Deals: Buy Parallels Desktop 18 and Get 14 Mac Apps for Free, Including Fantastical and Cardhop

[doobydoooby]

Buy Parallels Desktop 18 and Get [a one year rental of] 14 Mac Apps for Free, Including Fantastical and Cardhop

Speaking of Fantastical, BusyCal offers a very rich feature set and an actual purchased license, not a rental. It doesn't have quite the polish of Fantastical, but it's solid and gets the job done.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but BusyCal is also a subscription service these days

 

[sracer]

no thats not true. I usually get 2 years of macOS upgrades before I need to upgrade Parallels. It does not "quit functioning".. some bugs may creep up but they are not app killing bugs.

Thanks for the clarification. 👍 That's an improvement over what they used to do when I used to use Parallels.

 

[CalMin]

You are correct... but it is slightly more restrictive than that... a specific version of Parallels will only work on the particular version of Mac OS. When Apple releases a new version of Mac OS, if you update your system, that version of Parallels will no longer function. It will require an upgrade... making it effectively a subscription.

Not always true. Parallels marketing tries to get you to believe that you need to upgrade before the MacOS update, but I’ve successfully rolled over from Monterey to Ventura using Parallels 17, and not upgrading to Parallels 18.

But they really try to get you to believe that it will break when you update your OS and they don’t promise continued functionality on the new OS.

 

[floral]

This will absolutely melt your credit card if you mistakenly think the majority of these are one time purchases.

 

[Ankaa]

Sadly, PDF Expert does not offer much that Adobe Acrobat won't already give you. I've spent a considerable amount of time checking out the PDF alternatives for the Mac, and most of them don't offer much value beyond that of Adobe's offering. The only difference is that most of the other offerings are less expensive albeit with less features, or an incomplete feature set. Some of the alternatives can be purchased outright rather than as a subscription like Adobe Acrobat. For most users who just want to view and do a few very basic things with PDFs, either Preview, Adobe Acrobat Reader or Foxit PDFReader are fine choices.

You're right in that people can often do what they want with Preview, Reader etc, and PDF Expert gives you nothing that Acrobat can't give you, but as mentioned up there somewhere ^^, the only thing I can find that Acrobat gives you is sharing and creating forms. If that isn't what you need then PDF Expert at 1/3 the cost of Acrobat is a strong choice.


No, it's not right for people to pirate software, but Adobe, like many companies, has created a business market monopoly on its products. And they charge accordingly. If they can be as greedy as they are, then you will get people on the other side of the scales doing the exact same thing.

I used to think that way about PDF Expert, until I actually tried using it as a daily replacement for Acrobat in my work. Many of the features are indeed there, but are often buggy, incomplete or do not work as well as Acrobat. The same goes for most other PDF software developers. Many of the bilingual PDFs I have to handle on a daily basis fail to display correctly in PDF Expert, and the app wasn't as stable as I'd hoped it would be. I may go back and revisit that app someday to see how it's evolved, but I wasn't particularly impressed by my findings last year.

The fact is, Adobe has always had the cornerstone on PDFs, for better or for worse. (Maybe "monopoly" would be a more realistic term for this...) Adobe opened up their patent on PDFs in 2008, but I really don't feel that the market has made a reader/editor that surpasses Acrobat in terms of stability and functionality. After all, Adobe developed the PDF format, nearly three decades ago.

I grew up on Windows and switched to Mac back in 2006. I continue having to use Windows for work. Back then it blew my mind that on a mac you could "just open a PDF just like that" when on Windows back then you still needed at least Acrobat Reader (even while free, you needed to make the effort to download and install it). Simply saving a document to PDF? Back then, unheard of. To this day, so many functions come native on a Mac that still aren't easily implemented in Windows.

I hate that everything has switched to subscription with a passion, particularly Adobe. I'm a Prosumer, I'm more than happy to pay my share to the software developers every few years, but I'm simply not in the position of needing the latest and newest software updates the second they're available. As such, particularly with Adobe I've been forced to pay massive premiums to before because of that (before I would get the edu suite for maybe $300ish and use it for 4-5 years' now I'm paying that in a single year even with edu discount).

I get Adobe Acrobat bundled in my Adobe subscription. I'm not sure I would pay *just* for Acrobat. What I have found in all these years is that I very very very rarely actually end up opening a PDF in Acrobat; 98% of the time Preview is more than sufficient. However, if you're someone who relies on the more advanced functions on a daily basis, they're probably in a position to be able to afford the Acrobat subscription.

