying for 89!!!. If so let me know, otherwise don't waste poeple's time with such nonsense and pointless comparison between two different business models and wonder why it does not work. I am amazed you are still banging on about this! 

I think Ash has made his point(s) very clear and Serif know where to stand and what to do. There is no point going on about this and this thread should be locked.

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, GeRo said:

Not on the old place, right?

Yes, the Cat Tool is in same place as in V1.

Remember, in V1 (and I presume in V2) it only shows up on special days, or when you know how to force it to appear.

1. On Windows (not sure about Mac), just hold Shift while clicking on the Tools icon for the multiple-shape Tool, and it will be on the bottom of the list.
2. Or, use View > Customize Tools in a Persona that has the shapes, and you'll find it at the end of the list and you can put it on the Tools panel permanently.

 

[david_fms]

Hi,

I have previously purchased Affinity Photo v1 for Mac and iPad, Affinity Designer v1 and Affinity Publisher v1 for Mac and have now happily paid for Affinity Photo v2 for Mac and iPad, even though I received the fantastic promotion from Serif.

I will pay for each major new version because I believe that people's work must be paid for. Great job, and thanks so much for developing these great products for the Mac and iPad.

Cheers,

David

[lettersign]

34 minutes ago, Sam Neil said:

 pointless comparison between two different business models

I am comparing identical business models, identical products with version upgrades after 8 years, with identical cost (120€ discounted Affinity versus 150€ discounted Glyphs), identical conditions and in the same design software segment.

For me, the question of price is completely absent. It is a question of respect for its new users. Their trust. Keeping promises, matching the commitment to the values that Affinity claims. Exactly the values by which Affinity have earned a loyal audience have been violated by their indifference to recently purchased v1 licences.

@Sam Neil You don't belong to the category of users I'm talking about, so you can't decide for them and shut them up. I have seen many of these users: on Twitter and on this forum. It's time for Serif team to admit this mistake and fix it.

Edited November 16, 2022 by lettersign

[A_B_C]

Hi Ash,

my sincerest congratulations to version 2 of the Affinity suite, to you and the entire team, and thank you for your explanations! The new version offers great improvements to the entire application suite, and the new solutions you found are extremely well thought out. 😀

Keep up the good work! And if I may add this here, I would really love to see improvements in the “little things” along the version 2 development cycle. By “little things” I mean those usability improvements that save us clicks in frequently performed tasks, most of which have extensively been discussed on these forums. Such as

• Alt+drag to copy objects in the Layers Panel,
• Alt+click on layer’s or group’s triangle in the Layers Panel to open or close the entire subtree structure, as it is the case in macOS Finder,
• Shift+drag to constrain the aspect ratio of the Crop Tool rectangle in Photo,
• the option of having the Crop Tool remember its last-used state (make it a preference, if you don’t like to make it the default behaviour),
• the option of setting a custom default tool for an app and for embedded documents that are opened in a new tab (Photo, for instance, always defaults to the Hand Tool which is of no use if you have a trackpad),
• copy & paste of slices in the Export Persona,
• the option of adding the Snapping Options Buttons to the toolbar of the Export Persona,
• the option of holding down a key to temporarily activate a tool just until key release,
• the option of moving selected pixel content with marquee tool and Command key pressed,
• etc. (… I’m sure you’ve compiled a list of these little things over the years yourself …)

None of these improvements should really be controversial, overly difficult to implement or break any existing workflow. At the same time, their absence is felt every day and slows down workflows considerably, especially when taken together. Sure, it’s unlikely that you win any new customers by adding such options (alone), but you will make a lot of existing customers happy. Now that you have all three apps up and running on all target platforms, I think it would be a great time to add these “little things,” and it would add additional emphasis on the fact that you care for your user base … 😀

Again, thank you!

Alex 😀

[velarde]

2 hours ago, A_B_C said:

 

• the option of having the Crop Tool remember its last-used state (make it a preference, if you don’t like to make it the default behaviour),

I would be happy with JUST this one simple change in Photo.... 🙂

 

But overall happy with V2 of the Affinity Suite (Specially Designer). Keep up the good work!

 

[Stanley]

I like the new features in the V2 apps and I'm more than happy to buy a universal licence for such an inexpensive price.

Some people bash Affinity for not giving them a special deal, because.

Some people bash Affinity because their apps doesn't have some features that it really should have. 

Maybe the same people.

 

All the same, I'm disappointed how Affinity is ducking the problem many people are having, of not being able to register their apps with a universal license.

