Canva

[jacekl]

I noticed that many people write about the fighting with maintaining old programs. They write about compatibility modes, about old systems and even about dedicated machines not maintained for decades!
I wonder why nobody uses virtualization? Personally, I have Linux as the main system, but all older programs, as well as Affinity, I run on VMware Workstation, losing capacity maybe 5%. And as the main computer has a strong processor with 24 cores and a lot of RAM, in practice I completely do not feel a slowdown.
But the advantage is that such a virtual is portable to a new computer (it's just a few files!) and ready to run immediately. In addition the system, in this virtual machine, can be cut off from the Internet, without anti-virus and updates: fast, clean and safe. It maintains communication with the local network and resources, e.g. with NAS. In this way, you can have any "frozen" application for any long time. Including, for example, the active AD 2.0 license, even when the servers are turned off.

I recommend!

[AffinityMakesMeWonder]

1 minute ago, jacekl said:

I noticed that many people write about the fighting with maintaining old programs. They write about compatibility modes, about old systems and even about dedicated machines not maintained for decades!
I wonder why nobody uses virtualization? Personally, I have Linux as the main system, but all older programs, as well as Affinity, I run on VMware Workstation, losing capacity maybe 5%. And as the main computer has a strong processor with 24 cores and a lot of RAM, in practice I completely do not feel a slowdown.
But the advantage is that such a virtual is portable to a new computer (it's just a few files!) and ready to run immediately. In addition the system, in this virtual machine, can be cut off from the Internet, without anti-virus and updates: fast, clean and safe. It maintains communication with the local network and resources, e.g. with NAS. In this way, you can have any "frozen" application for any long time. Including, for example, the active AD 2.0 license, even when the servers are turned off.

I recommend!

Good suggestion!

I use the app CrossOver on my Macs to run “old” Windows application (can’t install Win on another drive because I have Apple Silicon CPU:s on my Macs)…

CrossOver is fantastic - I can run so many Win-apps not present on Mac platform - Xara as an example - also many special utilities that I need.

Nice to avoid a real Windows computer and just stick to Macbook Pro, iMac and fabulous big iPads…

https://www.codeweavers.com/crossover/

 

[PaulEC]

I must admit that (going on reports linked to in this thread) I got it wrong! I had always thought that when Serif was bought back (from the American company that purchased it,) the new owners had real faith and interest in the company and it's products. It would now appear that they were just a couple opportunists who saw a good business deal and, having now made a "made a killing", couldn't care less what happens to the company. I honestly think that Ash and the rest of the staff are being as honest and positive as they can be, but I am still very concerned about just how much control "Serif" will now have over it's own future. Businessmen (like politicians) make all sorts of promises, then "circumstances change" or there are "outside forces, over which they have no control", so they backtrack or even do a complete reversal of what they had promised! (As we have already seen!) I really hope Canva do have a genuine interest in the future of Affinity, but once they "float" and have public shareholders, who are only interested in dividends, (rather than the shares belonging to owners/management who have some real involvement in the company,) nothing is certain.

I do hope for the best, and I have no intention of deserting Affinity at the moment. Having said that, I won't be investing any more cash in addons etc, and I will be checking out possible alternatives to Affinity (I'm a bit of a "belt and braces" person!), until I see exactly which way the wind is blowing!

[GrahamMYC]

I have been a Serif customer since 2001, when I retired. As Affinity came on line I added each application on Windows and Ipad. I have even visited the Nottingham office and was helped in a promotional project by Serif. It has been a fun ride so far, and I wish all the team success in the new venture.

For years a Data Asset Manager (DAM) has been "just around the corner". In desparation I went to Daminion a DAM that accepted Affinity formats, even though it did not support them. Despite that I have found them very helpful. However, a couple of years ago they switched to a subscription model for professional users, but retained a Lite version for happy amateurs like me. That sounds like a good fit into the new regime? And in the latest release, Daminion now formally supports Affinity file formats. I now have 4 catalogs on Daminion the largest of which contains 30k images. There is a developing face recognition suite, but I have not installed it as I have no need for it. 

