Given the huge number of free upgrades over the years and my constant use of it on my 2 machines I had no problem paying that for it. It’s less than a 2 year subscription for LightRoom and Photoshop, apps I use once a week or so compared to DT which I use many times a day. The DTTG iOS app is separate so I’m fully covered with my 4 devices, laptop, iMac, iPhone and iPad.
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Now that you mention it, that may be. I did not look at that particularly closely because I use my MBP connected to a large monitor in the office. Even at that, I use my iPad Pro 80 to 90+ percent of the time whether I’m in the office or out. Accordingly, for me, the two seat restriction is a non-issue. And, as I said previously, I would rather pay a one time upgrade cost – even if a bit high – than add another monthly or annual subscription.
Note my use of quote marks for ‘markets’ and thanks for making my point for me again. However this really has to be my last remark. 
I corrected and shortened my ethereal initial post. It is overly political for this forum and I want to keep it that way.
Okay, as a thinking exercise:
My normal workflow is that anything I want to read goes into DT and gets sorted there.
I’ve started re-working that to have Hazzel sort (and OCR) the PDF’s on my iMac, and send them on their way.
What I’m looking for is a good solution to read those pdf’s on my iPad from there.
What do you think? Should I use the Apple Books app?
And can I automate the import for that ? (maybe using Hazel or Keyboard Maestro?)
any thoughts would be appreciated.
I use DT Go. It can do decent annotations as well.
I have that as well, but the core of the problem is:
What if I want to use something other than DT?
It depends on what you want to do with it. Depending on the task, I use PDF Expert, Margin Note or ZoomNotes.
When I looked the upgrade price I will have to pay was, as far as I could see, about 50$? I take your point about the limitations on machines. I know their current policy is abused though: don’t know the answer I don’t think.
Bear in mind, in reference to ‘free market’ points being made on this thread, that if you compare this cost and, incidentally, that of nearly all software, to the ‘rents’ we pay to service providers, streaming services and for hardware, the cost is marginal and, in my view, just one step above ‘free’ and hence, for most users cheaper than free in fact.
My own view is that DEVONthink should go subscription.
EndNote in the old days, if you had a private licence was expensive, inflated ‘rent’ pricing . Same with Word really: those costs often obscured in folk’s minds by the fact that many of use used institutional licences. I was forced at one point to provide my own software and hardware: boy did I have a shock.
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I agree with @TheMarty. PDF Expert is what I would use, or any other Files-integrated PDF reader.
I wouldn’t use LiquidText or MarginNote simply because they keep the file in an in-app filesystem—I dislike having to import/export data.
One thing I don’t know how to replace is search. I have 4000 books and papers in PDF format in one DT database, and I can search the contents of all of them pretty quickly in DTTG. There are macOS replacements for that, but are there iOS options? I don’t know of any. In fact, a few quick tests with Files on iOS failed. Even searches for file names didn’t return papers I know are in there.
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That’s the ‘upgrade’ from Pro 2.0 to regular Devonthink 3.0, which is part of the new app rationalizing scheme (which also resulted in abandoning DevonNote and Devonthink Personal). If you want to go from Pro 2.0 to Pro 3.0 I believe the upgrade price is $99.
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Same here, the search options are the killer feature…
Wat now?
I have found Notability to pretty good for reading PDFs on my iPad. As far as I can tell it is not scriptable, so I have to drag and drop files into it, but it does sync well via iCloud storage.
I use it to store most of my PDF reading and related documents (but not the things that are more filing related which are not stored there).
GoodNotes might be another option, but until the issue of a Mac app is sorted out (I’m in the beta for GN 5 on the Mac, but my understanding is they aren’t really developing it and instead will use the iOS app under Catalina with the porting of UIKit to the Mac) it’s not the best approach for me, especially as I won’t be updating to Catalina until I am sure it is really stable.
There are a lot of apps for reading on the iPad, but Notify has worked well enough for me.
As with most of these things, it’s a disappointment that I find the interface in Notability superior to GoodNotes, but the note taking is superior in GoodNotes…
Thanks for pointing that out; I will pay the 100$ of course but thanks for clarifying. It is more complicated than I thought. I will check it properly and you might have saved me 50$.
Do you think the DEVONthink 3, the ‘regular’ one not the Pro would do what I was doing before on DEVONthink? I don’t actually use the email facility on my Pro version much, I could manage without it. I prefer to store my emails in the native app I found out.
Probably. Just check to make sure that if you do decide to go Pro that the total upgrade price from 3.0 regular to 3.0 Pro isn’t more than 2.0-Pro3.
I think they’re being a little weaselly by not having an upgrade page that’s perfectly clear about prices. They expect you to log in to see the upgrade prices, which virtually no other app does. (Ableton Live does, but offhand I cannot think of others.)
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I queried this with them (I was querying Pro to Server, but I’m sure the same rule applies). The upgrade from edition a to edition b leaves you paying, in total, the same as if you’d bought edition b at the outset. In other words, the upgrade cost is simply the difference in price between editions.
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Great. So if you’re happily ensconced in the Devonthink ecosystem try the upgrade to regular DevonThink (which they claim is the appropriate upgrade path) and if you need Pro you can always get it later.
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I upgraded from DT Pro 2 to DEVONthink 3 (the base one, no OCR or email archiving features) for 49$
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Note, the total cost differs when ([link to relevant DT forum post])(Cost to upgrade from DT3 to DT3 Pro - #10 by eboehnisch - DEVONthink - DEVONtechnologies Community):
Option 1) (=more expensive)
upgrade from DT2 Pro Office to DEVONthink 3 (standard) first
later upgrade from DT 3 (standard) to DT 3(pro)
Option 2) (=cheaper)
upgrade from DT2 Pro Office to DT3 (pro)
Note that Devonthink does offer some short-term flexibility:
As you just recently purchased feel free to contact us for a refund so you can re-purchase directly the upgrade to DEVONthink Pro 3. (quoted from the linked post)
Thanks. Well that’s a confusing mess. The upgrade polict needs to be clearly described on their website, not piecemeal in their Discourse forum (apparently after the info upon login is unclear).
Got to say though, this is definitely the old Devonthink management I remember and fled.
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It’s not that complicated. The upgrade price depends on the previous version of DT and time of its purchase because some upgrades are free in case the user bought DT 2 recently.