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Can a key be used for Windows and Mac


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14 hours ago, toltec said:

Some applications only allow installation on one computer. Like Cyberlink and Movavi video editing software. As I found out recently >:(

Serif allow installation on all privately owned computers per OS. Hardly regressive on Serif's part !

As @R C-R say's why should PC user's have to pay extra for Mac development and support and different help files in multiple languages, etc. Or vice versa. This stuff all costs.

If you are willing to pay four or five times the price for Affinity, those costs could be covered, or your could buy er, other software.

The question is, how many users would have to pay more for a few people who use Affinity on both platforms. And bearing in mind Affinity apps need quite high spec machines to run on effectively, if you are wealthy enough to be able to afford that, the cost of Photo is tiny in comparison.

I stand by my use of the word regressive. I use many cross platform apps; this is the only that has this restriction. Many allow just two instances on either platform; that is a restriction that seems fair to me.

Mac development is happening - as is windows development - whether a windows or mac user, respectively is using both or not. The comment about "paying extra for Mac development" makes no sense at all. If I install five copies of the windows version, are four of them "freeloading" on development? It's software, not hand-carved wood.

Bottom line: it's the way it is, logical or not.

No worries.

 

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31 minutes ago, kLyon said:

The comment about "paying extra for Mac development" makes no sense at all.

Why not? The development (& the support & marketing) costs incurred by Serif/Affinity for the Mac & Windows versions are different, & one way or another those costs have to be passed on the the buyer if the company is to stay in business & continue to develop its products. It costs them nothing extra if you install five versions of the Windows apps, so that is irrelevant.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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  • 4 weeks later...

Another user chiming in that would have switched from Adobe a year or two ago if there was a cross-platform licensing option.  Affinity is the only cross platform design apps i've tried in  years that it is not an option.  It isn't about the price,  it's about the convenience and functionality.   Hell, offer it as a higher priced option, then be surprised how much it's used by real designers who need to use both platforms.

Mac at work and PC at home, and it's not worth buying Photo and Design 2 times and juggling licenses for each platform, and updates, etc.

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19 minutes ago, rckstflbn said:

It isn't about the price,  it's about the convenience and functionality. 

It is hard to beat the convenience of the Mac versions available through the Mac App Store: there is no need to enter licensing key info; the app can be installed on every Mac you own or control by signing into the MAS on each of those Macs; & the MAS is a 'one-stop-shop' for installing updates, automatically in the background if you want.

As I understand it, the Windows 10 Store version offers similar convenience, although there are some functional limitations because Win10 sandboxing is implemented differently from sandboxing in the Mac OS.

29 minutes ago, rckstflbn said:

Hell, offer it as a higher priced option...

If they were to decide that price should be about twice the price of the single-platform versions, how many users would buy it?

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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1 hour ago, rckstflbn said:

Another user chiming in that would have switched from Adobe a year or two ago if there was a cross-platform licensing option.  Affinity is the only cross platform design apps i've tried in  years that it is not an option.  It isn't about the price,  it's about the convenience and functionality.   Hell, offer it as a higher priced option, then be surprised how much it's used by real designers who need to use both platforms.

Mac at work and PC at home, and it's not worth buying Photo and Design 2 times and juggling licenses for each platform, and updates, etc.

So how much was the two year subscription to Adobe compared to a one off licence fee for Affinity Photo on Windows ?

With that sort of money saving, you could pay someone to update the apps for you and still be better off ;-)

If you have so much money to waste, I'm surprised you are even considering a move from Adobe :o

 

Windows PCs. Photo and Designer, latest non-beta versions.

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The dual OS licensing thing (Adobe/Quark et al vs. Serif Affinity products) is a red herring. Not many people will look at the cost savings aspect but rather the perception/reality of its mere existence or lack thereof.

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2 hours ago, MikeW said:

Not many people will look at the cost savings

Anybody running a business will look at them!  They may not be the deciding issue, but they'll look at them! 

AP, AD & APub user, running Win10

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5 minutes ago, IanSG said:

Anybody running a business will look at them!  They may not be the deciding issue, but they'll look at them! 

What larger companies do isn't necessarily what the smaller studios and individuals do. But even larger companies can overlook costs if they think it is in their best interests. The same doesn't necessarily apply to OS platform licensing.

