So what happens if I have Ulysses already? Do I just not pay the subscription but pay SetApp?
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Also what does SetApp cost?
- $9.99 per month + VAT, when paid monthly
- $8.99 per month + VAT, when paid annual
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Once or twice a year, there are also Setapp deals online like this one (expired, just an example):
Those deals can also be used to extend your Setapp subscription, if you already are a subscriber.
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I’m totally going to subscribe!
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Setapp contains a wonderful curated selection of quality apps. Unfortunately I’m in at a lower, grandfathered-in price for Ulysses (which I’d lose if I dropped it), and I already own most of the Setapp apps I’d want to use anyway. But for anyone else, I’d say jump at it. (Also, they periodically offer discounts at Xmas time through StackSocial, offering a year deal for $69 the last two years.)
Hopefully PDFPen has improved significantly since the slow, clunky monstrosity that was the last version I paid for, PDFPen Pro 6.
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When my Ulysses subscription was coming due for its annual renewal, I decided to jump over to SetApp. It was a good decision so far. I have found some useful applications that I don’t know that I would have learned about otherwise.
Katie
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I am spoiled by the ability of ZoomNotes to define the layout of the editing tools. But it is not as robust or well-designed as PDFExpert to work solely with editing on PDFs. I am spoiled by the approach in MarginNote to create and review annotations. But it is not as robust as PDFExpert in how it handles cloud documents, all aspects of PDF markup, and retaining annotations transferred from or across to other apps.
Yes. Exactly. Disappointing to see a step or more forward in UI design but a significant step or more backwards in adhering to what some might consider as its core functional mandate.
I need a PDF markup app that allows me to work with the pencil input on iPadOS. When I find a way to transfer content in my cloud (GDrive, Dropbox) folders to/from MarginNote robustly and efficiently, I may leave PDFExpert. The trade off is to have to learn to live with flattened PDF annotations in my other apps (DevonThink).
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JJW
MarginNote seems like such a dream, but the lacking interoperability hurts me too. Figuring that out has gotta be their top priority!
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Scanbot has done the same a subscription for scanning app it is ridiculous, don’t buy them them maybe developers will get the message
Yeah, tjluoma mentions below somewhere that Ulysses is part of whatsapp suite. However for me, the point was that it was working fine as it was and I would quite happy if they were to stop adding features to, as you imply, justify the sub model. Which I was ok with anyway. David Sparks convinced me eventually of that business model in some cases anyway.
I’m with you, i keep day one but stopped drafts.
as for text expander, i moved to atext and it works awesome (my needs are semi basic with about 140 snippets) but the great thing is can import all of your TE snippes and is only about $5 and can use on multiple macs.
@Jonathan_Davis The FAQ on SetApp says that you will get a separate version of Ulysses so you will have two on your computer. As I understand it you will run both subscriptions. I assume you can then just drop the direct sub from Ulysses when it is time to renew. I am thinking seriously about setapp now. I think I would just move my stuff to the setapp version and uninstall the original version of Ulysses and then not renew the sub or even cancel it. Seems a bit complicated and a bit unclear actually to me too.
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I read between the lines of different postings on the MarginNote forum. I have a sense from this reading that the developer is going to continue foremost with a focus wherein annotations are the cornerstone to allow a (single) user to create and study connections in the content of a (PDF) document. This runs counter to an investment of resources to expand the usability of MarginNote as a stand-alone yet interoperable PDF annotation tool in its own right, e.g. becoming competitive with apps such as PDFExpert (or others like it).
In a nutshell, I don’t sense any interest by the MarginNote team to figure out how to make MarginNote operate outside its own world view. When you want to make use of the approach taken by MarginNote to create annotations (and it is a beautiful approach indeed), you have to hack together your own way to get PDF documents in and out of its world to mesh them back to other apps.
The sad part is, my needs for annotation are not well covered by the approach taken by PDFExpert, they are covered perfectly the approach taken by MarginNote. I prefer to mark up PDF documents for review using hand-written text. But, my needs for document management are absolutely not covered by the approach taken by MarginNote, they are absolutely covered by the approach taken by PDFExpert. I must be able to go across multiple cloud spaces (private and work GDrive or Dropbox), pull the documents to the local iPad to edit, and dump the edited file with a different name back to the source folder.
Back to the thread … As I have upgraded from PDFExpert 6 Pro but without the add-ins, I am not enticed to take on a $50/yr subscription for PDFExpert 7. As needed, I’ll spend the $50 on a way to improve how I can translate documents into/out of MarginNote.
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JJW
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If I recall the history of MarginNote, it started out life as an aid for students and was centered around the “flashcard” metaphor that is still embedded in the current version. Their top-line advertisement is
A brand new e-reader to better study and digest your books
Integrating powerful tools for book annoation, mindmapping, flashcards and more, to build up your reading notes as never before.
So, as an application for studying texts by taking and reviewing reading notes, I can see why competing in the strictly “PDF annotation” space is a wholly different animal that doesn’t interest Sun Min and company.
Personally, I like Marginnote the way it is. Charming idiosyncrasies and all 
Katie
I like it as well. I just cannot yet make it fit into my required workflow without serious levels of friction going in/out (literally and figuratively).
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JJW
Well I just tried the updated PDF Expert 7 on iPhone and at least it doesn’t have nag screens all over the place. But annotation export is still heinous. Who wants to save their notes as an html file? Unfortunately PDF Viewer’s export isn’t much better - summary comes out as a PDF. And Highlights has expired in TestFlight without a new version. I’ll have to stick to doing my export on the Mac with Skim, with AppleScript and custom export templates (since PDFE lacks automation support on the Mac despite years of requests - how they call that Pro is beyond me…).
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FYI it seems the competition is heating up. I’ve seen a few articles (which seem more like paid advertorials, tbh) for PDFelement 7 (Mac/iOS) lately, most recently this morning over at iLounge.
I’ve never used PDF Element but the iLounge article (or ‘article’) says, “You get a plethora of options, including the addition of freehand drawing, signatures, stamps, sticky notes and highlighting. Instead of using gray and white, users now have the ability to change things up with fonts, color and similar elements.”
Pretty much all the apps can do lots of annotation types and styles - the problem is that few can export the annotations in a readily useful form.
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Does anybody have the .ipa file from PDFexpert 6?