OS X Lion and Localization

[tgphoto]

Alejandro, you never contacted me through my website. I have no email records indicating any contact was ever made. I also contacted Karl-Heinz Zahorksy, who repeatedly told me I would included in the beta testing program and that someone (anyone?) from Lasersoft would contact me. To date, no contact has been made, certainly nothing that has reached me. Whether or not the contact information you have on file for me is correct, I don't know. My website, web host, email address, phone number, and mailing address have not changed in the past 5 years.

[mijosc]

When I read the original press release about Lion and Silverfast I DID NOT assume that the current version of Silverfast would work with Lion. Although I'm not pleased that I will have to pay an upgrade fee that will probably cost more than my scanner is worth, I can't say I wasn't expecting it. However, I did expect that a version of Silverfast would be ready when Lion shipped.

"As usual, SilverFast will be compatible with all current Windows and Mac OS X operating systems."

The problem is that I have a new Macbook Air on order, which I will not be able to downgrade to Snow Leopard.

I wish that Silverfast would have communicated its (now apparent) intentions in advance of Lion's release.

[dcla]

At the very least the messaging distributed since March about Lion compatibility has been confusing and unclear. As a result, it would be nice if current Silverfast license holders were given access to beta versions of the new software and also given a free upgrade. That might help keep customers. Otherwise current customers will just find alternative solutions and never consider Silverfast again.

[the.duch]

Dear Mr. Morales,
I'm a Lasersoft customer too and I have to agree with Timothy Gray on all.
The thing that upset me the most it's you trying to play the card of "tell me where it's written that 6.6 works with Lion"....

Well as far as i've read on your website, it is also true that nowhere on the site is written "DOESN'T WORK WITH LION" or "MAY NOT WORK WITH LION".
And this is what you, well, your company should have made CLEAR from the start, instead of a banner with "LION READY" shouted out loud!
What you (and your company) should do is to apologize with your customer for the bad advertising and communication jod.
First.
Then keep the mouth shut and not trying to pull this kind of stunts.

Sincerely,

M. Duch

p.s. Sorry for my *ugly* English.

[MaximusM3]

I guess I can be counted in as another moron who read Lasersoft's statement incorrectly, installed Lion today and now cannot scan anything with my Nikon LS5000. Are we really all idiots here? I do seem to remember reading that I would be able to use 6.6 but apparently not. Just great!

[meste]

Nothing happens when I try to launch any of the two silverfasts 6.6 (Epson and Nikon) under Lion. I have te latests silverfasts installed (6.6.2.r4A)

What can I do?

thanks,
Serban

[andifor]

Is there a list of what scanners will be supported with SilverFast 8 on OS X? Being one month away from the release, you might have an idea.

[SteveA]

The situation as is is very unsatisfying from the user perspective. You have to confess that your press department messed up in the March announcement.

Before I purchased Lion I checked the very essential programs that I was running on Leopard. As my Silverfast products (Ai+HDRi) are by far the most expensive programs I checked your site aswell. As other stated your March announcement was by no way clear. Luckily the downloading of Lion took incredible long which gave me the time to check your site again and found your statement corrected.

After considering to write off my Lion spendings I decided to prepare a bootable external drive with Leopard and Silverfast 6.6 and to install Lion on the computer.

I sincerely wish your upgrade price to Silverfast 8 is not a rip off! I think that is what the former contributors to this thread worry about most.


Regards,
Steve

[gerardvschip]

I think what you guys are referring to is this page:
http://www.silverfast.com/show/lion/en.html

Where it clearly states:
"SilverFast 8 is compatible with Windows 7, Vista and XP, and runs natively on Mac OS X systems from version 10.5 (including 10.7 Lion). 32bit computers will be supported as well as 64bit systems.
Users who want to work with SilverFast right now can take current version 6.6 without experiencing any disadvantages. Until the end of the 2011, LaserSoft Imaging will offer a free upgrade to SilverFast 8 to all customers who will purchase or have purchased a copy of SilverFast version 6.6 after June 1st. This offer is naturally also valid for SilverFast versions bundled with a scanner device or purchased from a dealer"

So, misleadingly it states that if you want to scan NOW you can use version 6.6, which of course is not true as it freezes and then quits. I do not understand why there is no software or at least a time limited beta version that auto expires in August.

