I bought Affinity Designer for iPad - Tell me why I should also buy the Mac version

[CT-Scott]

Hello everyone.  After using and loving vector design using Paint Shop Pro for Windows many years ago, I bought an iPad Pro 9.7 (with Pencil) about a year or so ago and wanted to get back into doing some vector design. The other day I bought Affinity Designer for iPad and have been going through a tutorial I bought on Udemy, and have been having fun with it.  Because the price is so much more affordable than Adobe Illustrator (and less expensive than Sketch, too), I've thought about buying the "desktop" version as well for my MacBook Pro.  Do I even need to, or might I be happy enough just sticking with the iPad version?  I'm thinking that it could be easier/quicker to point and click on node points with a mouse and my MacBook, but I'd be curious to hear what others think.

I've read that the UI between the iPad and desktop versions is quite a bit different, but I'm assuming (?) that it would still be a lot easier to move between the two apps compared to, say, buying Sketch for my MacBook.  Or should I consider buying Sketch instead?

On a separate note, does anyone with past Paint Shop Pro experience have any recommendations for how I can get my layered vector PSP files moved over to Affinity Designer?

[gdenby]

Hi, CT-Scott,

There is a good bit of difference between the iPad UI layout, and the desktop. I don't use the iPad anywhere near as much as the desktop, and so spend a good bit pf time fumbling around looking for where a particular feature is. W. practice, its getting better. 

There are a few things the iPad version doesn't have that the desktop does, but otherwise, the functionality is there.

I've been using mouse and keyboard for decades now, and the gesture based interface seems odd to me. 

The pencil is a great tool, I really like using it on the iPad. It is much better than the Huion tablet and stylus I use, tho' that is decent. I do some work on the iPad just to use the pencil, and then transfer the file to the desktop.

 

[v_kyr]

Hard to tell, you have to try out by your own so you are more secure here in making a decision. Thus I would recommend to test via an Affinity Designer try out version which will run for 10 days then.

1 hour ago, CT-Scott said:

any recommendations for how I can get my layered vector PSP files moved over to Affinity Designer?

You have to use some interchangable vector file format, one PSP can write and AD can read (you can try with Ai, EPS, PDF, SVG as far as PSP can export/write any of these).

[CT-Scott]

Thanks for the replies so far.

For anyone else that may care, I was able to get my old Paint Shop Pro for Windows (v7, I think) up and running and did a little experimentation.  It had an option to export to PSD, but didn't maintain the vector layers.  There was no option for exporting to AI, and I didn't have much success with the other formats that it supported.  I did some more Googling and found an app (Windows only, I think) called reaConverter which supports converting PSP files to other formats.  I didn't have any luck converting to AI (if I remember, it pretty much converted it to a raster image), but I did have some luck using that app to convert it to an SVG file.  It did some funky things in the process, though, like converting a lot of rectangle images to other shapes.  For the most part, though, it seemed to do a decent job.  It looks like reaConverter costs $50, and since I don't have too many files I need to convert, I may look around for other options.

Getting back to the desktop vector app...I'd be interested in hearing some opinions regarding Affinity Designer vs Sketch vs Adobe Illustrator (and any others worth mentioning).  It seems like using Affinity Designer for the desktop, aside from being less expensive, *should* make moving workflows between the iPad and desktop easier, but if that's not true, let me know.  Adobe Illustrator, being the industry standard, would be nice to have experience with, but it's hard to justify the cost (certainly right now while I'm mostly using these apps for fun).

[Alfred]

9 minutes ago, CT-Scott said:

It seems like using Affinity Designer for the desktop, aside from being less expensive, *should* make moving workflows between the iPad and desktop easier, but if that's not true, let me know.  Adobe Illustrator, being the industry standard, would be nice to have experience with, but it's hard to justify the cost (certainly right now while I'm mostly using these apps for fun).

Opening any Affinity file in any Affinity app (Mac, Windows or iPad) is generally painless. The Affinity apps cannot read Adobe’s proprietary Illustrator format, so they can only import the content from the PDF stream in AI files which have been saved with the option to include that stream.

