Isn't that great?
"The Affinity suite will soon be made available without charge to schools and registered nonprofits."
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Canva Acquires Serif's Affinity Apps
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"The Affinity suite will soon be made available without charge to schools and registered nonprofits."
They won't keep it. It will always be broken over time. For Zbrush the promise was the same - waht did we get? One major release at FULL buying price as update costs for a year and practically no new features and the next release? Subscription only... Software companies can go broke for all I care, I won't buy any apps anymore. They just don't care for their paying customers 8(
maybe we will even see the Affinity DAM which has been talked about for years.
I read it can deal with CMYK color, but can spot colors defined, too?
I think the payments for subscriptions are a minor problem. But losing access to data is like a disease that is really hard to fight against.
Still having access to Macromedia Freehand files is a good example. Keeping a Freehand installation alive on a real PowerMac G4 is possible, but at some certain point in time it will fail to boot. Virtualization seems to be a valid solution, but it is often excluded in software licenses or problematic when processors are changing, like we have seen it many times. Emulations aren't always available, are too slow or are lacking features.
Opening Freehand files was possible with Adobe Illustrator CS 5.5, but not anymore with Adobe Illustrator CS 6 or CC.
Dropped software features can be better handled with perpetual licensed software, as you can keep a copy of a working version. As it's hard to overcome the hardware compatibility problem, it's gotten even harder to overcome simple developer implemented automatic switchoffs, be it vanishing security certificates, activation servers or subscriptions.
Subscriptions and perpetual licensed software that use activation servers will break access to your valued data. It may take some time, but at some point one definitely will lose valued and hardly preserved work. The worst of all, almost none really cares.
UGH, disappointed to hear this. I hardly use the Affinity, but I bought them (desktop & iPad) to support the company and at least fiddle with them. I freaking hate CANVA. They have made my production life a living hell as clients are sending me files they built in CANVA. By the time I have gone back and forth with them on how to make their file production ready, I could've designed the POS myself and it would look 10x better.
I was reassured a bit by the email this morning saying perpetual licenses will always be offered. While these promises have been broken by some in the past (ZBrush), this isn't always the case (in the same field, Lightwave). Now the naysayers can always say, "well not yet, but one day" and yeah, I guess. But the heat death of the universe is coming too, I am not going to panic about it.
Will his get Affinity Photo, the app from the suite I use the most, some more updates? If so, great. Generative fill would be nice, especially if it is local. Fooocus is one example of Mac compliant AI image tool that does not need to call home to mommy.
I don't want subscriptions for a variety of reasons. My perpetual license will still work. What if Canva goes bankrupt, and Adobe buys them, AND Adobe retroactively changes Canva's privacy policy so that they can sell your personal information (like what happened to Radio Shack)? No thank you.
Will his get Affinity Photo, the app from the suite I use the most, some more updates? If so, great. Generative fill would be nice, especially if it is local. Fooocus is one example of Mac compliant AI image tool that does not need to call home to mommy.
I don't want subscriptions for a variety of reasons. My perpetual license will still work. What if Canva goes bankrupt, and Adobe buys them, AND Adobe retroactively changes Canva's privacy policy so that they can sell your personal information (like what happened to Radio Shack)? No thank you.
I was very happy to have found that Affinity's products were really top quality for their modest price. Apart from some missing features and occasionally dodgy file handling, I found them up to commercial printing reproduction (assuming the output bureau would handle color seps). And I was very happy that the license was perpetual for major versions. Easier to put up with a few glitches if I'm not also being ******* for monthly fees.
I always knew Affinity wasn't charging enough to make their revenue model sustainable, though. They obviously weren't recovering enough money to pay development to build in such basic features as Auto-Bitmap-Tracing and Color Separations.
For anyone who doesn't know Serif, they were a publisher of grade-b graphics apps for Macs going all the way back to the late 80's. Serif's apps were legit functional and affordable, but consistently underperformed in features. They stumbled around outside the camp-fire circle for decades, until boosting the Affinity brand with truly competitive products. The turn around was astounding.
For anyone who doesn't know Canva, it is essentially web hosted, HTML-5, Gen-Z Kindergarten "My First Graphics", for talentless hacks with no standards or experience in commercial graphics production for grownups.
Which is why CANVA has done so very well for themselves (even if they aren't worth 40 Billion). Well Played. But, now I feel played. And the grapes are so very sour, because, you see, it wasn't just Adobe who made an enemy of themselves.
