Kiarian

Canva is a subscription model, as Serif inform us themselves. So much for the 'No Subscriptions' tagline. We'll be 'allowed' to keep our current version, then from the next 0.1 revision we'll be offered a discount. 

The writing is on the wall. Serif have sold out.

Canva is a subscription model, as Serif inform us themselves. So much for the 'No Subscriptions' tagline. We'll be 'allowed' to keep our current version, then from the next 0.1 revision we'll be offered a discount. 

The writing is on the wall. Serif have sold out.

Canva is a subscription model, as Serif inform us themselves. So much for the 'No Subscriptions' tagline. We'll be 'allowed' to keep our current version, then from the next 0.1 revision we'll be offered a discount. 

The writing is on the wall. Serif have sold out.

Canva is a subscription model, as Serif inform us themselves. So much for the 'No Subscriptions' tagline. We'll be 'allowed' to keep our current version, then from the next 0.1 revision we'll be offered a discount. 

The writing is on the wall. Serif have sold out.

Don't delude yourself, the majority of your user base are here because Adobe embraced the morally bankrupt Software as a Service model and they looked for a perpetual license alternative, and for no other reason. You touted perpetual licenses front and centre, and as someone who works for a multi-national software and services company I know that if you betray your customer base's trust they do not forgive and they do not forget lightly.
I dropped Adobe like a stone the moment they went Software as a Service, the model of "rent your software, pay for eternity, spend thousands, and the moment you stop paying you have NOTHING". I will never RENT my software, software ISN'T a service, it's an end product.
I dropped Abode and never looked back, I dropped Cinema 4D like a stone when they went to a subscription model (after saying they would offer both perpetual and subscription models together... which lasted all of 2 years) and never looked back.
Rest assured I, and quite likely a very large percentage of your user base, will drop you like a stone and move on should Affinity go to a subscription model, because your perpetual licensing is the only thing that attracted us to your software over Abode.

The fact that you sold yourselves (didn't even go into partnership) after only two months of starting a conversation rings alarm bells, you are now a subsidiary, you are no longer the master of your own destiny, you are a servant, only able to doff your cap and say "yes sir" at Canva's command.
Excuse the cynicism, but we have lived this software story FAR too many times before, and it has never ended well. I hope this will be the exception to the rule. Actions speak louder than words. We shall wait to see what SaaS company Canva's actions turn out to be.

Perhaps a written declaration, a "verbal contract" if you will, between yourselves and your customers that your software will NEVER drop its perpetual license model, and that its pricing will never be inflated to such unreasonable levels to try and force people on to a future parallel subscription service?

Canva is a subscription model, as Serif inform us themselves. So much for the 'No Subscriptions' tagline. We'll be 'allowed' to keep our current version, then from the next 0.1 revision we'll be offered a discount. 

The writing is on the wall. Serif have sold out.

Canva is a subscription model, as Serif inform us themselves. So much for the 'No Subscriptions' tagline. We'll be 'allowed' to keep our current version, then from the next 0.1 revision we'll be offered a discount. 

The writing is on the wall. Serif have sold out.

We were sold version 2 on the understanding that all point releases would be free. If 2.5 turns out to be a paid upgrade, huge swathes of users will abandon ship.

Excellent. Thanks to James and the team. 

Excellent. Any chance we'll be getting a new series of Workbooks? I really need some new book smell in my life. 

In the same way that Adobe (pantomime boooooooooo) does their acredited certification for Photoshop/Illustrator etc, does Affinity have any plans in the future to do their own 'Affinity Certified' certificate? You could have a foundation, intermediate and advanced level. I would most definitely be interested!

My bad. Just read that totally wrong on the phone 📱 I'll give myself a slap. 

Excellent. Any chance we'll be getting a new series of Workbooks? I really need some new book smell in my life. 

Excellent. Any chance we'll be getting a new series of Workbooks? I really need some new book smell in my life. 

Excellent. Any chance we'll be getting a new series of Workbooks? I really need some new book smell in my life. 

Hello all, we're proud to announce that alongside the V2 launch of the Affinity apps, we've produced a completely new set of video tutorials to compliment the apps. These tutorials are all produced in-house by our Product Experts team.
We've worked incredibly hard on these videos, and feel they represent a huge jump in both technical and presentational quality. Hopefully you all agree! The old V1 videos—now considered legacy—are still available on YouTube, consolidated into one playlist. The link for this playlist is available at the bottom of this post.
Hope you all find the new tutorials useful!
What's New (Overview of V2)
What's New in Affinity Publisher 2 What's New in V2 for iPad Basics
Interface Overview (New: 22/03/24) Placing Images Transforming Layers Adjustment Layers Packaging Collecting Resources Linked and Embedded Resources Page Numbering Style Picker Advanced
Smart Master Pages Studio Presets Section Manager Auto Flow Notes Quick Grid Books IDML Import Opening, Editing and Importing PDFs Marquee Select Intersection Stroke Panel Rulers, Columns & Column Guides PDF Password Protection (New: 30/11/23) Tags Panel for Alternative Text (New: 30/11/23) Layer States (New: 20/03/24) Text Tools
Linked Text Frames Text Wrapping Text on a Path Hyphenation and Spelling Dictionaries Running Headers Pinning (New: 05/07/23) StudioLink - Designer and Photo Interworking
Designer Persona: Vector Drawing Photo Persona: Brushing Photo Persona: Live Filters Designer Persona: Multi Stroke and Fill Placing and developing RAW images Workflows & Techniques
OpenAsset Integration  

iPad Tutorials
Photo Persona: Paint Brush Tool Placing Images Designer Persona: Vector Drawing Command Controller Auto Flow Smart Master Pages Text Wrapping Linked Text Frames IDML Import Packaging Exporting and PDF Publishing  
Legacy V1 Tutorials
Desktop

