Affinity makes its iPad apps free ahead of Oct 30 event

[paulcoholic]

Read all about it Last chance? Affinity makes its iPad apps free ahead of Oct 30 event

The speculation is ramping up regarding possible changes to the software or licensing models:

What's happening with Affinity? Subscription Coming?

[RuffPub]

If you look at all the graphics I’ve seen on the announcements, it’s all vector.

Photo and Designer integrated into one app?

The word is ‘Freedom’ in every post. Are they going to do a Da Vinci Resolve, a free version then paid levels for added function.

Canva being bought out by Adobe and turned into an obscene subscription (or killed like Aldus)

It’s all guesswork and not work the brain cells stewing over it.

Oct 30 will be the day.

[paulcoholic]

I’m not fretting over it. I used the six-month trial last year and liked it, but wasn’t able to afford the price when that ended (I thought the trial users were able to buy the suite at a 50% off; I was wrong.) I’m waiting for the probable 50% off discount during Black Friday/Cyber Monday; ample time after this Oct 30 ‘event.’

I’m also waiting to see what, if anything Apple will do to Pixelmator. However, I am trying out Acorn, so far that seems to fit what I need such software for (I may also trial their other program, Retrobatch, to see what it can do.)

[richgardner]

That would make some sense, given the marketing, if they were to integrate Designer and Photo. Let’s hope that it’s just that (hopefully with Publisher too). It’s hard to imagine they won’t switch to subscription, though. You can’t even buy PS Elements outright anymore.

[paulcoholic]

I watched a number of YouTube videos and read a few subreddits on the matter. Most theories that seem to be knowledgeable and reasonable can be summarized as:

On October 30th, Affinity version 3 will be released and this version may have some of the following attributes:

• There’ll be a free version.
• There will be a paid version (one-off payment like now) on top of the free tier with more advanced features.
• There will be a paid subscription tier with even more advanced features as well as AI, Cloud services and collaborative features.
  (Maybe a two level paid tier on top of the free version, otherwise abandoning the one-off payment policy will provoke a massive rebellion.) Or something like that.

Some also speculate greater integration with Canva; perhaps making use of Canva templates and graphics and so forth. Maybe rebranding the whole suite as “Canva Photo,” “Canva Publisher,” and “Canva Designer.”

We’ll find out in two weeks!

[RuffPub]

I’ve just received an invite to the Canva keynote on 30/10, so it’s all obviously conencted.