In the cities where I had graphic production studios, Canva literally shut me out of the meat-and-potatoes, keep-the-lights-on segment of the market. And I mean IMMEDIATELY. Former clients all told me that they got enough done in Canva, to a good enough standard, and I never heard from them again. I quit graphics professionally, now doing occasional side-gigs for clients who genuinely need and appreciate unique creative effort. Plus pro-bono work for 501c3, 4 and 5 non-profit enterprises that need a boost in branding and business management. EDIT: Not actually a whiney life-mangling complaint here; my main profession remains IT Security for TLAs in the NCR.
So, yeah, I guess Affinity's Canvasized "Commitment" to keep stand alone perpetuals is worth the paper it's printed on. These days, perpetual licenses equate to "Revenue Leakage"; although Canva is a private company, they still have profit pressure. I can't see them NOT going subscription only. Now that it's technically feasible, it's anti-capitalist behavior NOT to squeeze every penny out of customers that can possibly BE squeezed.
I suppose I could fall back to GIMP, InkScape and Scribus (OSF programs that made me so happy with Affinity). Those programs are feature-rich, but they are quirky ports from Linuxland by developers with kids to feed. And even the BEST Linux X-Window ports are fatiguing to use and troubleshoot. Linux uses weird keyboard conventions, weird cursor tracking, weird button behaviors and weird file-handling conventions and weird file formats. Linux Apps have oddball dependencies on code libraries and kernel extensions that Apple seems to actively TARGET for interference or outright deprecation. To be fair, I haven't used these apps in years, because Affinity.
I also use Darktable for image cataloging (not as good as Lightroom), and BlackMagic Davinci Resolve for video, a couple stand-alone bitmap autotracers, and PDF Expert by Readdle (which is good, though not intended for pre-press)...
If I am eventually FORCED into subscriptions, again, because there's just no alternative, I'll go with Adobe, no question. Despite Creative Cloud's parasitic overhead, and Adobe's antagonistic customer relations, the APPS are indisputably the best. And I remain, grudgingly, highly skilled with their portfolio, except for the newer AI-related workflow jiggery-pokery, in which I plan to start dabbling.
Sour grapes are for self-absorbed pansies, so I know darn well, I'll swallow my pride and pay up. Matter of fact, I should go non-profit, myself, so other U.S. tax-payers can pay my deductible Adobe expenses. Yeahhh, that's the ticket...
I always knew Affinity wasn't charging enough to make their revenue model sustainable, though. They obviously weren't recovering enough money to pay development to build in such basic features as Auto-Bitmap-Tracing and Color Separations.
For anyone who doesn't know Serif, they were a publisher of grade-b graphics apps for Macs going all the way back to the late 80's. Serif's apps were legit functional and affordable, but consistently underperformed in features. They stumbled around outside the camp-fire circle for decades, until boosting the Affinity brand with truly competitive products. The turn around was astounding.
For anyone who doesn't know Canva, it is essentially web hosted, HTML-5, Gen-Z Kindergarten "My First Graphics", for talentless hacks with no standards or experience in commercial graphics production for grownups.
Which is why CANVA has done so very well for themselves (even if they aren't worth 40 Billion). Well Played. But, now I feel played. And the grapes are so very sour, because, you see, it wasn't just Adobe who made an enemy of themselves.
In the cities where I had graphic production studios, Canva literally shut me out of the meat-and-potatoes, keep-the-lights-on segment of the market. And I mean IMMEDIATELY. Former clients all told me that they got enough done in Canva, to a good enough standard, and I never heard from them again. I quit graphics professionally, now doing occasional side-gigs for clients who genuinely need and appreciate unique creative effort. Plus pro-bono work for 501c3, 4 and 5 non-profit enterprises that need a boost in branding and business management. EDIT: Not actually a whiney life-mangling complaint here; my main profession remains IT Security for TLAs in the NCR.
So, yeah, I guess Affinity's Canvasized "Commitment" to keep stand alone perpetuals is worth the paper it's printed on. These days, perpetual licenses equate to "Revenue Leakage"; although Canva is a private company, they still have profit pressure. I can't see them NOT going subscription only. Now that it's technically feasible, it's anti-capitalist behavior NOT to squeeze every penny out of customers that can possibly BE squeezed.
I suppose I could fall back to GIMP, InkScape and Scribus (OSF programs that made me so happy with Affinity). Those programs are feature-rich, but they are quirky ports from Linuxland by developers with kids to feed. And even the BEST Linux X-Window ports are fatiguing to use and troubleshoot. Linux uses weird keyboard conventions, weird cursor tracking, weird button behaviors and weird file-handling conventions and weird file formats. Linux Apps have oddball dependencies on code libraries and kernel extensions that Apple seems to actively TARGET for interference or outright deprecation. To be fair, I haven't used these apps in years, because Affinity.