In my experience over all these years, leading software has been leading software for a reason. Monopolies are always a problem, especially when we're talking about software that costs thousands for a single license. I have to use a number of those: Adobe, Esri, Matlab, ... I wouldn't be able to use them if I didn't get edu discounts. But all the opensource and/or cheaper alternatives I've tried ended up subpar at best and buggy, usually. And that's a comfort level I'm not willing to give up and am willing to pay a premium for. (another example had been Gimp vs. Photoshop; qGIS vs ArcGIS though admittedly I've been told qGIS has gotten better; I'm a hardcore R user and R definitely has been one of the better open source success stories, nevertheless I sometimes have to go back to Matlab for some functionality)

As with this example of PDF Expert, it's not exactly cheap software. Is it cheaper than the Adobe subscription? Yes. But when you actually look at it, if you really do need the functionality beyond what Preview can give you, you're probably better of just paying for "the real thing".

I've seen this over the years, often these bundles have software no mac user really needs. But they make you feel like you're getting a great deal while particularly feeding into the mindsets of those coming from Windows that you actually need all those - when in reality, most probably you don't - because that's just how it was and is on Windows. It's quite a great marketing scheme, actually.

 

[RogueWarrior65]

You keep using this word "free". I do not think it means what you think it means.

 

[Someyoungguy]

You are correct... but it is slightly more restrictive than that... a specific version of Parallels will only work on the particular version of Mac OS. When Apple releases a new version of Mac OS, if you update your system, that version of Parallels will no longer function. It will require an upgrade... making it effectively a subscription.

...and this is why I stopped using Parallels.

 

[mbob]

I just bought a perpetual license this past Sunday and don't feel like I missed anything Hope I can get at least 2 years out of it. I much prefer companies that sell upgrades when you want them vs subscriptions.

 

[sparkinstx]

What about the OS? AFAIK, Microsoft still doesn't support Windows on ARM running on Apple silicon (they do on Qualcomm's Snapdragon processors, like on the Lenovo Z13 and Z16). And no, running Insider Preview builds (beta software) don't count.

 

[Digital Skunk]

All of those apps are decent ... I guess. But since they're all subscriptions they're basically just giving you a 1 year free trial.

When all I wanted originally was Parallels.

I miss the days when you just got the app straight up. I would've never bought pixelmatr back in the day but got it for free with one of those MacHeist bundles. Loved it and recommend it from time to time.

 

[jakey rolling]

Nice to see SnagIT included in the bundle (and without a subscription). For anyone who does any kind of documentation or tech support where you have to very quickly and efficiently take screen shots and mark them up, SnagIT is absolutely indispensable.

 

[BobSc]

Yep, too many web sites like this pushing Parallels when there is an excellent free for personal use product in the market like VMware Fusion.

You should do just a tad bit of investigating before making such a incomplete statement supporting Fusion. The latest version is supposed to work on Silicon machines. But it's so incomplete as to be largely useless. Almost no functionality to the Tools for this version. Doesn't support multiple monitors anymore. No copy and paste between Mac and PC. No folder sharing. And other omissions. It may be free, but it's largely non-funtional. I can't use it. Parallels has NONE of these limitation. I can actually work and make a living with Parallels, so I'm fine with paying. Fusion is so incomplete as to be useless. Please present facts, not some erroneous hate from others' comments that have it just as wrong.

 

[BobSc]

Cool! Buy an application bundle for a hundred bucks or so, and be on the hook for around $1000 in apps in a year when you forget to cancel.

Are you seriously blaming something/someone else for your own forgetfullness in not cancelling? Here's a thought for you that anyone should be able to come up with. When you are using something that you need to take action with (continue, cancel, etc) use your free Apple Calendar/Reminder app to set up a reminder 6 months (or whatever) from now. There. I just fixed your apocalyptic disaster.

 

[BobSc]

Got burned on one of these before when I forgot to cancel the free subscription on Day 365. Subscription software like this is why people 🏴‍☠️. These companies need to get a clue.

So, in reality, you burned yourself. Please don't try to blame anyone else for your forgetfullness. And this is not why people pirate. They steal because they want to.

 

[steve09090]

So, in reality, you burned yourself. Please don't try to blame anyone else for your forgetfullness. And this is not why people pirate. They steal because they want to.

That’s an extremely narrow view on other people’s lives. I’m happy for you that you are the philosophical authority on why people steal, and personally, I’m surprised you are able to make a judgment on other people motivations and life choices from a single thread post. Good on you.

