PieFed.WorldAffinity’s new design platform combines everything into one app | The Verge
Otter Raftwww.theverge.com/news/810251/canva-affinity-des…
Here is the unlisted demo video from their newsletter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP_TBaKODlw
Key bits:
After acquiring Serif last year, Canva is now relaunching its Adobe-rivalling Affinity creative suite as a new all-in-one app for photo editing, vector illustration, and page layouts. Unlike Affinity’s previous Designer, Photo, and Publisher software, which were a one-time $70 purchase, Canva’s announcement stresses that the new Affinity app is “free forever” and won’t require a subscription.
Affinity’s one-time-purchase model was one of the most appealing things about its older software offerings, standing in stark contrast to Adobe’s controversial subscription-based creative suite. While Canva’s own design platform can be used for free, it also locks most of its capabilities behind subscription paywalls, which raised concerns that Affinity would adopt Canva’s subscription-based approach following the acquisition. The company is trying to put those fears to rest for good by repeatedly mentioning how “free” the new Affinity app is, but the AI integrations will likely be met with some resistance by creatives who oppose the technology.
I'm glad they didn't add any subscription pricing, and while I don't know if they'll actually be able to fund it through the optional AI subscriptions alone, at least it can be used offline for those who want any AI things. Now my only complaint is the lack of a solid Linux client.
23 Comments
Comments from other communities
artyomCanva’s announcement stresses that the new Affinity app is “free forever” and won’t require a subscription.
Until the gov does something that holds companies liable for straight up fucking lying about this shit, I won't believe it.
Chances are almost no one will end up paying for the AI shit and they'll have to very quickly pivot to find some way to monetize the investment.
They explained how they intend to make money from Canva while keeping Affinity free; Canva has the premium options, and is where the designer’s clients will be using the packages designed in Affinity, in Canva.
Yes, and as I said in the comment you replied to, no one is going to buy those "premium" options because it's just AI trash.
PowderhornAs it turns out, people already have it working in Linux. I just torrented the latest KDE Neon build in case I get a wild hair for a project tomorrow.
I'm not holding my breath for a Linux version. They're positioning themselves as the alternative to Adobe, so they only need to cover those situations.
Though downloading it did introduce me to MSIX installers, which then led down a rabbit hole. Back in the app, all I did to kick the tires was create a layout and hit T to see if I could immediately draw a text box. The answer was "yes," so that's a good first impression. I just have nothing to design currently.
Oh shit. I bought an Affinity lifetime thing a couple of years ago. Oh fuck, I didn't realise I was supporting canva. Are they gonna force me to upgrade into this bullshit? God damn it, Affinity Photo and Designer were pretty good.
Any good alternatives out there? Ideally something cheap, I am not flush with cash at the moment 😬
Affinity wasn’t owned by canva back then. And you can still continue to use your v1 and v2 (though I don’t know how you would download the apps, now that the login page is gone)
xcjsThe login page for the old apps is at the bottom of the page in the footer.
That being said, I really miss this being a premium offering.
Thanks!
I will continue using v1 (I have v2 but I never got around to using it). Sadly windows/macos only… (in wine it kinda works but that’s not good enough for me)
I have been a Serif user since the early 2000's and Affinity since V 1
I love the suite, and use it to do pro stuff, mostly typesetting supported by photo and designer.
Tracing is one of the features I really missed. Now I have it.
I have the universal license for V2, and it's so good that it's going to be relevant for a while.
The fact that Canva is, for the time being making it free, and not forcing AI, and allowing it to be optional, is OK by me. If I need AI for a job, I can pay for a month, pretty cheap for what I'm going to be paid.
I like the situation.
Canva is essentially making migration from Adobe easy and free, to poach users.
Win Win in my opinion
I have affinity designer 2 and photo 2. It does everything I need (except for bitmap tracing, for which I use Inkscape). I won’t be bothering with anything else in this respect as I’m used to working with the tools I have . Also I don’t need the AI stuff so it’s a hard pass. Bummer on the acquisition though…
How is it free? Data mining for AI?
They have a pro version that adds AI features, no idea the pricing yet though. People are also speculating that it's also an ad for the parent company's product Canva. And then the final guess is the standard enshittification where they try to corner the market by being unreasonably cheap for a while.
The aricle says the AI stuff is tied to Canva's Premium subscription, which is 120 USD/year:
They don’t do data mining, they’re using it as an upsell to canva
You need a canva account and AI features are (expensive) subscription locked.
I expect the core app to stagnate after this and AI features to get all the attention.
The business model is hoping that non-professional users will sign up for canva subscriptions in order to take advantage of the AI features. There's zillions of users like that—far more than the number of professional graphic artists that would pay for this software.
And that's fine with me. The key is that Canva understands the difference and give us control on how professionals use the software.
Fuck these guys, just use gimp.
I get where you're coming from, but GIMP honestly just kinda sucks from a UX perspective nowadays. The core of the app seems to be fine, but it's just not particularly intuitive to use compared to the commercial offerings.
Maybe that'll change one day, but it really does feel like the interface has been the same for the past 15 years at least.
Are you sure intuitive or is it just "previously learned behaviour"?
I've used both Photoshop and GIMP, in fact I used GIMP first and that's what I learned on. Then I tried Photoshop and it was immediately way more intuitive as to where things are and how the UI works, same with Affinity based on my little experience with it.
Older FOSS stuff tends to struggle quite a bit with UX, which makes sense cause it's mostly programmers and not UI designers working on it.
Honest question. When you learned on GIMP. Was the palette, the tool options, and the drawing area all separate windows? Because the Photoshop UI and layout has been default for a long time now.
It's been long enough now that I can't really remember off the top of my head. I want to say I started using Photoshop about a year or two after CS6 came out? And I would have been using GIMP for at least a few years prior to that before I had ever even seen the Photoshop UI.
🏴☠️ Adobe over using this “free” trap and data mining scam.
Oh for sure, I'm never paying Adobe anything. More just speaking on some frustration that GIMP seems to be sitting in the exact same location it has been for so long.
Do you mean GIMP? Citation needed.
Or Krita
Tried using GIMP and Gimpshop (I don’t know if it’s still a thing) and never really got warm with it. Not for a lack of trying. I just use Affinity designer 2 and Photo 2 along with Inkscape (from which GIMP could learn a thing or two in terms of usability IMO).
The GIMP shop interface has been the default and iterated on for the better part of a decade, If not longer. This is what I always wonder about people who claim that GIMP is somehow less usable. Have they used it much since 3.0? It's 4.X now BTW.
I know my experience personally isn't going to be universal. I first used Photoshop version 2. First version I bought was 3.5. I remember downloading and compiling pre-1.0 unstable binaries of GIMP on Debian back in the 90s. It was wildly awkward back then and for the next couple of versions as someone coming from Photoshop. That hasn't been the case for a long, long time. Honestly, it reminds me so much of the Photoshop I grew up using at this point.
Amazing to hear. Thanks for sharing your experience! I don't edit images much at all but that's warming to hear.
3.0.6 stable, 3.1.x beta. No 4.x.
And the bigger change was passing from 2.10 to 3.0 last March.
Okay.
Why?