When Canva shut down sales, trashed their customer forum, and would not do anything for customers whose trial expired in October, they put an announcement on Affinity’s web site saying creative freedom was coming on October 30th.
It’s nearly Halloween at Canva’s HQ in Australia and I don’t see any announcement. I’d like to know if it was Trick or Treat. Affinity’s web site still says creative freedom will be here on the 30th. Today. Nearly yesterday at Canva’s HQ.
Did creative freedom turn into creative fizzle? Any idea what Canva is up to?
Yeah but you’re not considering the fact that nothing in this world is free and you’re the product now. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ll use your and everybody else’s data to train their models.
Plus, when they see the ai stuff isn’t going anywhere in terms of interest from people, they’ll simply lock part of the functionality behind the wall, easy peasy.
I’ll have to play more, but I like this. It’s a direct shot at Adobe. Switching between ‘apps’ in the unified mode could be better than bringing in pixel/raster into print documents.
I analyzed the application and it’s still a compiled C++ and Cocoa app.
I used Designer and Publisher on the Mac for years. Then on the iPad for the past few years. My favorite apps and essential. When I made the switch to Linux in February I did so knowing I’d have to switch over to Scribus and Inkscape as replacements. Both of those are open source and are available on the Mac and Windows.
They do not have the file-to-file cross compatibility one gets with Affinity or the easy switching via Studio. Scribus felt awkward to me the first 2-3 days of use. I really didn’t like it and realized how spoiled I’d been by the Affinity apps. And how second nature they had become in my use.
I didn’t give up on it though and after a few more days started to feel more comfortable with it. I transitioned a few of my projects over for practice. After 2-3 weeks and several projects rebuilt from scratch and I was good to go. I can still use Publisher if a client requires the Affinity format (one does) but for everything else I’m now happy to use Scribus and Inkscape.
I can’t really compare Inkscape to Designer on an iPad where I’ve got the Pencil. That combination just can’t be beat with a mouse/trackpad. That said, Inkscape has been rock solid for me. I’ve had no problem doing all of my vector work with it since the switch.
Hopefully, I will be able to use my old versions (v2) of the suite without any changes.
The FAQ says:
What if I prefer to use the Affinity V2 suite? Will it get updates?
That’s totally fine. Your Affinity V2 license (via Serif) remains valid and Serif will continue to keep activation servers online. But please note that these apps won’t receive future updates.
Having just watched the “First Look” video I’d say the new unified app is interesting and potentially very powerful. It’s much more straightforward than the existing apps - you just edit what you want to design and create. I liked a lot of the ew features (e.g. epub production, trace image and quick export). I want t try it and it will doubtless require changes to my workflow, but that’s not necessarily bad.
In terms of Canva, it could have been much worse. At least they’ve separated the premium from the free and you do not have to be online once you have used a Canva account (including free) to download and install it. Of course Canva see it as an opportunity to upsell, but that’s why they bought Affinity.
I wish Affinity well, and hope that Canva understands the way to win the design/graphics market is to play fair with creators: in many ways.
As we’ve all known for some time “Affinity is now a part of Canva”. If you want to use Affinity, you have to use Canva (even as a free account). That’s not intrinsically unreasonable.
Once I pay for and install Affinity on my computer, I’m done with Canva. Our transaction is complete. I should never need to sign into a Canva account. I fail to see how this is reasonable at all.
I downloaded the new app, registering my account as John Doe with a hide-my-email address. I’ll do something with the new Affinity in the next day or so to see how it runs. Since it seems to be Affinity with possibly refined workflows, I think I’ll like it.
The terms of service, which I didn’t have to agree to, bug me if they actually apply to my non-cloud Affinity. Point 13 nettles me. It says I can’t use their product to undermine government operations.
Is protest undermining? Rebellious minds want to know.
For the record, I’m harmless, either outspoken or a loudmouth depending on perspective. I can live with either description.
Soooo many people think this is new. It’s not. Publisher had all of the functionality of all three apps on the day it launched, though you did need a license to use each Persona. This is the whole reason why the suite was called Affinity. They had it in mind from day one.
I don’t know where you’re standing, but no-one is shoving anything in my direction. A Canva Premium subscription will unlock tools that have never previously been in Affinity products. The one AI tool I am aware of that was in an Affinity product (object selection in Photo) is still there. For free.
Does it, though? When did we get so jaded about the software market?
Meanwhile… it’s free. Oh, the humanity! Who’d pay nothing to use a very, very good toolset?
Oh, and I’d guess that all of the new stuff that has been added in the free application was what they had cooking for a v3 update before they were acquired. Yes, there are new (pretty powerful) features in there. For free.