 

[steve09090]

Are you seriously blaming something/someone else for your own forgetfullness in not cancelling? Here's a thought for you that anyone should be able to come up with. When you are using something that you need to take action with (continue, cancel, etc) use your free Apple Calendar/Reminder app to set up a reminder 6 months (or whatever) from now. There. I just fixed your apocalyptic disaster.

No, you didn’t fix anything. Let’s be honest, You just tried to make someone feel a lesser person than you. Well done you.

 

[aforty]

Why does WinZip even exist on the Mac and why isn’t it called MacZip? And where do they get off charging $55 a year for it?

 

[ignatius345]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but BusyCal is also a subscription service these days

No it's not. The license is good for updates for a certain amount of time (a couple years, I think?), but you are able to keep using the version you paid for even if you stop paying. Fantasical is a software rental that completely stops functioning if you don't keep paying forver. Big difference! Agenda's license works the same as BusyCal, and I'm happy to pay when there are meaningful updates.

 

[sigmadog]

Are you seriously blaming something/someone else for your own forgetfullness in not cancelling? Here's a thought for you that anyone should be able to come up with. When you are using something that you need to take action with (continue, cancel, etc) use your free Apple Calendar/Reminder app to set up a reminder 6 months (or whatever) from now. There. I just fixed your apocalyptic disaster.

It's always nice to hear from Mr. Spock.

 

[duck apple]

Sadly, PDF Expert does not offer much that Adobe Acrobat won't already give you.

What false impression are you spread?

PDF Expert is an full-blown PDF editor; you can edit the text, rearrange paragraphs, not just annonation.
Its TOC editing is also great.
It's UI is mostly intuitive.

For anyone needing to congest technical PDF, they should buy a copy of PDF Expert.

The only concern is that it's been added more and more features (and most of them should exists in another PDF utility)and getting bloated version after version while basic editing needs some serious tuning.

 

[duck apple]

I used to think that way about PDF Expert, until I actually tried using it as a daily replacement for Acrobat in my work. Many of the features are indeed there, but are often buggy, incomplete or do not work as well as Acrobat. The same goes for most other PDF software developers.

Its text editing is somewhat buggy and difficult to use but for an software engineer like me only needs to edit files related to his immediate project, I would say its feature sets justify the price whey I bought it (9.99$) several years ago. I'm not in documentation profession to pay 260US$ year after year for Acrobat Pro.

 

[jchap]

What false impression are you spread?

PDF Expert is an full-blown PDF editor; you can edit the text, rearrange paragraphs, not just annonation.
Its TOC editing is also great.
It's UI is mostly intuitive.

For anyone needing to congest technical PDF, they should buy a copy of PDF Expert.

The only concern is that it's been added more and more features (and most of them should exists in another PDF utility)and getting bloated version after version while basic editing needs some serious tuning.

Without going into the details (which you have already partially answered for yourself in the next post), there are already people who have nicely summarized the differences between the two software titles, such as this site:

TechnologyAdvice | Expert B2B Software Reviews and Insights

Discover the latest B2B software reviews, trends, and buying guides. In-depth analysis and expert insights to help you make informed software decisions.

www.softwarepundit.com

I do not recommend PDF Expert for people who need to work heavily with PDFs in a "technical" capacity.

I'm glad that you enjoy using PDF Expert, and I'm sure it works for many people. My point was just that it doesn't have quite the capabilities or feature set that Acrobat has in many areas. You already said in your last post that "its text editing is somewhat buggy and difficult to use", which proves my initial point. Your point about pricing is accurate. I don't think one is "better" or "worse", but there are plusses and minuses to both. I'm not sure what's so "false" about that statement.

 

[matt_and_187_like_this]

Yeah, sure, I'll make the switch to apps that cost me a fortune every year after that.

 

[doobydoooby]

No it's not. The license is good for updates for a certain amount of time (a couple years, I think?), but you are able to keep using the version you paid for even if you stop paying. Fantasical is a software rental that completely stops functioning if you don't keep paying forver. Big difference! Agenda's license works the same as BusyCal, and I'm happy to pay when there are meaningful updates.

You provoked me to check - seems they have two models. I had been looking at the mac app store version which is a yearly subscription model, so when you stop subscribing it stops working; the busycal website version offers a license providing for 18 months of updates.

 

[NightOne]

Subscriptions: 99% of users hate them

Also the percentage my software purchases have declined since the subscription model rules the day