One of them xiamenese used to live in the Far East and is a scholar of Chinese so is somewhat of an authority on all things Chinese.
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Privacy knows no borders. I can understand that China generates more uncertainty than other countries, but no country in the world behaves ethically with its citizens. Big US tech companies like Apple, Microsoft or Google employ equally harmful practices every day against citizens around the world. Many people seem to think that “espionage” is only bad when the information ends up in the hands of the “enemy” not the our “wonderful country”. Note: I’m a Spaniard.
In this sense, the only governments that do “something” for the privacy of users are the European ones. If it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t even have a minimally universal USB because “it hurts innovation”. Right?
Big business seeks control and monopoly. Techniques like DRM do not seek to preserve the copyright of authors or artists, only that consumers are dependent on a platform (Amazon, Kobo, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, etc.). For this reason, each company uses its own formats and DRM and they are incompatible with the others.
Regards.
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How does a mandatory USB-C port improve privacy? 
I mean a bit of legislation is required for companies to adopt standards. In Europe, for example, companies must comply with a three-year guarantee on their products. Otherwise, each one would try to “parcel” its users and this only harms us, since buying a computer or mobile device would be like marrying a company due to incompatibility of wires, ports, formats, etc. Of all, Apple is the most notorious in this regard for consumer computing. It doesn’t fit my head that they even have a special proprietary format for screenshots and now they are trying to impose their proprietary .heic format, even though there is a new free one, .jpgxl, that surpasses it by far in its specifications. Large companies do not look for “the best” but how to “better tie” their users. That is what I intend to point out.
Regards. 
Except they don’t? PNG is supported everywhere.
HEIC (HEIF) isn’t even Apple’s format and it’s easy to convert on all major platforms. Maybe JPEG XL is better, but when you see this: “Support for JPEG XL in Chromium and Chrome web browsers was introduced for testing April 1, 2021 and removed on December 9, 2022.” – not very convincing.
While I share your don’t trust anyone sentiments, you’re in for a big surprise if you give European governments an unwarranted privacy benefit of the doubt because they enforce less cable clutter (which is kind of good). E.g. see: EU’s resolution on encryption foreshadows likely anti-encryption push | Proton
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I think you missed the reason I posted that text, To find out why look upstream in the thread.
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Hi! Apple has patents on HEIC: HEIC Yeah - The Hacker Factor Blog
I know that JPEG XL is no longer supported by Google. I’m afraid it might be a bad anti-competitive practice to promote a new format that is patented by themselves. However, it can continue to improve and to become an interesting option for storing images, since it is the only format that can perform a lossless conversion from JPEG.
I don’t give any government the benefit of the doubt. Honestly, I am often very critical of American users because many of them seem to be extremely complacent about their policies and perceive the rest of the world as “part of the third world”. I’m not saying that for your case, of course. I do not defend nor will I defend any government in the world. Those who wave flags, whatever country they are from, seem naive to me.
Regards.
From a business perspective it doesn’t make much sense to promote a new format that is patented by someone else (or nobody), though. And that’s not bad per se. If someone else can do it cheaper / for free…
It’s no secret that Apple tries to “lock in” (or at least milk a bit more) users at every opportunity. But HEIC is certainly not the most pressing issue. Or at all. The only time I encounter this file format and where it’s “mandatory” is the niche case of “dynamic wallpapers”.
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I’m entering this aged discussion because I very much appreciate Scrivener, but wanted to make an observation. I am a fan of fountain pens, and the market is currently flooded with Chinese knock-offs, rip-offs and blatant copies. In almost every case, the Chinese rip-off is just that - an inferior version. To wit: there’s no beating the Pilot Vanishing Point, as hard as Jinhao may work at their clones.
Having said that, I just recently switched to Windows and stumbled upon Wonderpen. This is the rare occasion when the blatant Chinese copy seems to improve in many respects on the original. All of this to express this opinion and hope: that Scrivener would continue to refine its product, such that it competes well against competitors like this. Unpopular opinion: I would pay a Ulysses-like subscription to support my preferred writing tool.
Respectfuly and non-racistly, Jed
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The subscription issue has been discussed at length.
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The VAST majority of Scrivener users are against it.
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Keith (Mr L&L) is against it.
