Affinity Software - October 2025 Announcement

I suffered from Windows 95 to XP for 16 years. Never again. I saved for 4 years to move to MacOS and I hope I can stay in the Apple ecosystem as it's very stable. I'm on my second Mac in almost 15 years and I've experienced exactly zero OS issues. Only Adobe apps ever gave me problems. I'm still using the same keyboard and Magic Mouse that came with my iMac in January 2011. Money well spent for me but YMMV.

Apple the company sucks ass of course, especially now with the overt support for the pedo-in-chief. I hear they're cleaning house and replacing Tim Apple. Fingers crossed. All companies suck anyway.

I support the idea of open source software and Linux but I also need to live in 2025 and need things to work right away. However, I used to be a 3D artist. The other day I downloaded Blender to give it another shake. Back in the 90s it was unusable. Now it seems much better. It's unbelievable that it's free and it has no AI AFAIK.
 
I downloaded it this morning.Working in the Vector side very briefly to update some of my print designs, I am not noticing an appreciable different in the tool interface compared to Affinity Designer 2.
 
Well, it’s official. The three apps are now just Affinity. Doing the freemium thing w/ AI subscription.

You need an account to download and open the app.
 
A few reasons I’m not psyched about this:

• just need a vector program (i.e. Designer), don’t need a bloated mega-app with photo editing and page layout features I’ll never use

• right now you just have to pay for AI features (no thanks, you can keep that shit), but will updates and other non-AI new features eventually go behind the subscription paywall too…🤷‍♀️
Does’t seem terribly implausible.

• They don’t even have an iOS version yet. And space is definitely at more of a premium on my iPad than it is on my laptop. Definitely don’t need mandatory mega-app there. 😖
 
jessenator said:
Online only mode?
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Nope, it seems to run fine with my wi-fi turned off off after it's done the online licensing check once. Not sure how often that check will occur yet though.

pricklyrobot said:
• They don’t even have an iOS version yet. And space is definitely at more of a premium on my iPad than it is on my laptop. Definitely don’t need mandatory mega-app there. 😖
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Same here. I bought Affinity Photo for my Pad when it was something like ten bucks, but never bothered to grab the discounted or eventually free IOS version of Designer due to severe memory constraints. I only use Photo on the Pad very sporadically anyway, and keep it uninstalled most of the time to make room for more important stuff like synth apps.

For my part, Designer v2 works well and I've already gotten my money's worth out of it. I put away a copy of the most recent revision's installer and used a different Affinity account to link to Canva to get v3. If the melding of Photo and Publisher into v3 proves useful, great. If there are useful updates in the Designer fork, great. Otherwise I'll just keep using Designer v2 for as long as it makes sense, no worries.
 
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jcpst said:
Well, it’s official. The three apps are now just Affinity. Doing the freemium thing w/ AI subscription.

You need an account to download and open the app.
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Well, I gotta go do vectors now. Shall I jump in on this and dump Photoshop? Or go Inkscape with the handy knob panel design addons, which I can't seem to find for Affinity? Affinity now vectorize raster as well, so that's cool. Just wondering what's best to deep dive in...

Was really into Photoshop around 2005, but 20 years later it just gets more and more confusing in doing the basics, so I don't feel I lose much. Plus it is too resource intensive these days for my laptop anyway.
 
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tegendemuur said:
Well, I gotta go do vectors now. Shall I jump in on this and dump Photoshop? Or go Inkscape with the handy knob panel design addons, which I can't seem to find for Affinity? Affinity now vectorize raster as well, so that's cool. Just wondering what's best to deep dive in...

Was really into Photoshop around 2005, but 20 years later it just gets more and more confusing in doing the basics, so I don't feel I lose much. Plus it is too resource intensive these days for my laptop anyway.
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I haven't been using the consolidated Affinity, but am very happy with A Designer 2 still, I expect it;'s all in there, just the workflow might look different.
 
Affinity is killing me. Adobe apps are etched into my brain after 20 years in the design game and I just can't find myself in these dumb apps. At least I got the non AI, non subscription version. But the dn keyboard shortcuts are all different
 
tegendemuur said:
… handy knob panel design addons....
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Oooh never heard of this. Do you have a link?

I use Inkscape exclusively these days. It’s competent but you need a high tolerance for faffery. And it’s shockingly slow on my relatively powerful desktop. But I’ve spent my entire career troubleshooting niche software designed by science people and/or open source neckbeards so it’s fine for me. And I just don’t have the patience to learn affinity’s design tools knowing they’re on my the fast track to enshittification.
 
Band of Dans said:
Oooh never heard of this. Do you have a link?

I use Inkscape exclusively these days. It’s competent but you need a high tolerance for faffery. And it’s shockingly slow on my relatively powerful desktop. But I’ve spent my entire career troubleshooting niche software designed by science people and/or open source neckbeards so it’s fine for me. And I just don’t have the patience to learn affinity’s design tools knowing they’re on my the fast track to enshittification.
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This is the panel designer. https://synthpanels.design/

Affinity sure looks like a program that's going to live on via a legacy version here if I jump on that ship.
 
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What's the word on Affinity or Inkscape? I'm looking do more than what GiMP does for me but I really don't like the idea of giving out my email to another fuckass company.
 
anevilspar7an said:
What's the word on Affinity or Inkscape? I'm looking do more than what GiMP does for me but I really don't like the idea of giving out my email to another fuckass company.
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You could always get a burner email account, I have a bunch for free streaming trials and the like. I like and use both Affinity and Inkscape, and GIMP too, for that matter. But I bought Designer years ago when it first came out, and have rarely bothered to even open the new version.
 
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