Upgrade? I still can not decide...

[Fritz_H]

Some time ago I purchased all 3 licenses just to support Serif (although I hardly ever use Designer or Publisher).

I found a lot of room for improvement in Photo 1 and offered my suggestions in this forum. Other postings showed that there are many more people out there complaining about usability issues like I did.

Sadly Serif decided to .. well... do whatever they did, but as it seems they did not address the usability issues (for example a far too tiny UI).
Even worse: as recent postings show, they did not even provide a solid = speedy product for their preferred platform: MacOS. 

It´s already hard for me as a Windows-User, to accept that I have to pay the same price for a worse product.
But to see that there is no backwards-compatibility, no UI/UX improvements, hardly any of the basics addressed... this makes me wonder: pay 50€ for a product that still does not make me happy?

What do you think?

[Twolane]

Obvi you have to make those decisions for yourself and your workflow.

I was smart enough to buy Affinityx3 two years ago for a nice discount, once I leaned of their products. I never envisioned myself using Publisher, but I added it into the mix anyway. Lo and behold, I found a use for it. Publisher and Photo together have paid untold dividends. Last month I laid out 99 bucks for v2 of the trinity of trinities and haven't been disappointed, even though I own no Apple products.

I don't consider myself a "power user", but the software has quite nicely tied itself into my writing business with e-book and print covers, and POD books. Did I ever have a wisp of an idea that would be so two years ago? No. But Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Serif. I'm quite happy with your software and how it suits my business model.

[deeds]

The lack of effort going into making the programs more enjoyable to use seems strange, to say the least.

 

 

 

[Granddaddy]

I bought the Affinity 2 Universal License (or Licence as they spell the noun in the UK) for the introductory price of only US$99.99. That's less than a dinner out with my wife. Why did I do it? Why not just continue with Affinity Version 1 that I've been using for 5 years with much grumbling and some praise?

1.) What's my alternative? What has more powerful features at a fixed price with a few years of free bug fixes and maybe some free new features? 

2.) I've been a software junkie for 40 years. Affinity1 is more than adequate for my simple needs, but the action is now with Affinity2. Let's continue the game.

3.) I couldn't pass up a bargain. Perhaps I'll even find a use for ADesign and APhoto on iPad. Doesn't seem likely, but opportunity favors the prepared.

4.) MS Publisher 2000 font selection was broken by Windows update some months ago, pushing me to finally learn APub to write and illustrate my family Christmas letter.

5.) I've grown fond of the interesting people contributing to these forums, as well as the people making APhoto tutorials. I've even purchased tutorials, despite my strong aversion to spending money.

6.) I have some confidence that Serif will overcome it's quality control and design deficiencies and management failures. The company will be spurred to do better by the debacle of the Affinity2 release. (Never issue a major new release just before major holidays when your staff is focused on taking time off. Long story from experience, best told elsewhere.)

7.) Affinity introduced me to the concept of non-destructive editing in 2017. Immediately I recognized this as the "right" way to do editing. It was a concept I had not previously encountered during my previous fifteen years of using other software and reading dozens of books and watching countless tutorials. I shall be forever grateful.

So, Fritz_H, that's what I think about Affinity2, though I share all your disappointments with the APhoto upgrade. I've made it usable for my purposes in my environment given my computing and hobby idiosyncrasies. Admittedly, I myself don't know a single amateur photographer to whom I would recommend the software in its present state, but that has not stopped me from continuing with it.

[Fritz_H]

Hi @Granddaddy thanks for your reply.

"99.99 USD" - I really hope this price is excluding taxes since the price in Europe including taxes is 119,99€ (= 127,25 USD)
"MS Publisher 2000 font selection was broken by Windows update some months ago" - well, that MS software is more than 20 years old and Affinity Products have been affected by that MS Update too...
"I couldn't pass up a bargain" - that´s what makes me think back and forth
"I have some confidence that Serif will.." - well, sadly I am pretty sure Serif will continue with their habit to ignore User-requests. 

But thanks again for your thoughts.

[Granddaddy]

$99.99 was the total charge on my card. Serif did not collect sales tax. 

I continue to use Word, Excel, and Access in Office 2000 without any problem 22 years after it was published. It is interesting that only MS Publisher is broken. I can also read files from the current version of Office using an add-on that MS issued some years ago. Their file formats were apparently well thought out from the beginning, unlike Affinity in which the format changes with every decimal release. One reason I don't mess with Affinity beta versions is that they warn the files may be unusable when the final version is released. It doesn't seem right that the file format should change every couple of months.