I also use Darktable for image cataloging (not as good as Lightroom), and BlackMagic Davinci Resolve for video, a couple stand-alone bitmap autotracers, and PDF Expert by Readdle (which is good, though not intended for pre-press)...
If I am eventually FORCED into subscriptions, again, because there's just no alternative, I'll go with Adobe, no question. Despite Creative Cloud's parasitic overhead, and Adobe's antagonistic customer relations, the APPS are indisputably the best. And I remain, grudgingly, highly skilled with their portfolio, except for the newer AI-related workflow jiggery-pokery, in which I plan to start dabbling.
Sour grapes are for self-absorbed pansies, so I know darn well, I'll swallow my pride and pay up. Matter of fact, I should go non-profit, myself, so other U.S. tax-payers can pay my deductible Adobe expenses. Yeahhh, that's the ticket...
From what the CEO said, they should always have a one time purchase option, even if they do have subscriptions on the side. Which is fine by me. It is when there is no option that the problem arises.
So I see this as a good move for Affinity. They know their base and from what has been said from them, want to keep it all going, as is. But they are not going to have to ship a version 3 anytime soon, like they were thinking of previously. If this Canva purchase didn't come up, they would be charging a version 3 upgrade sooner rather than later.
So I see this as a good move for Affinity. They know their base and from what has been said from them, want to keep it all going, as is. But they are not going to have to ship a version 3 anytime soon, like they were thinking of previously. If this Canva purchase didn't come up, they would be charging a version 3 upgrade sooner rather than later.
Thanks for posting that. That tells me, they are fully aware of the problems with subs and don't want to cause any issues with the base. If they hadn't said this, I can see why people would have issues, including myself! This reinforces what the CEO said. Great job Canva for not shooting yourself in the foot.
Edit: Also, working the education market like that will greatly help Affinity become more industry standard over time. Canva's CEO is smart with that move. Free Affinity for over 70 million students? Yeah, that is going to help propel Affinity forward in the workplace over time. Just like how torrenting of Photoshop helped Adobe in the workplace.
What is the source of your confidence to laugh at the people posting in this thread - as a professional, naturally, unlike everyone else - that the apps were market failures and the company was losing money?
How much did Canva pay for Serif?
Answer: a lot. So obviously they see some value in them.
Just so you know, a subscription fee would suck, but my personal concern is much bigger: AI "art." As a working designer and creative studio owner, you won't laugh nearly as hard as it starts to kill the soul of humanity.
I think offering perpetual license model alongside subscription model is a reasonable way to handle it. That way, if you are a hobbyist you can opt for the one time fee version and if you are a professional you can opt for the subscription with more frequent updates.
Can someone tell me: If you stop paying the monthly fee, can't you at least use the software for read-only access?
This is unfortunately common practice, neither with Adobe nor with the formerly free Vectornator, which is now called Curve and is only offered as a subscription-based program.
Interesting. I just turned off my Adobe Photography subscription about a week ago. I just haven’t used it enough to make it work $240+ a year.
I am using Raw Power on the Mac/ipad/iphone for photo management. You can use it with the files app and it can also work with Photos (i have over a terabyte still available on iCloud). As part of the transition I bought Affinity 2 for iPad. I already had Pixelmator and Snapseed.
I am happy to live without paying a monthly fee on something I use less and less.
I have used the free version of Canva since I liked the templates for YouTube. It seemed to do everything I needed without a fee, but I haven’t messed with it in a while.
I am using Raw Power on the Mac/ipad/iphone for photo management. You can use it with the files app and it can also work with Photos (i have over a terabyte still available on iCloud). As part of the transition I bought Affinity 2 for iPad. I already had Pixelmator and Snapseed.
I am happy to live without paying a monthly fee on something I use less and less.
I have used the free version of Canva since I liked the templates for YouTube. It seemed to do everything I needed without a fee, but I haven’t messed with it in a while.
Saw this coming a mile away, though I thought they would try to buy Procreate too. Hopefully this puts downward pressure on the price of the entire Adobe CC suite.
Me too. Now I have upgraded for free according to my active membership to a registered non-profit organisation.
The difference is quite high: the generated pictures on the free version had all –now gone– artifacts, and I enjoy many added functions.
They are offering up to 50 free Pro upgrades per charity. Very generous...