As for Wonderpen. I like to think my ethical standards prevent me from supporting blatant rip offs that do not ‘improve in many respects’ despite your claim. Add to that, it has IMHO a questionable data collection policy AND is owned by a Chinese company, in itself a monumental red flag when data privacy/integrity is considered.
As for
Scrivener has been developed consistently since the very first releases for both Mac and Win and continues to be developed. Add to that, it works just fine as is.
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I appreciate your comments. Of course my comment regarding subscriptions is based on my situation and needs. But I think a subscription model motivates developers differently to produce a better product. To wit: when I export to PDF, Scrivener leaves out the last few pages. Thus I don’t think it’s true that it “works just fine as it is.” And I’ve read on this forum that this is a longstanding error / bug. I’m not satisfied with that, and therefore I would prefer a subscription model that motivates to faster bug fixes and basic feature sets (a proper dark mode comes to mind).
As for the ethics of Wonderpen - I very much agree with all you say. I’m staying away for those reasons and more. But not everyone will.
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I think that’s a false assumption, given how decidedly unpopular the subscription model is in these forums. Many users, myself included, would abandon Scrivener should it ever go that route (I’d probably keep using the last non-sub version until it no longer worked.)
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I’ve seen endless subscription models where you get anything but developers developing a better product. Once you are in a subscription you have a mental ‘lock’ to that product and just look at Adobe. The CS subscription brings them hundreds of millions yet they have lagged so many times in bringing compatibility and just matching others’ features.
Actually I’ll add to this. I’ve also seen subscription models that seem to encourage developers to add endless rubbish to their app just to give the impression of working to meet the expectation of some subscribers that a subscription includes a need for endless ‘fixes, features etc’
A subscription is no magic wand, but what it does do is lock people in and generate an endless revenue stream whether the benefits warrant it or not.
On that basis, subscriptions usually end with me (and many others) dumping an app. I dumped Ulysses for that very reason.
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There’s no evidence for this. It’s just a personal bias. Indeed, my experience has been the exact opposite, such that I will not use products that are funded by subscription – services are another matter.
re: dark mode: I’ve used since it was implemented and have no problems with it at all.
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I theory that was supposed to be the benefit of the subscription model. The reality however has seen many subscription products languish while much of the investment from subscriptions is funnelled into new products or acquisitions that often don’t represent the interests or the needs of the users who subscribed to the original subscription products. Ahem, the Adobe Creative Cloud subscription and their focus on pretty much anything but Creative Cloud, while users still complain about the long standing bugs and feature requests of Creative Cloud.
YMMV, but while I was previously very comfortable with subscriptions, this past year I’ve become much more conservative with them, and have begun to actively to rid myself of as many of them as possible as the ROI just isn’t there for me.
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@bryanrieger You’re not wrong. No “system” can overcome the human element. It always comes down to the developers themselves. But when I see a long-lasting bug in Scrivener (to wit: cutting off pages when printing, and then I have to remember, Oh yeah - export the PDF and THEN print . . . ), it’s natural for me to call for a different funding model to motivate differently. Again, what you say may also be true. And again: for the Scrivener dev’s reading - I’m very thankful that Scrivener exists on Windows. Very thankful. Anything I say here is from someone invested in and “behind” the product.
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@auxbuss Thanks. To be clear: I’m talking about the Windows version. And yes, something was implemented. But it is nothing like what exists on the Mac side. Perhaps it is a limitation of Windows. But in my opinion, having to select a theme and then restart the app is far inferior to what I experienced with almost every modern app in the Mac world (and many on Windows.) So no: there are no “problems” with the implementation, except that it’s a far inferior experience.
Just looking at the latest Ulysses release notes. In the last two months since the previous patch, they’ve added lots of new icons, and fixed a few sign-in errors. Hardly straining themselves for the subscription fee they charge.
I paid for both macOS and iOS versions of Ulysses pre-subscription – I didn’t much enjoy writing in them, but they were good for producing reports for distribution.
When they “went subscription”, they stopped allowing folk to install the non-subscription versions on new or reinstalled devices. I call that bait and switch, at a minimum. It feels like theft.
In contrast, Aeon, for example, still allows old versions to be downloaded and their licences validated. And much as I dislike Aeon v3, I can’t fault them for doing the right thing.
As the saying goes (something like): judge someone by what they do not what they say.
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