[ashf]

Reference for the paid upgrade problem at the App Store
https://9to5mac.com/2022/03/17/mac-developers-complain-about-app-store-bundles-and-the-lack-of-paid-upgrades/

[RichardMH]

I'm a big fan of Photo and think for the price its a bargain. I use it daily. When I promote it to other photographers most of them have Adobe subscriptions and don't want to leave their Lightroom catalogues (that includes the edited version of their images). And if they keep their Adobe subscription to keep their catalogue they have Photoshop so why do they need Affinity Photo? (I know the Lightroom Library is supposed  to keep operating after a subscription ends but people aren't inclined to risk it. I've never had an Adobe subscription so I can 't test it.)

So a relationship with a DAM that can import a Lightroom catalogue would be great but probably won't happen.

[Catshill]

This statement is welcome and much appreciated. Thank you.

[MDArt]

I'm absolutely loving this update! I was more than happy to pay the upgrade fee. I was really surprised and disappointed by the amount of comments complaining about upgrade pricing, £90 for the affinity suite is an absolute steal! It seems like they expect to have bought an app and expect free updates for the rest of their lives.. V1 we had free updates for 7 years or so. People need money to live don't expect affinity developers to work for nothing. It's completely fair what they've done.. in fact more than fair, its generous. Try spending £300 a year on Adobe subscription on apps you'll never own, or Astute graphics plugins £130 a year and never owning..

[Jak Gunn]

11 hours ago, david_fms said:

Hi,

I have previously purchased Affinity Photo v1 for Mac and iPad, Affinity Designer v1 and Affinity Publisher v1 for Mac and have now happily paid for Affinity Photo v2 for Mac and iPad, even though I received the fantastic promotion from Serif.

I will pay for each major new version because I believe that people's work must be paid for. Great job, and thanks so much for developing these great products for the Mac and iPad.

Cheers,

David

+1

[A_B_C]

8 hours ago, velarde said:

I would be happy with JUST this one simple change in Photo.... 🙂

Yes, I fear that over the strive for the big advancements the Affinity developers forgot to care about these seemingly “small things” that would nonetheless significantly improve our workflows. Over the years, nobody really seemed to have paid attention to the respective user requests, and this is what I feel to cause frustration in the long-term user base. 🙁

Let me give you an example. In January 2015, in one of my first posts here, I had already suggested that the simple option of Alt(Opt) + dragging an object in the Layers Panel to clone the object to a new location in the layers tree should be implemented.

• https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/4006-some-layer-things/#comment-16292

To my understanding, this has never been an outlandish request. The respective option

• has been available in competitors’ apps for ages,
• should be implementable with a few lines of code that won’t break anything (don’t tell me otherwise: if the team can set up nondestructive RAW developing and vector mesh warp, this should be an apprentice piece),
• does not require the implementation of additional UI elements (it is an “invisible” improvement that does not complicate the UI and changes the UX only for the better),
• does not interfere with Alt(Opt) + clicking for solo mode, since we are talking about Alt(Opt) + dragging here (choose a different modifier for drag-cloning, if you consider it a problem),
• should be absolutely non-controversial as a most helpful option that speeds up layer workflows considerably,
• and does not break any existing workflow (if you don’t want to use it, just leave it aside).

Considering these arguments, I think there’s really no good reason for not implementing this feature, and honestly, its implementation should also not fail due to missing workforce capacity. And it’s not that I would have been the only one asking for the feature. Here are a just a few threads that turn up in a superficial forum search:

• https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/7545-add-new-layer-above-current-object/ (April 2015)
• https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/17984-duplicate-a-layer-by-alt-drag-drop-in-layers-panel/ (February 2016 – November 2021)
• https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/28802-altdrag-layer-to-create-a-copy/ (November 2016)
• https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/163101-how-to-copy-layer-mask-and-paste-to-another-layer-in-affinity-photo-ipad/ (June 2022)

So when you look at these comments (one could compile a similar list for many, if not all of the other features I mentioned above) and when you see, at the same time, that this simple quality-of-life feature has not yet been implemented, after seven years of development time and countless beta cycles, you cannot help to think “Well, they do theirs, don’t hold your breath.” Which will, inevitably, cause frustration. 🙁

I’m not saying this in order to bash the Affinity team or diminish their efforts. I just believe that after the fantastic process they made with the new versions, it would be time to seriously turn their attention to these small features that come at virtually no development cost and would improve our daily lives tremendously. Hope you understand. 😀

