Affinity by Serif is getting ready to screw over users - AGAIN.

[Vivi_Ram]

Serif just blocked users from buying Affinity Suite completely, disabled forum support, and just made their product site a placeholder page with the title: "Creative Freedom is Coming..." Which is ominously Orwellian in my opinion. My guess is that they're going to turn their product completely into a web app and include shitty AI features. If this is the case, it permanently ends Affinity's place in my work. My workplace for instance does not allow uploading any material into web apps. It also isolates and disables copy/paste or upload/download into AI environments through Z-scaler. 'Tis time to rely wholly on Xara and PL. Xara for page layout work. PL for all else. How I wish PL could interact with Xara! In any case, I just wanted to thank the Hubers for staying true to your vision for this product and not prioritising just money over everything else. It is a huge temptation that you've resisted. You are fighting the good fight. I hope you'll finish the race. Thank you for not being cheap sell-outs like Serif.

[der_fotograf]

»Creative freedom« takes place in your imagination, not in a tool. So I would say the Affinity (=Canva) statement is misleading advertising or – in »modern language« – bullshit.

[Herbert123]

I don't know. I have the distinct feeling they will start with subscriptions / renting. Perhaps a dumbed-down version that is offered for free to entice users into the 'beautiful' world of Canva? And/or tight integration with Canva's cloud?

We'll know in a week's time.

[Vivi_Ram]

I don't know. I have the distinct feeling they will start with subscriptions / renting. Perhaps a dumbed-down version that is offered for free to entice users into the 'beautiful' world of Canva? And/or tight integration with Canva's cloud?

We'll know in a week's time.

Since I made this post, there has been several indications that this is the direction that they're going in. James from "Made by James" said things that indicate a free tier and a "pro" tier is on its way. As well as that, Will Paterson, another Youtuber, even posted a blurred image of the new Affinity product. It was on a browser from what I could tell. He was working on a browser Tab. This is just a guess, but I am very, very apprehensive about this new direction. They have hundreds of bugs from their legacy software which they have not addressed. They have also closed their forum support, which means there is no way to follow up on those. They've once again left the owners of V2 holding their d**ks. Because going forward all support is through Discord. I for one refuse to engage with that hellscape. It is not a serious product support forum. Worse, it is not indexable by search engines. Which means, good luck finding solutions to your problems. I sense a great a disturbance in the Force.

[der_fotograf]

The new »Affinity« is available. Unfortunately, it is not available in Apples App Store for a download. You have to register with Canva before you can download it – guess why: They want your data. Just make sure that the app can't »call home« while you are using it, because otherwise they will grab your work (though they say they will not – ha, ha, ha.)

Anyway, I don't want a »free« app with untransparent support (there have been many things Serif could not get to work with the first two editions of Affinity). Nobody tells you how much space it will need on your hard drive. How much RAM are recommended. They only tell you that it is free. Like a dubious car dealer: Oh, the car features four wheels, and it will drive for sure…

Pretty spooky in my opinion.

[der_fotograf]

Word of caution for users of older mac systems:
The new Affinity might not run on your system!

https://www.reddit.com/r/Affinity/comme ... _catalina/

[Herbert123]

I agree... It seems that one of the reasons the software is given away for free is because the Canva company is going IPO - so riding the AI bubble and increasing their share value.

We've all seen this many times before: giving away software for free, then after a while changing the license to subs, etcetera, etcetera.

All that said, Affinity is free at this point of time, and it will be more difficult for competitors such as PhotoLine, VectorStyler, QuarkXPress, and also Adobe to gain new users. I feel Canva has dealt a hand of power-play to Adobe and is slowly encroaching on Adobe's users.

We'll see how this pans out.

Personally I dislike working in Affinity, and very much prefer PhotoLine.

[Vivi_Ram]

The new Affinity app is unusable. The monochrome icons, the lack of white UI (and inability to change this - why on earth would they remove this?), and the license check on literally every single session makes Affinity a complete pile of turd in my opinion. Further, a user discovered that it is not so free after all. If you disconnect your device from the internet, and set your calendar a year ahead, Affinity simply will not let you open the app without calling the server and checking your license. So much for "free" software. They can shove it where the sun doth not shine.

layer.jpg

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- How the hell are we supposed to see this??