Affinity’s latest update shows it’s business as usual after the Canva buyout
Ever since Canva announced its surprise acquisition of Affinity in March 2024, we’ve been wondering what the company planned to do with the platform. Now we have an answer.
Firstly, Affinity sees the launch of a major new update, version 2.5, to its Designer, Publisher and Photo software – the first since its multi-million dollar purchase of Canva, and according to Affinity represents “an ongoing commitment to delivering significant new updates add features,” even under new management.
Second, announced at this year’s Canva Create, comes the news that the graphic design software offering, like Canva Pro, will be made available for free to schools and non-profits.
What’s new in Affinity 2.5?
Affinity promises a range of new editing options for professionals. This includes a QR code creator and support for variable fonts for text design in all apps. Designer is a new linewidth tool for desktop publishing software for editing the pressure profile of curves, as well as improvements to the Pencil Tool for smoother curves.
“Affinity 2.5 introduces another set of new features and solutions to improve workflow. Continuous updates remain core to the Affinity ethos and we are already hard at work on the next wave of additions,” said Ashley Hewson, CEO of Affinity. The message here is: it’s business as usual.
The software now also boasts of being ‘the first creative software with end-to-end native ARM support’, offering full native support for the Snapdragon X Elite chip. Affinity users with access to machines with the new processor are promised a more responsive experience when working on basic edits or multi-layered documents. Emphasizing tasks like painting, pixel editing and document rendering, Hewson says, “the benefits will be especially noticeable when working on documents with thousands of vector objects.”
Pricing remained the main issue for users, who preferred Affinity’s one-time fee to subscriptions like those offered by Adobe and Canva. Buy it once and own it for life. An attractive proposition, which has so far been guaranteed by both companies in a joint statement released shortly after the acquisition.
At that point, there haven’t been any major changes for most users. Affinity’s beloved perpetual licenses remain, but the threat of subscriptions is ever-present. But there is a big change for charities and academia.
Starting today, teachers, schools and nonprofits can join a waitlist to get free Affinity. There are no details on when licenses will be available, although Canva said they are expected in the coming months.
Affinity Version 2.5 is now available for free to all existing users.