The membership of my charity is less expensive than their yearly fee.
There are some solutions to some of it, if a person really cares about having access to their precious files I present option 1: alternate versions that function without Internet.
I wish we could have legal software that we pay big money for work, instead it stops functioning and/or cannot be installed no matter what. Adobe is a perfect example. A pirated version of CS3 works technically but not the real deal since Adobe stopped the servers. Grrr.
Another solution, option 2: as software companies drop support for older software and abandon them (10+ years), they start coming online at places like the Macintosh Garden and The Macintosh Repository too. Just depends on how old the software is, if it is abandoned and if someone has a copy that can be installed.
I'm sure there might be others, but that is off the top of my head. I've thought a lot about this.
Closely related: What I need now is proper macOS installers that don't require the Internet to install (Big Sur and up)! So far, I haven't found a solution yet. Internet goes out in a war, costs a fortune or natural disaster and no reinstalling or installing will be able to happen on newer macOS's! Not cool. Must find me a solution!
Edited to try to bring it in line with forum rules.
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The funny thing is that one day before the press release about the acquisition we were talking about how Affinity shapes up to be a serious competitor to Adobe, as their software is made-to-measure for Apple Silicon, less bloated, faster, better integrated, and the pricing is so that sooner or later the bigger companies would have to think about it as a serious alternative for 10% percent of the annual cost pressure Adobe causes. We use CC because it is the professional choice, but let's be frank: Indesign is half-dead, no real progression or bug-fixing for years, Photoshop has some very nice new features, but when you dig deeper, it still feels like 1997, it many ways it feels like a house that has been build and added to and replastered and built over again and again, kind of like what Windows feels like, 1990-ish software with a new coat of paint, while Affinity IS new software. All of its modules are in some way lacking small things, but if I were a large non-design entity, say an architectural company or an automotive parts manufacturer and would build up an in house-graphic or give some design software to the employers for small design tasks – Serif would be a very serious option.
All this goes out of the window with Canva, whose very core is a web-centric, subscription-based model. It is not tailored to Mac, it is not pay-once-and-go, it is absolutely not «pro» usage. It is a toy-ish Web software we use because some of our clients use and bc it makes social media stuff quick & easy in co-working with the client and is at least more acceptable than static images from ID or PS. In no way is this a good fit, and it is a game-changer for Affinity from small indie developers that you feel you should support to... something else entirely. I guess this is better than Serif just closing down because they aren't monetizing their product enough to survive, but the way larger companies suck up small creative Indies is frustrating. It's become a business model in itself, but from a user perspective it sucks that good software just vanishes rather sooner than later once a big corp buys out the Indie label.
I do not use Affinity as a working tool, but always liked them and that Serif tried to be a serious alternative to the big cat Adobe, who need competition in order to improve their product and do their best work – here's hoping for the best.
All this goes out of the window with Canva, whose very core is a web-centric, subscription-based model. It is not tailored to Mac, it is not pay-once-and-go, it is absolutely not «pro» usage. It is a toy-ish Web software we use because some of our clients use and bc it makes social media stuff quick & easy in co-working with the client and is at least more acceptable than static images from ID or PS. In no way is this a good fit, and it is a game-changer for Affinity from small indie developers that you feel you should support to... something else entirely. I guess this is better than Serif just closing down because they aren't monetizing their product enough to survive, but the way larger companies suck up small creative Indies is frustrating. It's become a business model in itself, but from a user perspective it sucks that good software just vanishes rather sooner than later once a big corp buys out the Indie label.
I do not use Affinity as a working tool, but always liked them and that Serif tried to be a serious alternative to the big cat Adobe, who need competition in order to improve their product and do their best work – here's hoping for the best.
Are you telling that recent bootable installers won't install without internet connection?
Discussing about options 1 and 2 is against the forum rules (see Things Not to Do No 8), but I do understand what you mean and why you are suggesting it in this context.
Bootable installers? Yes, that is correct. I've actually tried it myself with macOS 12 Monterey. No Internet, install will not continue and aborts. Major issue for longevity purposes or emergency purposes. I learned about this problem from Lloyd Chambers and couldn't believe it until I actually tried it myself.
Didn't realize that even mentioning the issue in this way was breaking any forum rules. Thanks, I will keep any emergency ideas like that to myself from now on. But why would the Macintosh Garden and The Macintosh Repository sites be an issue? I read the rules on that, like you said and I don't get it. I learned about them on the forums here. I must have missed something somewhere. Everyone I know that runs Mac OS 9 uses them in one way or another, including myself.