8 years ago from Eli Slade, Product Designer
Serif Labs just released an update to Affinity Designer and they're about to release Affinity Photo. I haven't used Affinity Designer for a few months and just did after this recent update, and all the gripes I've have with it before seem gone now. I'm considering ditching Adobe CC sub once Affinity Photo is released. I think Adobe may be in trouble. What do you guys think?
"I think Adobe may be in trouble. What do you guys think?"
Not from "mac only" software, it isn't.
Yeah I guess trouble isn't really the word I should have used. I meant that with more competition some of their user base might start to get smaller.
Rasmus Eriksson says "Between Sketch and Serif's two products I've got all I need." This is more of what I'm talking about. For more and more designers(with Macs) these new tools can be a replacement for Adobe CC. I don't seriously think Adobe is going to loose any very large percentage of their users anytime soon. Lots of people still rely on specific workflows and features that Adobe has. And some people just don't like to learn a whole new set of tools.
As for the uniqueness of Adobe cross platform approach. That is current not done by any other competition at the moment, and that is one of the bigger things it has going for it right now.
Haha. I kind of feel the same. Adobe has a huge hold on the market right now. I don't think that will change anytime soon, but with more heated competition. I can see Adobe loosing more customers in 2 to 3 years.
I think it also comes down to users and use cases. I’ve used Affinity’s betas and they’re great. Really solid and I’d highly recommend them for certain uses.
Could I use Affinity Designer for what I do? Absolutely not. It’s just not the right tool and isn’t focused on the workflow or problems I have.
That was exactly my feelings also. I'm glad that I'm on the same track with others.
Also lack of support and content, and high learning curve is a turn off.
Slightly off topic but Serif labs always makes me think of "Sarif Industries" from Deus Ex Human Revolution.
Competition is always good for us, the users!
Completely agree. Adobe has nearly regularly swooped in and gobbled competition (#macromedia and others), but existence of competition is quite welcomed.
Adobe will still be the king for professional agencies but for the lone-nomad-bedroom-designer-genius on a budget, applications such as Sketch 3, Pixelmator, Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo are an absolute gift from God.
Remember back in the day when the only text editor to be taken seriously was Dreamweaver? Well that soon changed.
I think the technical threshold for a design tool is higher than a text editor though. Far bigger project.
True but I'm just saying the great Adobe can topple.
I'm keen to move all my personal work to Affinity. I have Designer (haven't used it since the update though) and have only had a little play with the Photo beta, but i like what it is capable of. The real clincher for me will be Publish, as i do a lot of publication layouts etc. So far i haven't found anything to switch from indesign to, but I'm keen on that. Plus, their price point...
Affinity Designer and Photo are both amazing, but I can't see them troubling Adobe. If the competition proves to be too strong, they'll do what Adobe do best and either a) buy out that competition, or b) copy the best features, poorly, but with just enough effort to stop their user base jumping ship (see: Photoshop Design Space).
The thing is, Adobe can't copy the biggest advantages their competitors have: which are speed (if it were an option, they would have done it by now) and price. Their CC suite used to cost several thousand dollars, depending om the version - you can get affinity's 3 suite app for $100 (when publisher releases).
I totally agree, and ditched Adobe myself over a year ago for exactly that reason. But Adobe is a household name, and has a reputation (however untruthful) of being the best in the business. It would be hard to persuade a company which produces it's entire output in Adobe software to shell out money for something which provides identical functionality based on speed alone. With that in mind I can't see other products eating into Adobe's market share any time soon.
For me it's easy.
When I started out in the late 90s, I chose Fireworks (I miss Macromedia!) over Photoshop. I liked the UI better and I got used to a workflow which simply wasn't possible with Photoshop. Drag a corner to manipulate a rectangle? Easy. A layer per object? Of course.
I used Fireworks "until the end" because I was used to it. I realise Photoshop was and is much more powerful, but I could never get comfortable with it. When version 3 of Sketch was finally released, I made the move and I'm so happy about it. I will "never" (never say never*) go back to Adobe, simply because I don't need it.
Between Sketch and Serif's two products I've got all I need. I will probably never be an accomplished, revered designer and I will most likely never be head of design at Apple, so I'm okay with this choice.
I don't think Adobe will be in trouble anytime soon, but there's certainly a trend with these newer, smaller apps.
I hope they get better and better competition, but I also Adobe will still stay for a long long time. The apps have such a strong position in what they do, you can not combine this in 1 single app to do that.
Also the settings for exporting and printing (I know: its is a lot) makes it very powerful to make it do exactly what you want it does.
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