rees

Since Astute has plugins for Adobe Illustrator, and people can just buy whichever plugins they want to use (I bought three when they went on sale Cyber Monday), and Astute has said they want to provide plugins for programs...what’s wrong with them and Affinity sharing APIs and there being Astute plugins avail for customers to purchase for Affinity?
 
Seens like many would want the option to try them out (Astute offers trial days), and some would buy certain ones. If you haven’t downloaded some of their plugins and do have IL...try them out, they’re amazing! 
 
That way Serif doesn’t need to make their price higher, and Astute gains a new market for their powerful plugins.
 
Win-Win?

I LOVE the tools Astute provides. I've used their trial period to work with many of them, but have only purchased a few as they're spendy! (Worth it, but spendy!) 
I would guess Affinity/Serif would just need to contact Astute and work out integration, but then let Astute provide the plugins. That way Affinity can stay the same price, and people can choose what plugins they want to buy from Astute.
 
I reached out to Astute to see if they'd be creating plugins for Affinity and this is their reply:
(Red and bold my emphasis.)
 
So how about it, Serif?? Are you going to contact Astute? Their plugins really rock, and this would really make huge strides in comparability between Illustrator and Designer. 
 
Here's their contact info:
enquiries@astutegraphics.com
Nicholas van der Walle
Managing Director

Astute Graphics Limited
Penn House, 9-10 Broad Street
Hereford HR4 9AP, ENGLAND
tel. +44 (0) 1432 341073

Since Astute has plugins for Adobe Illustrator, and people can just buy whichever plugins they want to use (I bought three when they went on sale Cyber Monday), and Astute has said they want to provide plugins for programs...what’s wrong with them and Affinity sharing APIs and there being Astute plugins avail for customers to purchase for Affinity?
 
Seens like many would want the option to try them out (Astute offers trial days), and some would buy certain ones. If you haven’t downloaded some of their plugins and do have IL...try them out, they’re amazing! 
 
That way Serif doesn’t need to make their price higher, and Astute gains a new market for their powerful plugins.
 
Win-Win?

Since Astute has plugins for Adobe Illustrator, and people can just buy whichever plugins they want to use (I bought three when they went on sale Cyber Monday), and Astute has said they want to provide plugins for programs...what’s wrong with them and Affinity sharing APIs and there being Astute plugins avail for customers to purchase for Affinity?
 
Seens like many would want the option to try them out (Astute offers trial days), and some would buy certain ones. If you haven’t downloaded some of their plugins and do have IL...try them out, they’re amazing! 
 
That way Serif doesn’t need to make their price higher, and Astute gains a new market for their powerful plugins.
 
Win-Win?

I LOVE the tools Astute provides. I've used their trial period to work with many of them, but have only purchased a few as they're spendy! (Worth it, but spendy!) 
I would guess Affinity/Serif would just need to contact Astute and work out integration, but then let Astute provide the plugins. That way Affinity can stay the same price, and people can choose what plugins they want to buy from Astute.
 
I reached out to Astute to see if they'd be creating plugins for Affinity and this is their reply:
(Red and bold my emphasis.)
 
So how about it, Serif?? Are you going to contact Astute? Their plugins really rock, and this would really make huge strides in comparability between Illustrator and Designer. 
 
Here's their contact info:
enquiries@astutegraphics.com
Nicholas van der Walle
Managing Director

Astute Graphics Limited
Penn House, 9-10 Broad Street
Hereford HR4 9AP, ENGLAND
tel. +44 (0) 1432 341073