[Laurents]

I saw this email yesterday and unsubscribed.  They knew there would be blow back here, and a lot of pissed off users.  In the end there really aren't any promises that we can count on.  This latest post should have been with the first post.  I just reactivated my creative suite account.  The whole reason why I switched was Affinity was not adobe and have a great product that does 99% of what I need it for.  To be fair I've never heard of Canva, I live in a bubble, just a dude in the woods making graphics.  I dont care what they have promised, its all the same nonsense Ive heard before.  done with this company and whoever bought them. Adios.

[big smile]

A big thumbs up to affinity for pledging to offer perpetual licenses at reasonable prices. It's pleasing that they are aware of customer concerns.

 

Especially the perpetual licenses at a reasonable price part. Corel and Quark offer perpetual licenses, but they aren't reasonable. You still need a yearly maintenance subscription to use a lot of features or get upgrade pricing.  Their perpetual licenses are really designed to push people into subscription. 

 

Does the Affinity Pledges make me feel better about this buy out? No. Bottom line: Canva answers to investors. And investors love subscriptions. Down the road, I could see Canva rebranding Affinity as the "Canva Pro" range to get around the pledge for perpetual licenses.

 

I really wish Serif could have done their own IPO to remain independent. Or had been purchased by someone like Microsoft who have a (fairly) good (modern) track record for offering fairly priced perpetual licenses. I am happy that the Affinity team got the financial success they deserved. But I'm deeply heartbroken that my favorite app suite is in the hands of a company whose bread and butter is subscription. 

[cTHULHU]

TLDR; Nobody seems convinced by the hostage email. It's now a case of wait see judge. 

[Patrick Connor]

31 minutes ago, PaulEC said:

had always thought that when Serif was bought back (from the American company that purchased it,) the new owners had real faith and interest in the company and it's products. It would now appear that they were just a couple opportunists who saw a good business deal and, having now made a "made a killing", couldn't care less what happens to the company.

I cannot allow this to stand. Gary Bates and Jim Bryce were both very long term employees in Sales and Development for well over 20 years long before they took on Director roles. They dedicated their careers to both the Serif Legacy range and the Affinity range. Please stop this

[1stn00b]

This will end up exactly like SketchUp : https://blog.sketchup.com/article/same-sketchup-you-love-a-new-way-to-buy

Quote

Bottom line: SketchUp was always meant to be accessible to everyone… and it still is. 

That’s why we have made the decision to stop selling our Classic Perpetual Licenses and Maintenance & Support renewal plans after November 4, 2020.

:>>

[PaulEC]

@Patrick Connor In that case I honestly apologise, that is not how it came across in the newspaper article I read, which gave the impression that they bought the company when it was cheap, waited until they could make a huge profit, and then left. That just proves that you should never take newspaper reports at face value! Again - apologies.

[Amontillado]

I hope there's a hidden message in all this from Canva. Despite the extreme negativity, this forum continues public visibility. I hope that means Canva is willing to give customer complaints due attention.

If Canva hasn't gotten the word about how subscriptions would impact their market, they are completely hopeless.

[D.VE]

It speaks volumes that all the statements come from Ash and not the Serif CEO...

[pinchies]

22 hours ago, R.I.P. Affinity 26.03.2024 said:

Another "Joined Yesterday" club member. 😁

Not sure what point you're insinuating by this. Did you see my first post?

I’ve been an affinity Customer since very early on in the version one days. The original acquisition statement was the first time I felt I really needed to speak up, which lead me to join here, and the second pledge statement was just as significant that I needed to respond again.

I certainly hope that I won’t need to be back again.

Edited March 28 by pinchies

[PaulEC]

I don't think there's anything wrong with new (to the forums) users deciding to contribute now, this is obviously an issue which everyone is going to be affected by, in one way or another. I'm actually more inclined to have doubts about people who continually change their nickname and avatar!