I agree with what you're saying. The only reason I want a 'convert selection to vector' is to convert random/organic patterns to a vector shape. While it's a good skill to be able to create your very own stylish looking stencil from an image using the pen tool, when I just want to get a few shapes for cracks/explosion holes/rusted metal outlines, scratches etc etc, I just want to select the shape and convert. It takes away from being creative having to spend so long individually tracing out random shapes. Sometimes you just want to use a shape for reference, bang - convert to shape, job done, then move on to the rest of your design.

The roadmap was great tool that gave hope and worked as a push for new users to invest time in learning the apps, with a future vision of a basic set of functions that would allow the ability to take a job from concept to completion - but another few months and it's seven years since Designers release and still the same void + workarounds - VectorStyler was released last week with a complete set of functions, (although not as pleasurable to use as Affinity) - I'm now seriously considering investing time in learning VS so I can just crack on with producing real vector artwork without a load of workarounds

I am a big supporter to official certification systems dedicated to affinity. 
I understand that mostly all the members of this forum are graphics and designers, and like it was pointed out, to convince a client to start a specific job, it is more useful showing a good portfolio than some kind of certification. 
But, there are jobs where this isn't right, and instead showing a certification is preferred to showing a good portfolio ( as strange as it may appear ). This is what happens in selections for schools and universities. I teach at the university and in this environment, while being good in your own right is always appreciated, for many positions the main interest is that the one who applies know very well specific software. In this case having certain certification is a huge boost, because the main goal is not to produce something for clients, but to be able to use very well specific tools and also to be able to teach them to the studens. I understand that a good portfolio is fantastic, but not always a good portfolio is also a good evidence of a deep mastery of a certain software or specific workflow. To produce good art it's not mandatory to know every little detail of a software. I know people who did graphics for 20 years and still don't know the math behind the blending modes; but when you teach it, I think that knowing as much as possibile of everything ( even at the cost of possessing a less exciting personal portfolio ) is way better. Ones students will not necessarily do the same works as their teachers, and they deserve to be supported as much as possible to find their own path in the industry, and this often means that the teacher needs to be able to know a bit of everything, answer different kinds of questions or at leat guide the students to a proper answer though other means ( books, megazines, other professors, internet sources and so on ).
Certification usually evaluate this fact, not that one person is particulary good at some specific operations, but that overall he can move in the software environment, and also has a decent grasp over different theoretical aspects of it. It is not a final goal to say "I know graphics. I know everything", but a starting point to say "ok I have a solid foundation, and I also have a proof". From this point one can show more proofs like personal projects and more, acquiring more credibility as a teacher.
Also I think that concerning this the more the merrier, and even if affinity may be perceived as less famous than others, it could still increase the "points" of a particular curricula. Also if teachers starts to teach affinity in schools and universities more often, this could also increase the user base over time. 

Neither Affinity Photo or Designer are 3D painting applications. You're not going to beat the free Quixel Mixer, which is insanely powerful and has yet another update today. Kirk23 makes a great point that if the Affinity software is going to have any sort of gaming specific functions, it should compliment these 3D painting applications. It's not trying to compete with them. I also noticed today that both Affinity Photo and Designer now have NVIDIA accelerated features. Nice!

As an artist who works for games  I would be perfectly ok  without 3d paint.     There are lots of cheap or even free 3d painting soft around.    I'd rather like Serif make A Photo and Design useful  in gamedev  with  layer comps allowing to export  color /roughness/normal from a same  document with easy switch,   make  transform links to set material depth based  blending and material compositing ,  maybe  node UI for procedural filter with input from  different layers ,   height to normal live filter,  normal to curvature live filter,  warp offset live filter  and so on.     
In a word there lots of features that would make it popular in gamedev  before  3d painting.

In the same way that Adobe (pantomime boooooooooo) does their acredited certification for Photoshop/Illustrator etc, does Affinity have any plans in the future to do their own 'Affinity Certified' certificate? You could have a foundation, intermediate and advanced level. I would most definitely be interested!

Well yes of course, however it depends on what sort of job you are applying for.
Overall, it demonstrates that you have another skill set, have successfully attended a course and received the official accreditation, and more than likely if the company doesn't use Affinity software, that you'll be able to pick up whatever they do use, quickly.
Not everyone who uses Affinity or Adobe are professionals in the field of, say, graphic design, however knowing how to use the programs might just give you an edge over someone else as there maybe an element of it in the role.
At the end of the day, it's hardly a big issue is it? Merely something the company could arrange so that new learners have a course to use to learn how to use the program, and receive a certificate at the end of it. Just a small, positive thing.

In the same way that Adobe (pantomime boooooooooo) does their acredited certification for Photoshop/Illustrator etc, does Affinity have any plans in the future to do their own 'Affinity Certified' certificate? You could have a foundation, intermediate and advanced level. I would most definitely be interested!

You can specify a unit if you want to, but it won’t help! Entering +6pt when your document units are pixels will give you the same result as entering +8px (i.e. it will still end up being treated as if you’d specified a scaling amount).