Hi all,
I have been prompted to take a look at this thread.
Firstly, thanks to all for the interest from a user's level and kind comments about our products. We've had an amazing response since first posting the Astute Graphics Tech sneak peeks on YouTube a month ago.
Full disclaimer - I am the founder and MD of Astute Graphics, so my opinions are bound to be biased. But here's my thoughts and responses based on my personal experience in the market for years which includes considerable hours behind Affinity Designers since its original release:
Adobe Illustrator has a 25 year head start over Affinity. There is naturally overlap, but I have suggested - and have seen - users adopt both packages simultaneously for different reasons. I always encourage that creatives and technical users make use of the best tools that suit them. There are many reasons why Affinity will be the best for a specific workflow and/or budget. If you are a professional user, the opinions of cost (Affinity being low cost, Adobe Illustrator Cloud with its 20+ major apps also being very good value) can only be determined on the requirements of a user's workflow. If any tool saves time and money, it is worth its investment. When analysed fully (which is what we've been doing in detail for 10+ years), you may also come to the conclusion that the greatest investment is in the user's time becoming familiar with any new product. Affinity Designer is an incredible relative newcomer to the market. Long-established competitors to the clear market leader Adobe Illustrator, including CorelDRAW and XARA sadly only remained single platform (by and large). Affinity have taken a much longer view and invested heavily in both Windows and Mac OS platforms. That's not a small task and I personally hugely respect the results. Since Affinity's release, various other competitors have emerged, albeit for more specific markets such as UI/UX including Figma and Adobe's own XD. It will be interesting to see how these continue to develop and intertwine with Affinity's customer base. Why wouldn't a professional have Illustrator, Affinity and Figma all running in parallel? If one app saves hours on a specific task, then it's once more worth the investment. Adobe Illustrator is built around the concept of plug-ins. If you delve into the Ai package, you will find all the native plug-ins that make the default tools. This structure is largely opened out to developers over many years which allows Astute Graphics to integrate itself so deeply into the overall toolset. Several years ago, all our Ai panels had to have a colour banner added as customers were commenting that they didn't know what was native and what was Astute Graphics. I am not aware of Affinity's depth regarding extensions; they may feel they have no need to cater for "rich" plug-ins as it would require a significant amount of resources to bring about, maintain and provide 3rd party support for. This is purely a business decision for Serif. The functionality in our tools can be roughly split up between tools which require interaction (eg. brush-type tools) and "one-button wonders" (eg. path cleaning operations). For interactive tools - which is a significant number of our popular plug-ins - a deep integration would be required. In this case, from a development cost point of view, I am estimating it would be easier for Serif to develop into the core of the product rather than support a complex plug-in architecture. However, the one-button wonders should be easier to add as an extension. The Bézier vector technology available to license from Astute Graphics would naturally be a great asset to Affinity Designer and we've had too many messages to suggest this to count! But the requirement for an efficient, extensive and top-level workflow is not a requirement just for Affinity; Figma, Corel, Autodesk, et al, - and even Adobe Illustrator - could make immediate use of this. It's what the users are calling out for and has resulted in some very interesting potentials fro us. Please keep an eye out for news from ourselves on this front. I hope that we can work as well with fellow UK companies as we have proven to work for years with our US counterparts... I have reached out to Serif and look forward to hearing from them.
Thanks,
Nick

Ooo, I sure I hope to hear good news from Serif on this!! 

Ooo, I sure I hope to hear good news from Serif on this!! 

I LOVE the tools Astute provides. I've used their trial period to work with many of them, but have only purchased a few as they're spendy! (Worth it, but spendy!) 
I would guess Affinity/Serif would just need to contact Astute and work out integration, but then let Astute provide the plugins. That way Affinity can stay the same price, and people can choose what plugins they want to buy from Astute.
 
I reached out to Astute to see if they'd be creating plugins for Affinity and this is their reply:
(Red and bold my emphasis.)
 
So how about it, Serif?? Are you going to contact Astute? Their plugins really rock, and this would really make huge strides in comparability between Illustrator and Designer. 
 
Here's their contact info:
enquiries@astutegraphics.com
Nicholas van der Walle
Managing Director

Astute Graphics Limited
Penn House, 9-10 Broad Street
Hereford HR4 9AP, ENGLAND
tel. +44 (0) 1432 341073

Rees, 
Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums. 
Thanks for looking that up for us.