[BarryHu]

Much of what I've come across over the past day or so reminds me why I don't often visit "forums"; too many shouty people (or I assume they are people and not some sort of annoying "bot"). Tiresome and makes it almost impossible to sort the wheat from the chaff.

I did see this though and I suppose a bit off-topic: Someone recently referred to his solution to a missing DAM (which I recall Serif had and I used when PC based) but seems not to have come across ACDSee. It's really photographer's management/editing tool but recognises that other formats (and programmes) exist and therefore sits nicely alongside the Affinity Suite (and is also available for Mac & Windows although not seamlessly like Affinity) and I switch back & orth all the time. It's not at all costly, offers updates and perpetual licensing if the annual upgrades do not look interesting or the subscription offer is unwelcome. When taken as a Suite it also gives some other nice tools for video etc. Well worth investigating if your OS won't do a DAM thing.

[jackamus]

1 minute ago, LondonSquirrel said:

And what has changed? Your Affinity apps still do the same thing today as they did last week. 

There seem to be a lot of people with crystal balls in this forum, predicting the future. They cast the runes, they consulted the Oracle, felt it in their bones, and checked their horoscopes. It's about as accurate as the BBC weather forecast.

Why not just wait and see what actually comes down the line?

Agreed and once you know, you can walk if you want to.

[jonnyblasticles]

9 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

And what has changed? Your Affinity apps still do the same thing today as they did last week. 

There seem to be a lot of people with crystal balls in this forum, predicting the future. They cast the runes, they consulted the Oracle, felt it in their bones, and checked their horoscopes. It's about as accurate as the BBC weather forecast.

Why not just wait and see what actually comes down the line?

It's hardly a psychic phenomenon to see patterns. I think your argument is completely reductive. You're trying to make us sound like we're crazy when clearly we feel very strongly that this is a bad thing. Yes we can walk away, nobody is complaining that they're locked in or that V2 is suddenly different. They're concerned that software they like from a company who's original ethos they supported is going to change which is perfectly valid. It is very likely to.

This idea of "don't assume anything, just wait and see!" Defies human nature and frankly it makes you sound a brain in a jar. You might live entirely passively, allowing things to happen to you and never daring to ask for more or to be treated better but personally I value my right to be heard. And since the majority of people are here for the same reason, so do they.

[Laurents]

16 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

And what has changed? Your Affinity apps still do the same thing today as they did last week. 

There seem to be a lot of people with crystal balls in this forum, predicting the future. They cast the runes, they consulted the Oracle, felt it in their bones, and checked their horoscopes. It's about as accurate as the BBC weather forecast.

Why not just wait and see what actually comes down the line?

I'm just not going to do it. Its that simple. No divining nonsense needed. At this point I'm done finding adobe alternatives or perpetual software licenses that are good enough. enough is enough.

[jonnyblasticles]

2 minutes ago, BofG said:

You truly believe that the chances of Illustrator being shuttered is the same as for Affinity?

They're either a plant or incredibly naive. They believe in "the pledges" which companies almost always break pretty much immediately more so than a pattern of companies doing this exact thing and tanking their loyal user base which happens all the time. 

[monzo]

1 minute ago, LondonSquirrel said:

That is the case with most applications. AI is closed format, for example.

There are an awful lot of pessimists around. The glass is nine tenths empty for them, without even seeing the glass.

So why aren’t we being shown the glass, if it’s nine tenths full? 

It would put an end to speculation and guessing, and reassure us that we can continue to enjoy the support and functionality we’ve paid for.

Serif must have discussed how the transition of our accounts will be managed. So will we have to setup new accounts with Canva? Will they provide the same level of support we have now? Will this forum still exist? Will we have to re-activate IAP’s in our apps if the Store accounts change hands? Will there be downtime or issues during the license server migration? How long will V2 be supported? How long will V1 downloads be available on the Mac/iOS Stores?

