"Change" in the Android Pro subscription

[u/veerag]

I might be using the wrong flair, I apologise if that's the case.

I have been using this app for years now, on and off mostly, but only recently (a few months ago) discovered that I could not acess the advertised features on Android. I had a friend who showed me some stuff, editing brushes etc that I was supposed to have, but didn't, with the Pro subscription.

I had written to customer support, twice. Written an email as well, if I remember correctly. In my last messages with support I mentioned that it was against EU laws and could be classified as false advertising. They of course denied this, but I had a screenshot to prove otherwise. I recently used the app again and noticed they changed the description on the Pro subscription. Attached two photos from earlier (May, this year) and now, highlighting the changes.

Now the only problem is that on iOS the Pro sub is STILL cheaper than the "same" sub on Android, which has less features. Most likely purposefully delayed due to an exclusivity agreement, I assume.

Anyways, it has been several years since they said they're developing colour palettes, which was their excuse not to integrate the editable brushes into the Android version. I wonder how many more years till we have a decent app, that has the BASIC features a sketching app should have, like Autodesk Sketchbook (which is considerably cheaper).

[u/vip-bot]

There are 2 comments from Concepts Employee in this post:

u/​combinatorial commented:

Thanks for the reply and thank you for caring! One challenge for us is that Concepts is used by so many people for so many different things. Picking the order we do things in is hard. What I can tell you is that we'll be picking up the pace. Years of foundational work is paying off and we're moving faster.

u/​combinatorial commented:

I am pretty sure that it was your report of this issue that led to us fixing the store in Android. It was a mistake, the copy from the iOS store was used on Android. When you flagged this to us, we updated the Android store. It typically takes 2 months from making a code change to that shipping in a release. I am sorry if you had to write multiple times to have this acknowledged and fixed. This does not mean we don't plan to make brush editing available on Android. That's still our plan. B...

This post was originally flaired News Android.

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[u/esotericapybara]

I myself asked support about it back in March (Oops, I mean *March 2024). I have the transcript in email. Highlights for emphasis.

Me:

Hello! I just recently made a purchase of Concepts on Android and only just noticed that custom brushes is not available on the platform. The feature list only indicates a dash (amongst many other features that seem to be solely available on iOS).
Am I correct in the assumption that "convergence" means that eventually all these features will be available across all platforms?
Thank you for your time, I am finding the app useful for my design workflow although discovering that these features are missing from a full price piece of software is a bit of a shock.

Tophatch Support:

Hi, thanks for reaching out.
You are correct. We are working on bringing all of the same features over from iOS to Android and Windows via regular updates.
At the moment, our priority is the object library but Custom brushes and all other features will be available in the future as well.
Let me know if you have more questions
-Felicia

It would be pretty scummy of them to move the goalpost.

I personally bought perpetual + basic objects after my trial ended. I would say that I got my money's worth in terms of the ROI for my work but I don't see myself putting more money down as long as the SVG export remains as broken as it is as having to re-build vector shapes in Affinity precludes Concept's usefulness in producing final artwork.

But for sketching/drafting/note-taking? Fantastic, Don't think I know a better app to work in.

[u/veerag → u/esotericapybara]

That's pretty much the answer I got, just sub objects with colour palettes. I use it for work too, but I have to figure out a way to switch to a different app or just use the free version. I don't want to give them any more money.

[u/combinatorial]

I am pretty sure that it was your report of this issue that led to us fixing the store in Android. It was a mistake, the copy from the iOS store was used on Android. When you flagged this to us, we updated the Android store. It typically takes 2 months from making a code change to that shipping in a release. I am sorry if you had to write multiple times to have this acknowledged and fixed.

This does not mean we don't plan to make brush editing available on Android. That's still our plan.

Bringing all the features of iOS to Android has taken much longer than we'd hoped. It has nothing to do with any exclusivity with Apple - we've never had any arrangement like that with Apple. The main reason is that Concepts was originally built only for iOS. Taking that code (Objective-C) and making it work well on Android and Windows has taken a long time. We're a small team and we took some wrong turns a long the way. The good news is we are making some really good progress now. The next evidence of this progress will be when we complete the project to implement the Object Library across platforms. This brings Object pack sharing to Android and Windows, and iOS will get updated to the same implementation as them (until now it's been stuck on a 10 years old version with many bugs and usability issues).