[Loocor]

 

谢谢 Steve 邮件指引我到这里，谢谢 Ash 的分享。我是 Affinity 的老用户和推介者，我知道 Affinity 团队已经做出了了不起的成绩，我希望 Affinity 好。

正因如此，我有些真心话想要说：

1. 前提：Affinity 成功占有市场，定价因素功不可没，但千万别因为这个因素把自己玩“坏”；
2. 前提：Affinity 数据格式距离“事实标准”仍有很大距离，维护用户忠诚度的纽带并不多也不牢固；
3. 疑问：V2 Universal License 如何验证用户多平台的合法授权的？这个验证方式在 V1 里提供在进行升级不行吗？
4. 经验：软件公司需要持续投入大量的成本维持正常开发，定价、收费是公司当然的、必要的权利。同样，用户也有选择与否的自由和权利；
5. 经验：切入市场可以粗暴，保持并扩大市场却需要精细，类似 “still have the issue of customers who bought the previous version 3 months ago vs. those who have had it 2+ years” 这样的问题不能粗暴的处理；
6. 经验：往往用户讨论价格并不是单纯比较数字的多少，而是性价比，或者说是有关投入金钱产出收益的“感受”，还包括这次购买与上次购买差异的感受。所以，千万别以为价格“够低”用户就一定买单，尤其是老用户——因为他们饱含着对功能与尊重的期待。希望你们能认真回味 @monzo @lettersign 分享的内容；
7. 经验：订阅模式并非“十恶不赦”，市场已经完成用户对订阅服务的教育。尤其是现在 Affinity 的升级/价格策略，并不比订阅模式高明多少，看看 Mac App Store 的反馈就知道了，是时候仔细思考了，参考下 JetBrain's perpetual fallback license ？
8. 透明：@ash，你提到有关V1升级的描述，官网、邮件里一个字也没有，官网QA部分现在都还写的是 “Please bear in mind that V1 will no longer receive any updates.”，嗯... any...  这是暗示快些升级，还是警告快些升级呢？抱歉这些负面的可能我都感受到了；
9. 透明：@ash，官网、邮件里都没有关于 “ until 14th December ” 这个截止信息的描述，是期望用户担心错过优惠快些下单吗？无法理解不公布这个信息的原因；
10. 懒惰：@ash，我作为V1老用户及时的收到了 V2 的推广邮件，那些挤爆你们邮箱的邮件我想也是V1老用户，要 validate an App Store 真那么难吗——尤其是与现在的局面对比？
11. 建议：@ash，打通 Mac App Store 与 Affinity 的账户体系如何？似乎一个登记表单就可以完成的事情？ 
12. @Sam Neil 你完全误解了 lettersign 的意思，而且你的表达对老用户太无理了。必须知道，Affinity 没有提供任何两个月内购买V1版本用户的升级或处理方案，两天都没有，对吗？另外，表达失望和反感的都是老用户，他们正常支付了V1的费用，而不是像你说的那样在指望 “Freebie” 或 “Shareware” ；

Edited November 17, 2022 by loocor

[JhonatanS]

@AshI completely understand absolutely everything in the backstage on Affinity hard work, because I've been working and following all Affinity steps since I quit Adobe in 2018.

 

Both sides, Community and Content creation

 

I think Transparency and Relationship is what the Community wants to hear more often.

 

These past month Affinity got very silent and created many doubts about the Future of the app.

 

A long silence, generates doubts and fears in people, in not having updates or others negative thoughts...

 

In general,

people want to have attention and want to get answers.

 

Because where is Love also can have Hate,

and I feel like the Affinity Community relationship between the staff and community is not very healthy, where most lovers get angry.

 

In this situation, Affinity needs to give attention to Users Releationship, to be better understood when this kind of decision happens.

 

This could soft more people's emotions.

 

Look, from my own experience as a Content creator,

"No matter how hard work you guys place,

People don't care, because what they want are attention and answers".

 

So, my end position is, Keep up doing the amazing work as developers, you guys are the best on this

 

But, Please keep also updating people and build a good relationship with the Community.

 

It's not hard work honestly, it's not only about the app and features, it's about relationship

 

I hope what I said makes sense 😄, Thank you all!

[markpalmos]

Hi,

WRT the upgrade price, why couldn't users who want to get a "loyalty" upgrade price simply go to the Affinity website and pay for it, and download it from there? That's what thousands of other software companies do... I don't see the App Store limitations as a valid excuse. 

Still disappointed,

Mark.