This information is out there, somewhere (at least you would hope it is), so if everything is going to be so rosy, why not just tell us?

Some serious restoration of trust is required here.

 

[Bryan Rieger]

45 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

I use VirtualBox. Amongst over things, CorelDraw 9 under XP runs particularly well. It's way snappier than Affinity on my Mac. There is something horrible about the bloat of modern applications, which require so much more memory to do the same thing as 20 years ago. It's not just a case of "buy more memory". I have plenty of memory. It's the relative slowness of modern apps compared to the past.

I recently fired up SheepSaver running MacOS 9.0.4 (on my M1 Pro powered MacBook Pro) and was amazed at the size and performance of many of the apps. Yes, MacOS 9 feels more than a little dated/clunky now, but I was somewhat astounded by how much I liked working in many of those older (Macromedia) applications in a VM. Not sure if it'll become a daily driver, but it's nice to know that it's an option.

I've also rediscovered 'the joy of the progress bar'… it may seem counter intuitive, but when computers became fast enough to perform many operations in real-time the old faithful progress bar largely disappeared. While I welcomed the new realtime responsiveness, I found that I soon missed the contemplative time I had to consider my work while the operation progressed. The progress bar slowed me down a little, but in the process made me much more considerate of the work I was creating, and as a result the work often ended up better for it.

[walt.farrell]

53 minutes ago, D.VE said:

It speaks volumes that all the statements come from Ash and not the Serif CEO...

Ash is and has been one of the four Directors of Serif, and is the Managing Director. 

He has been the public face of Serif for major announcements since I've been an Affinity user. 

I'm not sure they even have a CEO.

https://rocketreach.co/serif-europe-ltd-management_b5c6e74df42e0d20

[Bryan Rieger]

2 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Ash is and has been one of the four Directors of Serif, and is the Managing Director. 

He has been the public face of Serif for major announcements since I've been an Affinity user. 

I'm not sure they even have a CEO.

https://rocketreach.co/serif-europe-ltd-management_b5c6e74df42e0d20

CEO is more of an Americanism, while Managing Director is/was more often used in the UK (and Australia I believe). That said, the CEO title seems to becoming the more standard term used throughout the world today.

[VectorVonDoom]

1 minute ago, Bryan Rieger said:

I recently fired up SheepSaver running MacOS 9.0.4 (on my M1 Pro powered MacBook Pro) and was amazed at the size and performance of many of the apps. Yes, MacOS 9 feels more than a little dated/clunky now, but I was somewhat astounded by how much I liked working in many of those older (Macromedia) applications in a VM. Not sure if it'll become a daily driver, but it's nice to know that it's an option.

I've also rediscovered 'the joy of the progress bar'… it may seem counter intuitive, but when computers became fast enough to perform many operations in real-time the old faithful progress bar largely disappeared. While I welcomed the new realtime responsiveness, I found that I soon missed the contemplative time I had to consider my work while the operation progressed. The progress bar slowed me down a little, but in the process made me much more considerate of the work I was creating, and the work often ended up better for it.

I've system 8 on my machine, almost instantly loads and it is amazing that the graphics apps had so much functionality. Have been tempted to try some stuff with SuperPaint or similar. Shame there's no browser options worth using for these old OS's or it would sort of be tempting to buy an old "proper" mac.

[jonnyblasticles]

10 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Exactly what I wrote. I have a different opinion to you, which you state correctly is my "stance". 

Moronic. I was talking about a specific thing and you ignored all the actual points to once again make us look like we're just being crazy and then made the extremely broad statement "exactly because I have a different opinion of you, any arguments you make are invalid"

All arguments would be nulled if you took such a broad stance such as "you're whatever I say you are by virtue of disagreeing with me"

Anyway we're getting off track. If you're happy then good luck to you. Continue using the software. Wait and see. This a thread for people to talk about the changes so if there are none in your eyes, go for a walk