Long delays in opening things, where do i send the invoice for my time?

Hm? so any news on the roadmap?

I asked that very question of Altium recently as is it something many people are interested in. Latest news is there is no confirmed date but very unlikely to be this year.

And that is just on the roadmap? what about an actual update? because the last "update" was not an update at all just a platitude to the point that if I download CS now it is already "updated" even though I did not renew my licence where as normally you would download the base version, enter you licence and then the updates would be available accordingly, or have Altium not got their head around managing that yet? (apart from anything else).

Simon, I don't like it but it seems that more and more CircuitStudio looks like an failed experiment.

I really hoped that once Altium Designer 18 is out and the bugs from AD18 are more or less ironed out, they will turn on CS development. Since then they've started work on Altium Designer 19 , a few beta's are out it is not too long until going official. But the way I see it, Altium distance themselves from CS. They can't even give a hint of what is coming for CS .... perhaps because they themselves don't know.

My thoughts on this (educated guesses):

Last update was made only to serve as a "resurrection breath", a way to keep things going and give a semblance of a sort of continued development. As I said before, the enhancements in the last update were things that a junior developer will have done in a week time (since things like 3D PDF were just borrowed from AD) and that week mostly passed in trying to understand the software structure (which I'm sure it's a pain since CS is a chopped AD).

The fact that they've issued statements like: "a big update is coming" or "a roadmap will be issued 'soon' " and this didn't happened nor are to happen in the near future, gives hints on the fact that they were/are unsure on how to further handle CS. Move things under the carpet, make them go away until further time when they "can make the time to decide what to do". The usual in big corporation's where nobody wants to be responsible and risk his seat.

Perhaps let the current CS go and replace it with a AD version without certain features (the logical way followed by industry). Or perhaps something else. What this shows is that CircuitStudio was rushed out without given too much thinking to the future. Now they see that a separate development just for CS is time/resource consuming and they are not prepared to continue it.

Yes, I don't think that CS in current form has much life in it anymore. The updates were less and less, it's like a dying breath.

I should have seen it but now it's too late. I was mesmerized by the chance to own my own "little Altium Designer" for 500 bucks.

I am really sorry for they guys from Element14, they showed they want to help but I don't think they can do something to change Altium's policy (show glittery stuff for the investors, nothing else matter). They are between the hammer and the anvil, customer base and Altium.

The only thing I can do (actually, I've done it) was not to renew the maintenance. There's not much money saved but at least I don't throw them down the drain (for nothing).

Oh I would not go too easy on element14. They are the ones that wanted CS and it used to cost $2500. It had to cost this much because they did not want to hurt their eagle sales. Now they have sold their eagle customer base down the river to either no more updates or perpetually paying a company that will not even let you use the software unless you keep paying their named price regardless of updates they have dropped the price on CS, and tried to get their eagle users back.

For such a price drop to happen you have to ask what Altium are actually getting for every licence sold when the price rockets up and down by 50% / 100%. Maybe Altium only actually get $200? But that was Altium's problem to sort out.

I bought software. I expect it to work and due updates to maintain it's functionality for licence payers. If a serious update had come along I would have happily paid my renewal.

Both element14 and Altium are missing a big trick. They also fail to see the change in the market. There are more and more small electronics businesses and they cannot pay the exorbitant price for AD, the industry is crying out for CS yet there are plenty of other options. Personally I have not found them satisfactory but a bug free version of CS with proper documentation would be worth the money. Right now I wonder if I am spending my time wisely creating CS libraries.

On the documentation front maybe if element14 are too incompetent to sort out some documentation they can get wurth elektronik to do a manual like they did for LTspice.

And if element14/farnell think that CS will help then in their sales of parts they can forget it. I don't order any production parts my assembly house does. element14 cannot infer it's CS user base from it's components sales. Personally i don't use farnell or RS because of the incompetence of both. Every order from farnell gets an email back 2 hours later to say that 20 out of your 80 parts are out of stock because what is on the website is out of date. I use mouser and digikey, their data is more accurate and they don't sell stock they do not have.

So i use mouser and digikey and will look to buy direct from manufacturers. TI now sell direct, so does TE, wurth elektronik and microchip. Screw these "stockists" that are too lazy to hold any stock.

On the altium front they are designing and even bigger program than AD, that is why CS is loosing out, the silly bastards have still not worked out that 1000 sales of CS is worth more than 20 sales of a super expensive niche product  that only a few want.

Regarding the original price for CircuitStudio I don't fault them for the price asked at the beginning.

It's a business not open-source and they have to make a profit. If the market can take it then of course they've asked that price.

If 150USD for maintenance is too low a price to warrant continued development of CS, then raise it but give something back, solve the bugs and annoying quirks. From what I've read until now, everyone asked for common sense. Nobody have unrealistically expectations, we know that for this price (500USD) CS was a bargain.

The fact that they didn't even tried to raise the maintenance price so they can finance the development, shows that CS has not much time left. I don't want this to happen, really, but the signs are there to be read.

Regarding the size of market for CS, big companies use other specialized companies to get that kind of info. From a source that I trust, those specialized companies often offer garbage although the price for such a market analysis can be big. So, don't think that decisions are always made having sound information's as a base.

With Farnell I had no problem whatsoever until now, they are very fast and I really like working with them. I order today and have the components delivered tomorrow. The only time I order Mouser/Digikey is when Farnell does not have the items listed because let's say it, Digikey offer is much bigger. For low value components (resistors, capacitors, 8bit uC's etc) when doing personal projects I use a Bulgarian company (Comet Electronics) that sell original components with Chinese prices but delivery takes longer than Farnell.

One can buy directly from manufacturers but that raise other problems, it is much easier to use a single supplier than spread the orders around.

As an alternative for Circuit Studio in the future, we can always use KiCAD. It has it quirks but it made nice steps in the right direction and in time, may become even more. And the price ... well ... it's free or it depends on how much you are willing to donate.

I don't care what the price is. If it is more expensive but bug free i might even go for it. If i ca'n afford it I won't. I spent £600 on Proteus and then decided that I did not like it (very stable program with great support but just not my thing) so spent £800 on CS. All I want is a product that befits the price! I need a stable program and a stable development path that i can trust to invest my time in.