Serif does seem uninformed about their users. Why else put out a new release that can't be installed at all by a significant percentage of their users? And they did not even anticipate that would happen so the support staff were caught flat-footed. It's not nice to surprise your support staff. Management's job is to keep them informed of potential problems and prepare them to respond. Perhaps the Affinity2 debacle will shock them into rethinking how they treat us and how they treat each other.

[François R]

18 hours ago, Fritz_H said:

Sadly Serif decided to .. well... do whatever they did, but as it seems they did not address the usability issues (for example a far too tiny UI).
Even worse: as recent postings show, they did not even provide a solid = speedy product for their preferred platform: MacOS. 

It´s already hard for me as a Windows-User, to accept that I have to pay the same price for a worse product.
But to see that there is no backwards-compatibility, no UI/UX improvements, hardly any of the basics addressed... this makes me wonder: pay 50€ for a product that still does not make me happy?

What do you think?

Before and after prices ... The biggest psychological squeeze on the human brain since sugar. Easy now. You're not standing with a 99% off space shuttle right NOW that will never go on sale again.

There will be another discount (as there regularly is), maybe not the same one, but let's say 20% and then the difference between buying now or later is pennies. You are not at all, forced to upgrade now.

Status is ... v2 was no innovative, feature packed radical surprise. It was a regular update with a little vandalism to the user interface. Still a tiny interface. You were just waiting for some of those few new features since 2014. How long do you have to wait for the ones you're still waiting for?

Wait and leave it up to Serif whether to invest. Let them impress you and let them prove their worth. That's the order you should follow. Otherwise, your investment in v2 becomes a lottery ticket.

The status right now for you is, as you yourself write, that you CAN'T come up with arguments to invest. On the contrary, you are disappointed, so don't. V1 will work for a long, long time to come, and if there is news you MUST use, you can invest later.

Meanwhile, like others, you can look around and find alternatives that suit your needs. Either as replacements or supplements. I have found several. Meanwhile v1 and v2 of Designer became niche products which I use more and more rarely. And I see after almost 10 years a pattern emerging. Serif can't deliver. Outclassed, behind the competition and I don't believe algorithmically or feature wise they can come up to par with the programs I have and that are coming.

You are in doubt because of marketing gimmicks - not the value of the products.

[bt1138]

I just did the full upgrade for all 3 pieces.

Yeah, it's probably not really a huge improvement. But there are improvements.

At $33 per app, it's a totally fine transaction in terms of value for price.

And yes, people do need to pay for this kind of thing occasionally, or you can complain when it all goes onto subscription and bitch about that.

As far as abuse goes, the main software I use in my profession costs $4,000/year subscription and they change the file format every year, or rather lock out backwards compatibility and everyone bitches that they never improve it (in fact subscription seems to sprout at the moment that software stops evolving and people stop upgrading). -->Serif is nowhere near what abuse of software lockin really looks like.

[Fritz_H]

@bt1138 and @Franciose R  (sorry, did not find the Cédille on my german keyboard..)

Please don´t get me wrong: it´s not purely about the money: for me it´s mainly about the fact that paying expresses appreciation and recognition of the work of Serif which (to me) mainly consists of ignoring user-requests. Esp. since none of the updates addresses the complaints/suggestions we all know from this forum..
(Variable fonts? improved UI?, improved UX? Image-Browser? etc. etc.)

[walt.farrell]

14 minutes ago, Fritz_H said:

and @Franciose R  (sorry, did not find the Cédille on my german keyboard..

You don't need it. Just type the name with a normal c and the forum will handle it for you, then pick from the list: @François R

[François R]

39 minutes ago, Fritz_H said:

@bt1138 and @Franciose R  (sorry, did not find the Cédille on my german keyboard..)

Please don´t get me wrong: it´s not purely about the money: for me it´s mainly about the fact that paying expresses appreciation and recognition of the work of Serif which (to me) mainly consists of ignoring user-requests. Esp. since none of the updates addresses the complaints/suggestions we all know from this forum..
(Variable fonts? improved UI?, improved UX? Image-Browser? etc. etc.)

