Canva Acquires Serif's Affinity Apps

[rin67630]

Didn't realize that even mentioning the issue in this way was breaking any forum rules.

It does not. The breaking point was to recommend pirated versions.
If you want to remain off-line, do you have any reason to need something else than an old macOS?

There is one: the App-Store will not provide old versions of their Apps compatible with your older macOS out of the box.

But there is a legal way to get them:
If you have "purchased" the current available version of a free app from a current macOS with your account, you get entitled to download the old versions from "my purchases" as well.
I know that sounds plainly stupid, but that just is Apple's policy.

And if you are really pissed off by that insanity, you just go to an Apple store, buy a new Mac, install all free Apps from the App store with your account on it and return the Mac within 14 days for a full refund.

You will be rewarded by the possibility to download older apps and Apple gets a returned device, that they must sell discounted...

 

[MacHeritage]

It does not. The breaking point was to recommend pirated versions.
If you want to remain off-line, do you have any reason to need something else than an old macOS?

Thank you. How about now? I have edited it to hopefully bring it into line but if it still isn't correct, please let me know and I will try again. I don't want to break any rules.

If you have files that can only work on newer macOS your data cannot be opened on the older macOS. At this moment in time, it isn't horrible but in a few versions it will become almost impossible to open newly made files in macOS 10.13-10.15.


I wish Apple would make it easier to purchase apps from the Mac App Store on older macOS instead of having to do what you explain. I've had to actually, do something similar to what you said, just without the new purchase.

 

[rin67630]

I wish Apple would make it easier to purchase apps from the Mac App Store on older macOS instead of having to do what you explain

I am now using my Macbook with Windows. I just was too annoyed with all incompatibilities.
Windows just works...

 

[organicCPU]

Bootable installers? Yes, that is correct. I've actually tried it myself with macOS 12 Monterey. No Internet, install will not continue and aborts. Major issue for longevity purposes or emergency purposes. I learned about this problem from Lloyd Chambers and couldn't believe it until I actually tried it myself.

Didn't know about that, thank you!

But why would the Macintosh Garden and The Macintosh Repository sites be an issue?

I'm not sure if it is an issue, but abandoned software is not in public domain or a similar free license and therefore might be problematic. Quoted from this Wikipedia article:

…While sharing of such software [abandonware] is usually considered copyright infringement, in practice copyright holders rarely enforce their abandonware copyrights for a number of reasons…

 

[MacGizmo]

Those people have no business using, say, lightroom? I beg to differ.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. There are plenty of apps/utilities that do what Lightroom does that don't require a subscription.

When you no longer have an income that can support it, you may still have historic files that you want to open. Paying a regular monthly fee for the privilege of accessing your own work occasionally is not great!

Again, that's not Adobe's problem. You willingly signed up for CC knowing this in advance and continued to use it. I know it sucks, but it's not like we didn't know this going in.

You earn 600$ in a morning? Good for you, but you have to remember that this is not the case for everyone.

Yes, because that's what I do for a living. If you can't pay for Adobe on a per app basis or the entire CC subscription, then you have no business using the apps. People making money off occasional project work should use apps from Affinity (and numerous others).

"Crying and whining is tiresome?" Maybe you think so, but when enough people complain, companies sometimes listen.

It's not going to happen in this case. If I interpreted the laws on this subject correctly, SEC/Accounting laws prevent them from switching back. At best they can lower the price... at worst, they would likely have to kill all the apps, re-release them with enough changes that they can legally call them new apps, and then sell them with a perpetual license.

Affinity can offer both because the current apps aren't subscriptions, and they're offering both subscription and perpetual licenses at the same time.

 

[ipaqrat]

I reminisce about my old a particularly productive setup I had way back 1996... PowerMac 7600 with OS 8, Macromedia Freehand, Macromedia X-Res and Pagemaker 6.

• Freehand was FAST! Plus I hate Illustrator's multiple selection cursors and convoluted tools usage.
• X-Res was great back in those days as it worked fast on the processors of the day by using low-res proxy FPOs in real time, and then applying the high res changes later as batch processing over night.
• PageMaker 7 was just about PEAK DTP. InDesign came out around then, but I already didn't like Quark, so there was no point switching to InDesign.

The fact that those old apps are now abandoned does not mean it's now legal, in ANY sense, to procure or use the software unless you actually possess a legal original license.

Affinity Photo/Design/Publisher were a sweet-enough-spot, reminded me of Freehand and PageMaker, few missing features notwithstanding (Dammit, I'm already referring to Affinity apps in the past tense 😠). Because I'm presently tense. Is it still worth schooling up in Affinity apps, now? Beta testing their code? Helping other users? What are the odds that Canva is lying (or wrong) about improving the apps and keeping non-subscription options. Lying, I think, because that's what business does in the North American (US) market to preserve market share and short term revenue whole folks' internet-shriveled memories lose track of the issues. You can bet Canva's and Affinity's lawyers and MBAs have already planned deprecation of standalone, non-subscription apps. "Not enough customer interest in the standalone apps..." they'll say. "Subscriptions have preferred cadence of feature rollouts..." they'll say. "Subscriptions get timelier security patches, so you don't get assaulted in parking garages..." they'll say. If I'm the realist pessimist in the room, prove me wrong.

