The Ancestry.com blog has just announced that there will be no Family Tree Maker 2013. Although the blog post Where Is Family Tree Maker 2013? might leave you with the impression that they are trying to spin bad news as good news, it really is good news.
Ancestry.com used to release a new version of Family Tree Maker every year. They simply slapped a new major version number on, but more than one user has complained that the changes between those versions are rarely worthy of a major version number change.
This practice of yearly version number increases did not start with New Family Tree Maker. Although the current release of New Family Tree Maker is best known as Family Tree Maker 2012, it is also known as Family Tree Maker version 21.
However, ever since Ancestry.com followed Family Tree Maker 16 with Family Tree Maker 2008,
thus retiring Family Tree Maker Classic and introducing New Family Tree Maker,
complaints about the yearly version increases have been more frequent and vocal.
Many users feel that the number and nature of new features do not warrant increasing the major version number,
and that it should have been released as the service pack is really it.
The essence of the complaint is that Ancestry.com is selling service packs as a new version,
making users pay for patches that should be provided for free.
Under a release model of yearly major version increases that provides updates and patches for the latest version only, you receive at most one year of updates and patches after buying the current release.
Ancestry.com has done nothing to dispel that complaint as a myth, on the contrary;
as soon as they designed a particular release as a new major version,
they immediately stopped providing service packs for the previous version.
Ancestry.com has effectively been strong-arming users into a subscription model for software that is not advertised as a subscription.
This has been a constant source of frustration for cash-strapped users,
who understand that software is not supported for ever,
but do expect vendors to provide updates and patches for several years.
Under a release model of yearly major version increases that provides updates and patches for the latest version only, you receive at most one year of updates and patches after buying the current release.
Ancestry.com will not release Family Tree Maker 2003.
Ancestry.com is not abandoning the New Family Tree Maker product yet,
but is merely breaking with the yearly version increase.
Ancestry will continue to develop and support New Family Tree Maker.
This year Family Tree Maker users will not have pay for an arbitrarily increased version number.
Family Tree Maker 2012 users will continue to receive updates and patches,
presumably until the release of Family Tree Maker 2014.
That is good news for all Family Tree Maker 2012 users.
They are getting better value for their money.
Family Tree Maker 2012 users will continue to receive updates and patches, presumably until the release of Family Tree Maker 2014.
That is good news for all Family Tree Maker 2012 users. They are getting better value for their money.
The big new feature in FTM 2012 is TreeSync.
Beta testers commented that Ancestry.com released it before it was done,
and the past year has indeed shown that Ancestry underestimated the complexity of this feature.
Since FTM 2012 there have been quite a few service packs, many of these focusing on the reliability of TreeSync.
The Ancestry.com blog post summarises these service packs, and the first item on their list is
Numerous enhancements to TreeSync so syncing your tree to Ancestry.com is faster and more reliable
.
There is little doubt that Ancestry.com released TreeSync too early.
Between the release of Family Tree Maker 2012 on 2011 Sep 29 and the middle of 2012,
Ancestry.com released five service packs already,
and there are still too many TreeSync issues on the Ancestry.com Family Tree Maker message board.
It is not unlikely that having to deal with TreeSync defects and performance issues has taken up so many resources,
that there was not much left for other features.
Thus, if Ancestry.com had decided to increase the major version number as they normally do,
the list of new and improved features would be remarkably unimpressive,
while TreeSync is still not as polished at should be yet,
and that would certainly have triggered more user complaints about paying for patches.
Skipping the version upgrade and continuing to provide updates and patches is the right thing to do. It avoids angering the already less than pleased customers who bought FTM 2012 for TreeSync, and then had to struggle with a Beta quality feature, and also gives them more time to built to up a nice collection of features and enhancements for the next version.
Ancestry.com generally tests Family Tree Maker with a small beta group. The notable exceptions are Family Tree Maker 2008, the first major release of New Family Tree Maker, and Family Tree Maker 2012, the first major release to include TreeSync; for both FTM 2008 and FTM 2012, Ancestry.com released a Public Beta.
Ancestry.com released a Public Beta for FTM 2008 because it was a brand new product.
They released a Public Beta for FTM 2012 because TreeSync is a new and complex feature.
In both cases the official product release followed because it was scheduled to happen,
not because Beta testing was done…
The Family Tree Maker 2008 release was disastrous. Family Tree Maker 2008 promptly won the not-so-desirable GeneAward for Worst Genealogy Product of 2007. By the time Family Tree Maker 2009 came out, Ancestry.com was still so embarrassed by New Family Tree Maker, that they not only released Family Tree Maker 2009 without a press release, but decided to give free upgrades to registered customers of Family Tree Maker 2008. They subsequently made an impressive mess of the free upgrade process, and after reviewing that experience, probably decided to never do that again.
This time round, Ancestry.com decided to address the user dissatisfaction
by skipping their yearly major version increase.
