diamondsw

I've experienced this as well for the last month or so on an M1 MacBook Air. It's definitely something in the OS, as console entries indicate control isn't being passed to Affinity Photo until after the 20 seconds it sits on the Dock, at which point it launches quickly. I tend to agree that something is off-kilter in either Spotlight, iCloud, or security, as I've had a variety of odd performance and other problems linked back to those. For me, installing v1.9.1 (standalone, non-MAS version) resulted in instant launches, but that's also after previously using 1.9 in that session, so something may have been cached or otherwise primed. We'll see how it acts after a reboot.

Now the link forwards to the 1.8.1 release notes, not here. Just put the **** notes in the update dialog where they belong. You are reinventing the wheel, badly, and annoying your customers.