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?

Fuck these guys, just use gimp.

100% this is a jump-the-shark moment.

I sort of think what they’re releasing will stay free for a long time. That’s not my concern.

My concern is that since they’ve been acquired by Canva you can tell how Canva is thinking about Affinity; it’s a pure subscription driver towards Canva.

So given this is what Canva wants to do with Affinity, I have no doubt that Affinity will focus on shipping features that drive towards Canva subscriptions. That means other features will atrophy and that the future of affinity is one where you’re increasingly finding it diffficult to use, if you’re aiming to use it as an alternative to Adobe, without a subscription.

So this is subscription software by another name - it just creeping subscription, slowly boiling the frog in hope we won’t all jump out. Make no mistake, the fire has been lit and it won’t be long before the water gets warm.

Enshittification here we come.

Canva’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.

As 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 😬

I didn't realize canva bought them :/. AI hellscape keeps going

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