That must have hard for them, but I congratulate them on a wise decision.
Like the Family Tree Maker 2012 users, Family Tree Maker for Mac 2 users will continue to receive updates and patches.
Late in 2010, Ancestry.com released Family Tree Maker for Mac. That same year, they released Family Tree Maker 2011 for Windows, but Family Tree Maker for Mac is based on Family Tree Maker 2010, released late in 2009. Although the Mac product thus lagged the Windows product in features, it was more expensive anyway. To add insult to injury, the file format is different and the provided file format converter provided on the CD only runs under Windows.
Ancestry.com released Family Tree Maker for Mac 2 late in 2011, several months after releasing Family Tree Maker 2012. This time round, the Mac product matches the Windows product more closely, but not entirely, and it was still released later and more expensive. The file format continues to be different, amd the FTM File Migration Utility is still a Windows utility. The FTM File Migration Utility did become available as a free download, so that Windows users can download and run it before sending files to their Mac friends, instead of Mac users having to run it under Windows.
The Ancestry.com Where Is Family Tree Maker 2013? blog post itself does not mention it,
but in reply to questions, a comment on the blog has confirmed that
there will be no new version of Family Tree Maker for Mac this year.
Like the Family Tree Maker 2012 users,
Family Tree Maker for Mac 2 users will continue to receive updates and patches.
What Mac users want is for Ancestry.com to match the file formats, features, release dates and retail prices
of the Mac and Windows products.
It would also be nice to have a file format conversion utility that runs on OS X,
but once the file formats are matched, the conversion utility is only needed for older versions anyway.
Hopefully, Ancestry.com will use the time until the next major version increase to make progress in synchronising the FTM for Windows and FTM for Mac releases.
Ancestry.com has released FTM 2012 Service Pack 6 (build 704).
The first five enhancements and fixes listed on the Family Tree Maker 2012 Program Updates page are all related to TreeSync:
- Improvements to TreeSync reliability and performance.
- Private Media—Media items can be marked private and will be excluded from TreeSync.
- Web Links—Person and citation web links can now be created in Family Tree Maker and can be synchronized between Family Tree Maker and Ancestry Member Trees.
- Improved Sync Log—The TreeSync Details log can now be printed and now shows the names of people who made each change that is being synchronized to Family Tree Maker from Ancestry Member Trees.
- Improved Backup & Restore—A synced tree can now be backed up and restored to the same or another computer in a way that allows syncing to continue.
Ancestry.com has released FTM 2012 Service Pack 7 (build 723).
According to the the Family Tree Maker knowledge-base Answer ID 5409: Family Tree Maker 2012 - Program Updates several are related to TreeSync:
- General bug fixes
- Hierarchical place names improvements
- Stability and performance improvements to TreeSync, Web Search, Media, and much more
Yesterday, Family Tree Maker 2014 became available for pre-order.
According to the What’s new in Family Tree Maker?
page, two major FTM 2014 features are the New Family View
and Improved TreeSync
:
- Improved TreeSync — lets you easily synchronize your tree in Family Tree Maker with an online Ancestry.com tree.
- A more robust TreeSync™ lets you sync even more of your family tree info.
- Easily share your tree with your family and work on it together. Family and friends can view the online version of your tree without software or a subscription.
- Collaborate with the largest, most active family history community in the world. Keep your online tree private or make it public so that others researching your family can find you. You may connect with others who have insight on your ancestors, discover rare family photos, or even find relatives you didn’t know you had.
Ancestry.com's 2012 Aug 17 blog post Where Is Family Tree Maker 2013? promised that FTM 2012 customers would be receiving new bonus features throughout the year
.
The 2012 Sep 25 blog post Another Bonus Update for Family Tree Maker 2012! introduced FTM 2012 Service Pack 6, build 704.
There is no matching blog post, but FTM Service Pack 7 (build 723) appeared on 2012 Nov 30.
No further FTM 2012 updates have been released in the roughly nine months since, not in December of 2012, and not in January through August of 2013.
The continuing user complaints about FTM 2012's TreeSync make it clear that defect fixes are sorely needed, so where are these fixes?
The What’s new in Family Tree Maker?
page for FTM 2014 claims that TreeSync is more robust now, thus revealing that the upcoming FTM 2014 includes TreeSync fixes.
So, there are fixes for FTM 2012's TreeSync, but Ancestry.com has not released a service pack containing these defect fixes to its FTM 2012 customers;
right now it seems that FTM 2012 customers are expected to buy FTM 2014 to get these defect fixes.
I said so regarding TMG 7 fixes included in TMG 8, I'll say it again regarding FTM 2012 fixes included in FTM 2014;
It is okay to charge for upgrades (such as a new or improved family view), but defect fixes should be provided for free.
Ancestry.com's Family Tree Maker continues to be a problematic product, and Ancestry.com hasn't introduced Family Tree Maker 2015.
Copyright © Tamura Jones. All Rights reserved.