New App: Affinity Designer

Be good to see Adobe get a run for their money.
I have a love/hate relationship with AI.
 
Serif have been around for years on windows.... I'd bet these are just 'mac' versions of their existing software with a new name.

To give you an idea of their quality....they're lower down the scale than corel (who bought paintshop pro etc). neither of which are even stressing Adobe on Windows so theres little chance they'll compete on OS-X...
 
Yeah, I think I remember them having something that was sub-Micro$oft Publisher many years ago - an achievement of sorts in itself! Still, this seems to be going like hot cakes on the App Store with some good reviews.

Maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part. I'd love to see Adobe's monopoly broken, if only so they have to up their game and start listening to users.
 
Robert Stott said:
Yeah, I think I remember them having something that was sub-Micro$oft Publisher many years ago - an achievement of sorts in itself! Still, this seems to be going like hot cakes on the App Store with some good reviews.
Price most likely... Serif are/were forever giving their software away for free, or at least the previous version.
Maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part. I'd love to see Adobe's monopoly broken, if only so they have to up their game and start listening to users.
You're not the only one who would love to see Adobe's monopoly broken, it's part of the reason I hate their subscription model subscription, we're pretty much screwed by it due to you never owning the software.

There are options for photoshop, pixelmator is pretty good from what I hear and corel paintshop pro puts up a good fight when it comes to photoshop on pc for most users. You can get alternatives to Acrobat, web and video apps but it's illustrator which is the issue, there isn't really any true alternative although Autodesk sketchbook is pretty good in my opinion and for more artistic work you have things like Corel Painter too.
 
The only realistic contender to AI was Freehand and they soon put an end to that,

When I moved over to AI I found it far less intuitive to use than FH although it has many superior elements.
I just don't like subscribing to a monopoly.
 
Serif have been around for years on windows.... I'd bet these are just 'mac' versions of their existing software with a new name.

To give you an idea of their quality....they're lower down the scale than corel (who bought paintshop pro etc). neither of which are even stressing Adobe on Windows so theres little chance they'll compete on OS-X...

I had a play with the beta version of Affinity Designer over the last 6 weeks or so and found it to be a really good bit of kit. It's got some great features and could very well be the competition that Adobe needs. As I understand it they've also got a Photoshop competitor due in beta soon and then an InDesign one coming next year, all sharing a common file type. I've never used any of their Windows software but these are apparently created from the ground for macs.

If they do sort out the trial version I'd definitely recommend having a go with it.
 
Also, I've heard that it's quite similar to Freehand in a lot of respects. I can't really comment, I only used FH5, none of the later versions.
 
A supposed decent alternative to Illustrator, for OS X at least, is iDraw. I've never used it myself, at least the OS X version, but the iPad version was nifty. I think that gets good reviews, and it's pretty cheap iirc
 
Levi said:
Serif have been around for years on windows.... I'd bet these are just 'mac' versions of their existing software with a new name.

To give you an idea of their quality....they're lower down the scale than corel (who bought paintshop pro etc). neither of which are even stressing Adobe on Windows so theres little chance they'll compete on OS-X...
Just wanted to chime in and say...

You are correct in that Serif have historically produced windows only software which is not quite pro level.
However you wrong in thinking this is re-hashed software ported over to Mac.

Serif have spent four years developing this with a dedicated team of developers, building from the ground up and 100% for the Mac environment - which is aimed at the pro market, and a direct competitor to Illustrator.

Ive used this since the Beta, and its a beautiful peace of software, with the upcoming updates will be able to handle Pantone colours and multiple art boards. Over the next 12 months they are releasing a photoshop and Indesign alternative.

According to the newsletter I got today, Affinity is now the number one downloaded software on the mac store.
 
No offence intended here Mr. Hide but that doesn't read like you're a PR person for Serif at all.....
 
Levi said:
No offence intended here Mr. Hide but that doesn't read like you're a PR person for Serif at all.....
I'm not....in the slightest, just very much like the software which I found whilst on the verge of upgrading to CC.
When they get their act together and get a demo out, try it you Im sure you will like it too

Details posted were from the forum and the news mailers I have had.
 
Mr.Hide said:
When they get their act together and get a demo out, try it you Im sure you will like it too
Unlikely, they'd need to make a windows version.... I don't use mac's, the software I use doesn't run on os-x, and I've tried Serif on windows and it's a LONG way from being 'not quite pro level'
 
Ok then the software is not for you...and your right I wouldn't touch the PC software with a 10 mile pole.
I just wanted to correct the point that this is re-hashed software for the mac.
 
Don't get me wrong if I was on a mac I'd give it a shot, it's not like £25 is going to break the bank (grab it now guys while it's on offer if you want to try it), although Serif have such a bad rep on windows I would go in not expecting much. I've spent more on random things that I use for a day and then forget about so I wouldn't miss the money if it was rubbish lol.
Biggest issue I can see is file transfer and support for older ai files.... luckily I don't use them :)

I'm all for supporting smaller firms and I'd happily use pixelmator, which is pretty good from what I've seen, as a 'second pc' photoshop.

Plus I'd say we're ALL crying out for a cheaper version of Adobe software that gets mass market support, to if nothing else, reduce adobe pricing.
 
I think anything that challenges the giant will be good for the industry. Lack of competition makes Adobe lazy. I've always thought that illustrator should have a font creating mode so that could really be a deal breaker for a competing brand.

I'll just stick with MS Paint for now.
 
I think automatability (is that a word?) would be a deal maker/breaker for most of the companies I've worked with. So much in the packaging industry depends on things like AppleScript and third party automation tools like the Esko's* Automation Engine. If Serif really want to compete in these areas then they need to at least have comparable automation options.

An open file format would be good too. That's to say one much like the one Illustrator had up until (and including) Illustrator 8 where you could open it either programatically for us programmers or in a text editor if you were a brave enough. XML based would suit me. ;-)

r.



* Of course, Esko have almost as much a monopoly as Adobe do and are equally as lazy/greedy. I'd like to see them have some serious competition too.
 
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