[andifor]

Rumors and at least one user confirmed (http://www.heise.de/mac-and-i/news/fore ... 4542/read/) that rosetta can be installed on Lion. Just install it from your original Snow Leopard DVD. (Link in German)

Somebody with Lion and Silverfast software might test and confirm this (please use a none productive computer for this test and don't hold it against me, if it fails). HTH

[the.duch]

As for now, i'm using v**s**n, for the kind of works i'm using my scanner (black & white and line art artwork) does a pretty good job.
I'm not sure if for a photographer can work as well, but for me it's ok right now and 39 USD it's not a huge price for the standard version.
For sure as for customer-care/support experience standpoint this doesn't help.
We'll see if i'll come back to silverfast.

Cheers

M. Duch

[meste]

Silverfast,

I need a working solution for my two Silverfast softwares I bought for Epson and Nikon scanners, a solution that should work under Lion, and ASAP and not in Sep. I hope that updating to Silverfast 8 should not be the only way as this would mean more money I believe and no extra features that I would be benefiting from.

Please think customer oriented.

thanks,
Serban

[meste]

Rumors and at least one user confirmed (http://www.heise.de/mac-and-i/news/fore ... 4542/read/) that rosetta can be installed on Lion. Just install it from your original Snow Leopard DVD. (Link in German)

Somebody with Lion and Silverfast software might test and confirm this (please use a none productive computer for this test and don't hold it against me, if it fails). HTH

Rosetta won't work under Lion, see here http://macsmarticles.blogspot.com/2011/ ... -lion.html

[andifor]

Some statements here I absolutely disagree with (taken from this task):

Customer:
- give me a solution now, I have a mission critical project and can't wait one month => but you had the time to download a new operating system that could render you whole computer useless, some people just like the risk (well, why change tools just before a mission critical project in the first place?)
- give me a solution for free => if somebody does a decent job, give them some money
- the new OS X is released since 48 hours, you should have had time to fix all incompatibility issues => dear customer, you have simply _no_ idea how to develop commercial software, a simple testing task with different scanners on different computers might take more than 48 hours (and don't talk about fixing any bug that might turn up within this test cycle)

Software company:
- show us where we wrote something wrong on our web page => this builds some _not wanted_ walls between customer and you as a producer, you rather apologize and ask the customer where to improve
- the customer never tried to contact us => well, I know from first hand, that LaserSoft does not always reply to mails (happened to me and apparently to me dealer who tried to contact you)

I'm in no way affiliated to LaserSoft, but happen to use this horrible(*) software.



(*) I think the usability (or user experience) is horrible, but I have to admit, it's the best scanning software I found so far. I started to use their software thinking scanning my slides would be fun, but I got more gray hair by using their software than by getting rid of the ants on my balcony! So I hope, version 8 improved also in usability, not only compatibility :-)

[the.duch]

Not sure but i think my last post was "censured" by the moderators (maybe because i was pointing out that there are working - and cheaper sometimes - alternatives to silversfast?)
Let's put it in a different way. It's not that difficult to find out googling, what this alternatives are.

Silverfast honestly sucks (on the usability and UI side) as stated also by Andifor... but it does his job in the end, and quite good.
It's quiet expensive and for what are my needs (black & white and line-art artwork) i would have stuck with the 6.6 at least for a while.
Forcing me to buy the next release in order to get my scanner working with the new OS, as i see it, it's a rip-off.

I'm trying the alternatives, and as far as i can tell, for my job, they do the same thing silverfast does.
Given the attitude of the company and his employees, i don't think i will go back to his software.

So long Lasersoft,
one customer less to care about.

M. Duch