[MEB]

Hi CT-Scott,
Welcome to Affinity Forums
Sketch is a more specialised tool, geared towards web/user interface design although nothing stops you from using it for illustration too. Designer covers a little more ground and also lets you use raster based tools (including raster based brushes as well as vector based ones - it includes two engines) along with vectors and mix both to create hybrid illustrations and graphic (non-heavy text based) design projects (for print). It doesn't provide prototyping/plugins as Sketch at this point so it depends a little on what you want to do with the program. If you are more inclined to graphic design, Illustrator still offers tools/features missing from Affinity Designer (mesh gradients, perspective and warp distortions, fitting text to frames/objects, some 3d extrusions/functions etc). We hope to add some of them in upcoming updates but as you noted it's quite more expensive then Designer in the long them. From your post above seems you want to create some illustrations/designs for fun. If that's the case Affinity is a good option for these purposes.

The advantage of having both the iPad and desktop versions is that you can exchange files between them using our own native format which supports all functionalities/features our programs offer, keeping everything editable. You can also take advantage of the integration between the programs of the Affinity Suite if later you decide to acquire Affinity Photo for example to use its live filters in Affinity Designer (which can then be edited in Designer without the need to switch back to Photo).

[CT-Scott]

Thanks for the helpful reply MEB.

OK, so I went ahead and purchased the "desktop" version of Affinity Designer also (via the iTunes/App store).  I see that it set up a link to my iCloud drive (which I just recently turned on yesterday and which caused me a good deal of confusion/angst).  On my iPad, the first few projects I created with Designer I had saving locally.  I just switched the default settings on the iPad to save to iCloud.  But if I go into one of my existing projects and duplicate it or save it again, it's not pushing it to iCloud.  Only brand new projects are getting pushed to my iCloud folder.  How do I get my existing projects to start saving to my iCloud drive?

Another experiment: I saved a new project, which saved it as "Untitled" to iCloud.  I then renamed it on my iPad, but the name change didn't carry over to the iCloud drive on my laptop.  I then pushed a Save on the iPad and I saw a cloud symbol appear briefly next to the file in Finder on my laptop (indicating that it was syncing something), but it still didn't rename the file.  That feels like a bug to me.

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, CT-Scott said:

How do I get my existing projects to start saving to my iCloud drive?

OK, this is going to sound convoluted (because it is) but one way to do this

1. Open the Files app on the iPad
2. If it isn't already set to Location > On My iPad, on the Browse side-panel, tap On My iPad
3. Tap the Designer folder icon
4. Tap Select, tap the file(s) you want to move to iCloud Drive, & tap "Move" at the bottom of the screen.
5. Tap "iCloud Drive" & tap any of the displayed folders -- the one named "Affinity Designer is a good choice
6. Tap "Copy" at the top of the screen -- you can't actually move the file(s), just copy them
7. If you want, go back to "On My iPad" & delete the iPad copy of the file

2 hours ago, CT-Scott said:

Another experiment: I saved a new project, which saved it as "Untitled" to iCloud.  I then renamed it on my iPad, but the name change didn't carry over to the iCloud drive on my laptop. {...} That feels like a bug to me.

It isn't a bug, at least not in Affinity. It, like the convoluted move/copy procedure above, is the result of Apple's 'walled garden' security/privacy restrictions Apple places on iPad (actually all iOS) files. Basically, this is because the iOS Files app is a feature-reduced (some say crippled) version of the Mac Finder that restricts access to only certain kinds of files on the iPad, & restricts the access of iOS apps themselves to files each app "owns."

[CT-Scott]

Thanks RC-R.  So I just went through and experimented a bit, and I *think* I understand it better now.  While you're probably right that the convoluted aspect of all of this is mostly Apple's fault, it does seem like Affinity could tweak some on-screen descriptions here and there to make it a little clearer.

FWIW, the Files app wouldn't let me move/copy anything into the Affinity Designer folder on my iCloud drive.  I manually created a new folder (on my MacBook) and I was able to move/copy the files that way.

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, CT-Scott said:

FWIW, the Files app wouldn't let me move/copy anything into the Affinity Designer folder on my iCloud drive.

I don't have any problems doing that but I have seen reports from people that do. Unfortunately, I don't know what the cause or solution is.