A tale of two community newspapers and costs. Both newspapers have the same sections, roughly the same page count. Both use a CMS as an input source for their ad sales people, the front office workers, the writers & editors, and the layout departments grab the flat-plan articles, ads, etc., along with last minute articles, ads and other content from it as well. Roughly the same staff count.

Both were using InDesign and both looked at going back to QuarkXPress due to cost-savings and the perpetual licensing model of QXP. Which one was used didn't matter one iota as regards platforms (both have a mix of Macs and PCs) and both pull in content from the CMS via tagged text and both use the same plug-in/XTension from the same company.

In the past, neither company were on the "update every new version" cycle. Then subscription hit and after 6 years of paying for X number of seats, that's when the review of what application to use going forward happened. Each has 12 seats (licenses). One company went back to Q (company A), the other remained with ID (company B). When one thinks of the number of seats are purchased, company A has realized tremendous savings, company B? Not so much. Why would that be?

It came down to the decision makers at each company. Company B's decision maker had never gotten past the half a decade of Quark's stubborn leadership. Rationality didn't enter the picture for him.

To me it is the same with the dual-OS licensing issue. It's a thing the "competitors" do. So while cost savings can be had, the psychological issue of "equal" offerings cannot be overlooked. Price alone may never truly be weighted the same as a dumb issue such as dual-OS licensing.

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1 hour ago, MikeW said:

Price alone may never truly be weighted the same as a dumb issue such as dual-OS licensing.

I completely agree - I've seen purchasing decisions made for all sorts of weird reasons.  It's been a while since I was actively involved, but in the years leading up to my retirement I saw an increasing emphasis on cost justification.

AP, AD & APub user, running Win10

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  • 3 months later...
1 hour ago, Adam Simon said:

Is it possible to trade back my Windows license to Serif, and get it for OSX trough app store? I'm planning to leave Windows forever...

If you bought it directly from Serif, and are within the  return period (14 days, I think) then you should be able to get a refund. Contact affinityreturns@serif.com for assistance.

If you bought via the Windows Store you would have to contact Microsoft.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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  • 7 months later...

honestly i have read the comments about 1 license should work on both platforms for 49.

we are all trying to get rid of Adobe's bad practices. too many to list - even back in the day when i bought photoshop - it was like $800 

so a better product @ $100 is a deal! it is frustration to manage - i would pay $99 for a managed single account for both platforms. and at that point skip the apple store and get your 30% apple tax back!!!!

just an idea

Edited by tunzer
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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 6 months later...

hey all. 

No updates on this issue? 

I'm steel think, thats its fair to give the possibility to switch the system, temporary or permanent. 

I can buy the license for the mac not only in the appstore, also on the off-website. That means, in my opinion, that the restriction of the App store is not (more) exists?! 

I bough already 4 Licenses (2 designer and 2 photo) and i think, its fear enough to give me the freedom to change the OS without buying extra 2 or 4 licenses.

Thanks

Br.

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  • 2 months later...
43 minutes ago, ANDRé33 said:

it's possible to have the windows version, after buying the mac version ?

Each platform requires a separate license, so to get the Windows version you would need to buy it.

BTW, currently all the apps are on sale for 50% off, so if you are interested in getting the Windows version (or any of the other Affinity apps) this is a great time to do that.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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  • 8 months later...

Hi, sorry, but I read the whole article but I'm not quite sure, if I understood everything right.
I bought a license for Windows, but now I'm using a Mac. I deinstalled Affinity on my Windows PC,
because I want to use it on my Mac only. Everything works well with my license now on my mac (I didn't bought it via App Store),
should I be worried, because this doesn't correspond to the licensing terms?

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25 minutes ago, ChrisTough said:

Hi, sorry, but I read the whole article but I'm not quite sure, if I understood everything right.
I bought a license for Windows, but now I'm using a Mac. I deinstalled Affinity on my Windows PC,
because I want to use it on my Mac only. Everything works well with my license now on my mac (I didn't bought it via App Store),
should I be worried, because this doesn't correspond to the licensing terms?

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums.

When you first started your Affinity application (which one?) on Mac, did it ask you to enter the product key?

If it did not ask for the key, then possibly the application was previously installed on your Mac, and you're using the old license.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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  • Staff

Hi @ChrisTough,
Welcome to Affinity Forums :)
If you only purchased a license for Windows, and now you need to use the app/switch to macOS you have to purchase a new license specifically for macOS. Each platform (Windows, macOS, iOS) requires its own license (even if you uninstalled the application on Windows).

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  • 2 months later...

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