Yes 🙂 and to me it seems like you already have the answer inside your mind. Don't upgrade. Not before your payment seems to be worthwhile and expressing your appreciation of Serifs work feels right. Just pointed out that even money is not a real issue here either. You are not standing at a crossroad.

And to others: paying anyway because it is feels so cheap just completely removes the incentive for companies to put competitive effort behind their work, and especially removes the motivation to innovate. After all, they make plenty of money from you who uncritically throw money at them.

Hell, if my customers hadn't been critical and had a choice beyond my products, then I wouldn't have been so constantly critical of my own work, my own products and my processes and methods.

[Pyanepsion]

On 12/25/2022 at 1:34 PM, Fritz_H said:

It´s already hard for me as a Windows-User, to accept that I have to pay the same price for a worse product.

The advantage of the trial period is that it allows you to buy wisely and not to buy it if it does not meet your expectations.

The advantage of the promotional price is that you can buy the new product for less than the old version for a limited period.

Reminder: general list of improvements in version 2. There are more precise details of the tabs specific to each software.

Quote

there is no backwards-compatibility,

In essence, the notion of backward compatibility often opposes any idea of improving formats regardless of the medium.

The solution generally consists of allowing old versions to be loaded, but not of allowing an old version to read new ones.

That said, being able to save a version 2 file as a version 1 file (with all the loss of functionality that this imposes) could indeed be a good idea, even if many programs do not do this.

Quote

no UI/UX improvements,

This is a view shared by other users. Others think the opposite. Finally, there are those who feel that the new interface needs to be improved in certain areas.

Quote

hardly any of the basics addressed.

Could you be more precise because it is difficult to know what you are talking about?

[SrPx]

Photo 2.0.3 has many improvements. Once having certain preferences modified (and  yep, I admit the system cured/cleaned up more than the usual Windows app needs...but that's not a bad thing, we've become too used to have unstable systems just 'cause "most stuff" works, specially on Windows), I find it better for painting than 1.x. And there are several non-painting improvements. I'm fine if I need to use 1.x for a while in certain critical projects, but I very much welcome these improvements/feature additions, as some are really important. Also, they provide with one of the most generous deals in the matter of updates, and the price is in the very low cost range (even not considering the discount offers at certain moments) while the capabilities are more in the mid-high rank. Just digging the competition, you simply don't find anything like this. The next thing really comparable costs 780 bucks one time purchase (and expensive upgrades) or subscription.

And very importantly, I wouldn't have minded (indeed, I don't) at all to pay for the suite as a "pre-order", even if I don't start using the 2.x version as my 'only' suite until a couple of updates later. It might take 2 months or more, and I can keep using 1.x in the meantime (and many other mid/low cost tools which I use anyway all the time). It is both a way to say thanks for the many free updates and keeping this so for so much time, and a way to "vote" for a non subscription based graphic suite, when all software companies are going after subscription-only now (and those doing now a "hybrid"... we know the plan in most cases is to end as subscription-only). This is happening with graphic apps and whatnot. I prefer doing so than later on having no reason at all to complain about how all would be renting, no chance to purchase and own -when and if you need something- and with no "control" over the rent prices, as I did "vote" when not supporting the other solution (and/or even open source: Blender, Krita, both in really good shape right now).

This is not about a company being the bad guy, or careless. It's a small company fighting against all odds. First release of Photo and other apps had their issues, too. And they have proved that update after update, they polish a lot of that to an usable point, for the most part. I'm used anyways to have to resort to tricks (and external apps) and workflows even with super high end, 280 $ per month software while working at companies. The amount of bugs in those I  have needed to address is crazy, both in the 2D and 3D industry giants. It was working at around 10 design, game and  IT related companies where I realized that the main industry standard apps also leave you out in the cold with many crazy bugs. Those giants have been a lot more time alive, too, the issues were way more critical in their earlier years.

[Horseflesh]

On 12/25/2022 at 5:08 PM, François R said:

Outclassed, behind the competition and I don't believe algorithmically or feature wise they can come up to par with the programs I have and that are coming.

I am sure there are more capable apps than those in the Affinity suite but value also needs to be considered. If I didn't care about value I'd just subscribe to Adobe CC. 

If there are apps out there which are dramatically better than Serif's, for a similar pricetag, please name them, I'd love to know. 

 

[Rowanfreemaker]

Good luck with that...