takecontrolbooks will do an upgrade too?
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Iāve had a chance to download it, and, if I understand correctly, the pricing is not as big a burden as my initial read suggested. First, because I have a devonthink2 pro license, I only need to pay 99 to upgrade. This gets me two seats for the new version. Further, it appears that the database format has not been changed. If this is truly the case, I suppose I can just use devonthink2 on one of my machines and devonthink3 on the other two machines. Iāve not had a chance to test this. I donāt know whether data can be synced (in my case using dropbox) between machines running devonthink2 and machines running devonthink3, although this is a reasonable inference given the conserved file format between the application versions. Iāll probably test this later today. Of course, just because something works during the first few weeks of the beta does not mean the functionality will remain constant once the application leaves the beta stage.
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Do we know the cost for the educational discount?
Itās -25% of whatever your upgrade price is.
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If it doesnāt work for you no problem. OTOH what else do you use for keeping āstuffā? If you have a bunch of different places and it works, thatās great, but if you already forget where things are then deciding on a single place to store digital info can be a benefit. You only have to remember 1 place to look. Doesnāt have to be DT but I do suggest that you use as few apps as you can mange so you can get really good with them.
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academic upgrade pricing
I assume purchasing the full version would be 25% off too, but donāt know for sure.
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I asked them about this on Twitter and they replied that 85% of their users are using 1 or 2 computers, which surprised me, because I would have expected a lot more āpower usersā with multiple computers.
I wonder how many folks who were using Desktop + Laptop a decade ago are just using a MacBook, or an iMac + iPad.
They have been quick to remind folks that they went 11 years of āfree upgradesā with version 2. Amortized / spread over a decade, the cost ā even for the server edition ā isnāt bad.
But, of course, you have to pay it all at onceā¦
ā¦at which point you might think āGee, if they charged a lower annual fee for this instead, it might be easier to swallow.ā
AAAANNDD weāre back to subscriptions, which āeveryoneā āhatesā.
Just one of the reasons that itās not easy to be a developer these days!
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I looked back at when I bought version 2 of Devonthink. It was June 2010 !. I have not paid anything since then.
Devonthink 3 is amazing especially the automation features. It is like hazel but baked into the application.
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All very fair points, my friend. Once I realized that I could update for 99.00, I was less concerned.
At the same time, it appears that the apparent interoperability/backwards compatibility between DT2 and DT3 is only in one direction (DT2->DT3). Iāve been chatting over on the DT discourse board and DT3 adds metadata that is not compatible with DT2.
I was hoping to save a few bucks and just keep running DT2 on my least used machine. Instead, I can just use DTTG on my ipad and leave my macbook DT-less until I can scrounge up enough to buy an extra seat. Overall, DT3 is a great value, and I appreciate that the developers are trying to thread an exceeding small needle. With so many free-mium and subscription business models out there, itās tough to persuade users to drop so much on a single user license.
In the case of DT3, it would be a great deal even at double the asking price.
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One of the things that Iām really happy to see in the beta is the ability to resize the text in the search result field. Thereās a thread about this dating back to 2007 on the DT forums that finally has a positive answer. Yeah! I suppose this seems minor but for those of us with less than perfect vision it was a real usability problem. Overall the UI looks much cleaner and a better match to current conventions and hardware.
I picked up both the first version of DT that I used and the upgrade to Pro Office at a steep discount and quite a few years ago. Given that the upgrade pricing seems more than fair for my use case - at least as long as I donāt come up with a reason to use the web version.
Like @Shruggie Iām going to put everything in it this time. Really.
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Chatting is not as effective as testing. Have you made a copy of a database opened in D3 and then saved, closed. and opened in D2? The only incompatibility Iāve seen is that D2 doesnāt recognize custom metadata ā which, of course it wonāt.
Good point. Here is the thread where I discussed with the (main?) dev:
If Iām reading correctly, it sounds as though opening an item with DT3-specific metadata in DT2, then saving the resulting file in DT2, will remove the DT3-specific metadata. I have not tested this and, frankly, devising a test with appropriate coverage would likely require documentation of DT3 metadata attributes.
The three additional files are
Since DEVONtech is being a bit obtuse about the issues with opening a database in D2 after using it in D3, I tend to agree with you @noah. Donāt bother. However, your options of course are (a) donāt use custom metadata in databases you want to to use in both version (which carries with it a bit of a risk), or (b) index files that you want to access in both versions. The same files can be indexed in two (or more) databases, so you could have a DT2-only database and a D3-only database and they have a set of indexed files in common. A bit of startup cost, but then youāre good.
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The other option for more than two computers is the Mac App Store. You might not get the upgrade discount, but you should then only be bound the the App Store licensing, which should get around the two computer limit (although may cost the same as 3 seats with the upgrade discount).
Somewhere they mentioned not to use DT3 databases with DT2 after the Beta period.
Looking forward to digging into the new features. And really hoping the new goodness makes its way to DTTG sometime soon.
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I stepped off the deep end and just opened in D3. I am careful not to have both apps oen and talking to the same DB at the same time. SO far no issues. I was impressed that my custom sync store worked perfectly first time (shush, Murphy might be listening!)
That is assuming that they put the new version in the Mac App Store, of course. Iām not convinced that they will. And, as you mentioned, losing the upgrade price might make the difference a wash.
I donāt need 5 seats. I could live with 2, although that would require more use of Screen Sharing than Iād prefer. 3 would make my life just so much easier. But is that worth $100? Phew. Thatās a hard-sell, even to me.
Itās not that it doesnāt work, itās that it requires work (as in labour) to change from my combination of Pinboard, Pocket, 5-10 different Dropbox folders and tons of other things I canāt remember to a āeverything bucketā system, because to use the āeverything bucketā, I have to actually learn it.
Of course, my main problem right now is the classic āthis round peg doesnāt seem to fit any of these polygonal holes exactly, but if I just remember that I put it in hole X, thatāll be fineā thing. My memory doesnāt work that way, thatās why I need an outboard memory in the first place 
In other words, DT has always been āthe solutionā, but the times Iāve tried it, Iāve just been to busy to spend the time learning it, and the demo period has ended.