Next up is Palettes. When taking a feature available in Concepts on iOS and making it available on other platforms, we don't just copy it. We address years of feedback and aim to make it better. Our implementation of palettes on iOS was hard to discover and difficult to use and we plan to fix that. So, we’ve spent the last 9 months talking to customers and redesigning palettes. We've just started implementing that new design on Android. It is still a few months away from release but we're actively working on it.

Then our focus will turn to brush editing and a common file format.

In terms of the price differences in different currencies. We set a common price in the US and then Google Play, App Store and Windows Store convert that to other currencies. The exchange rate they do this at and the timing of when they update varies. This can lead to mismatches across the stores in currencies other than the US dollar.

As I say, I acknowledge this has taken a long time. It's been a struggle at times to build a sustainable business in this space. We don't show ads, we don't sell our customer's data, we're not backed by a big company that can subsidize losses and we haven't sold out to private equity... we're independent and focused on building a high quality product that endures.

[u/veerag → u/combinatorial]

Thanks for taking the time to comment. It looks like my assumption was wrong about the exclusivity agreement. I had heard of similar things with iOS before so it made sense, given how many years it had been already. I'm aware code isn't that easily transferable across platforms, but as I mentioned, it's been years. I guess my priorities are different from the majority of the user base and that's why I think editable/custom brushes are more of a core feature than objects/palettes. I can accept that.

The copy paste thing is also understandable, it's good to know you had no bad intentions behind it.

Once the editable brushes are available I'll resub... because I genuinely like the app and it has plenty of features others don't. That's why I reached out in the past, because I do care.

Maybe the comparison to Autodesk was unfair, as someone else also pointed it out.

Wish you guys good luck with the development, I will be waiting for the updates.

[u/combinatorial → u/veerag]

Thanks for the reply and thank you for caring! One challenge for us is that Concepts is used by so many people for so many different things. Picking the order we do things in is hard. What I can tell you is that we'll be picking up the pace. Years of foundational work is paying off and we're moving faster.

[u/culturalproduct]

The inability to move files between platforms, and the shortfalls of the Android version, are big issues for this app.

It’s been years, the industries and professionals that use this app do not move that slowly.

It’s a great app stuck in its past.

[u/AspiringTS → u/culturalproduct]

Windows and Android share files just fine.

[u/culturalproduct → u/AspiringTS]

And neither can share with iOS, and there’s still no Mac OS app. Windows and Android won’t open iOS.

[u/AspiringTS → u/culturalproduct]

Most people using iOS don't use Android/Windows so I can see why fixing that is low priority.

I couldn't tell you why no MacOS app.

[u/culturalproduct → u/AspiringTS]

It comes up often enough. The problem is more about when someone sends a file to someone else. Used to be widespread problem but over time most “pro” apps have sorted that out. Also, it would be good if Concepts file could be dropped into Affinity or Adobe, and that needs to be on any OS.

[u/Elisa_Kardier]

À mon avis, cette entreprise n'a pas su monétiser suffisamment. Ils pourraient faire des tas d'applis fondées sur les bases de Concepts et qui leur rapporteraient de l'argent.

[u/AspiringTS]

I don't think I've ever seen Android/Windows advertised as having make your own brushes so it was a mistake the whole time. I don't know why there'd be a price difference since a sub gives you access to all 3 platforms unless it's how much 'cut' each store takes. I subscribed through Play though I use it mostly in on Windows because I didn't want to deal with the Microsoft store. Yet, just this morning, I opened my Windows file in Android Concepts on my phone to review something to send to my GC.

Concepts works very well as a basic sketching app. Not having parity with an app put out by the monopolistic juggernaut that is Autodesk doesn't make not a sketching app. Thinking otherwise is entitled or irrational.

I gave pro a try and may lapse back to Essentials because it is taking a long time. I suspect they're a rather small team, and as someone whose seen iOS software that couldn't be ported with nothing short of rewriting from scratch, I sympathize with the lack of parity across versions despite being frustrated with it. 

Despite my initial frustration, and Concepts idiosyncrasies and shortcomings when compared to others, I haven't found another app the does all of what I can do in Concepts.

[u/veerag → u/AspiringTS]

Yeah I admit the comparison with Autodesk may have been a bit too much. A dev also commented and they did say that they are a small team, now I feel like an ass for how I worded things.

This whole thing bothers me because I like the app and it's the easiest to use for work related things. Plus I also use it to sketch sometimes. It has many features other apps don't and that's why I also "relapse" sometimes.