So, yeahhh... It might seem tempting to try hacking up working copies of old favorite apps/OS, as a hobby, or in a fit of pique. One might feel proud of succeeding... Until a ****-weasel copyright troll with a PO Box in west Texas finds enough documentation and spare time to pencil-whip a lawsuit. It happens. All the things we assume we can get away with, on a lark, because no one is looking, and no real harm is done... Remember, the RIAA sued individuals for downloading pirate MP3 files; the RIAA won substantial actual and punitive damages, not overturned on appeal. And here there's blabbing on about it in writing; AI bots got all day, all night to crawl every site looking for stealy-hackey blabbing. You can bet MacRumors, and every other web site, will roll you up in legal discovery in the blink of an eye. And don't believe that your identity is protected because you use a handle, burner devices, random gmail, or a VPN. Government operators can penetrate SSH, VPN's and TOR, because control endpoints.

 

[Manzanito]

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. There are plenty of apps/utilities that do what Lightroom does that don't require a subscription.

But it’s also aimed at amateurs by the very same company that rents the software, and priced accordingly.

 

[Beyo]

How do they have any say here? It is a small UK company and Canva is Australian. Not to mention the size of the deal is probably below the threshold of what the EU would go after, even if they did have a say.

Typical American attitude. Because they have many customers in EU? It's not about treshold but about anti-competitivness

 

[Beyo]

Nice option.

Disappointed the once free Vectornator became Linearity Curve with a subscription model.

And even worse, they force you to create account to their cloud otherwise app will not run. This is serious privacy issue.

 

[Beyo]

It does not. The breaking point was to recommend pirated versions.
If you want to remain off-line, do you have any reason to need something else than an old macOS?

There is one: the App-Store will not provide old versions of their Apps compatible with your older macOS out of the box.

But there is a legal way to get them:
If you have "purchased" the current available version of a free app from a current macOS with your account, you get entitled to download the old versions from "my purchases" as well.
I know that sounds plainly stupid, but that just is Apple's policy.

And if you are really pissed off by that insanity, you just go to an Apple store, buy a new Mac, install all free Apps from the App store with your account on it and return the Mac within 14 days for a full refund.

You will be rewarded by the possibility to download older apps and Apple gets a returned device, that they must sell discounted...

Whatever installers you want to get Mist is your solution

 

[rin67630]

Whatever installers you want to get Mist is your solution

No. Mist won't run below Catalina. Been there done that.

 

[filmgirl]

Typical American attitude. Because they have many customers in EU? It's not about treshold but about anti-competitivness

And anti-competitiveness is determined based on market share, where I assure you, Affinity products are not deemed anywhere close to a monopoly position. Adobe's attempt to buy Figma was disallowed because the EU and UK authorities said Figma has dominant market share for UX tools and Adobe for raster and vector graphics.

Even if you want to argue Canva has a dominant position (which is very difficult when the EU argued less than six months ago that Adobe is the company with the near monopoly here), Affinity has no dominant or even significant market position in any area. It is a small company with 90 employees and only £31.2m (per their last published income statement) in revenue.

Simply selling products in the EU doesn’t mean every business move you make needs to be pre-approved by the EC. Those determinations are made for companies that are decidedly larger and more significant than a small businesses like Serif.

 

[Arroyodorado]

Folks, let‘s be honest: how is a software developing company with 90 employees supposed to survive, when they only charge about 50$ about every two years?!? If they go for a subscription model and it is maybe 100$ per year (like Canva Pro), then I‘m totally in for that! It‘d be a reasonable price, they could continue to develop the apps and I still wouldn‘t have to use Adobe crap for several hundred dollars per year.

My humble point of view.

 

[rin67630]

Folks, let‘s be honest: how is a software developing company with 90 employees supposed to survive, when they only charge about 50$ about every two years?

Let's say: pretty well !
They were not bought for that high price if they had no financial success and a good forecast.
3 million customers, from them a good half paid the full suite and upgraded for 125$ last year make roughly a not-that-bad yearly revenue of estimated a half million $/year per employee.

 

[MacHeritage]

Whatever installers you want to get Mist is your solution

I see it doesn't work for 10.14 but does Mist get around the Internet requirement for the macOS installers like Big Sur and up? This would be huge to me, if that is the case.

 

[Vulkan]

I’ve just checked and my Affinity software is still working as it did yesterday, whereas Gimp is still buggy as hell.

The last time I used Gimp, was back when I had it installed in my Silicon Graphics O2 Workstation. I had just dumped $6k on that machine and had no money to buy Photoshop. lol

 

[Vulkan]

Time to look into alternatives. Pixelmator, I guess? I left adobe because of the subscription model, and the wording of the agreement makes me think starting with v3 that’ll happen to serif’s apps too.

Damn it, I really liked serif!

I think it will be a while before you see any changes. I have kept using my Affinity Photo and Designer and while it still works I'm going to milk that pony until its dry.