37 comments

  • Paul BrophyPaul Brophy, 5 years ago

    Adobe really seem to be getting their act together with XD, and implementing much sought after features very quickly. There's a list of feature requests and what's in development here; https://adobexd.uservoice.com/forums/353007-adobe-xd-feature-requests.

    17 points
  • Ashraf AliAshraf Ali, 5 years ago

    Holy shit. Adobe is gonna rip apart the market.

    7 points
    • Samantha S, 5 years ago

      how so?

      2 points
      • Ashraf AliAshraf Ali, 5 years ago

        Let's say you are a company, and you already have Adobe Licenses. If XD is already in your license, why would you pay extra for Sketch licenses? Or pay for future Sketch upgrades? Or pay for InVision if feature parity for prototypes is reached?

        Those other tools will have to keep the competition going to keep Adobe competitive.

        In addition, Adobe has shown it can be responsive to the market. It iterates quickly and is giving users exactly what they want, listening closely. Plus, with cross-platform capability and existing interoperability between tools, the lock-in effect becomes that much more of a threat.

        Of course, if you are a tiny agency or a freelancer who needs only one or two tools and doesn't want to spend the money, Sketch and Invision and Figma still make sense. Adobe is still at the pricey end of the market. But even they can play price games if they want.

        Interesting developments to watch.

        11 points
        • Mike StevensonMike Stevenson, 5 years ago

          I’m down with the upgrades but I wouldn’t exactly say they’re fast. I tried XD about 6 months ago for a project and it left such a sour taste in my mouth compared to sketch that I’m scared to touch it again.

          That said, with this new sketch import option I may give it a little whirl to see what’s been improved.

          Quick edit: after looking at the support page it looks like it might not be such a fluid import experience: https://helpx.adobe.com/xd/kb/open-sketch-files-in-xd.html

          Partial support, partial support everywhere.

          3 points
          • Thomas Lowry, 5 years ago

            I can't think of a good reason to want to leave Sketch to use XD and its rudimentary/almost useless symbol system. XD is going to disrupt everything that was good in your file! Would be one thing if XD had the symbols thing figured out more than whats in the current implementation (which is basically Illustrator symbols with text overrides).

            1 point
          • Alexandru NăstaseAlexandru Năstase, 5 years ago

            As a logic exercise you were comparing a Beta state software to a minimum 4 years old stable software build slow and kinda on user feedback. Not defending Adobe here but it's like your comparing a bike to a car. Side Question - What do you do with Sketch in a large team where there are Mac & Windows users? This is their biggest downside. And yes at this point XD is lacking in symbols, if the sketch symbol system is brought into XD ... now that's another story.

            3 points
            • Mike StevensonMike Stevenson, 5 years ago

              Yeah and that's kind of my point. I realize it's a beta product, but so many people tout it as a full-on Sketch replacement. I'm not Adobe, but if I were, I probably would have waited for it to have some basic features before releasing it into the wild. I'm sure I'm not the only person who tasted it in the past and isn't highly motivated to go back.

              And I can't speak for having to move between Mac/Windows environments. So I don't really have an opinion there. Once XD catches up with Sketch, then good for them.

              3 points
            • Thomas Lowry, 5 years ago

              I am actually a Figma user, so cross-platform isn't difficult. Figma has been out of private beta for not that long and has a much more robust component system than arguably both of those tools, and comparable or better performance to boot. I would much rather use Figma or Sketch before I used XD (which also is no longer a Beta as of October), and is backed by the biggest producer of design tools for how long? Adobe will need to make many more improvements, and innovative features to win me back as a supporter, the post-Macromedia years, and subsequent migration to their CC platform was not fun: so much inconsistency between products and bugs. Its nice that there is a healthy dose of competition now, so it is nice to have choice. I would hope new features would be a priority for XD, before haphazardly importing Sketch files.

              1 point
        • Aaron SagrayAaron Sagray, 5 years ago

          The cost of a Sketch license is a rounding error for most companies.

          4 points
        • Account deleted 5 years ago

          Adobe has burned a lot of bridges. Their software is slow, clunky and ugly. They're known for stopping support of products. Don't buy into their PR.

          4 points
          • Luca Vavassori, 5 years ago

            Todd I suggest you give XD a try. Sketch will feel incredibly slow and clunky after getting used to XD, I promise. Still I agree Sketch is better on other levels, but I made XD my tool of choice and could not be happier at the moment, I just learned how to deal with its shortcomings. To me doing stuff faster is a top priority.

            3 points
            • Account deleted 5 years ago

              Nah I'm good. I'm fast enough with sketch already. Speed really isn't a priority for me.

              0 points
              • Mike AbbotMike Abbot, 5 years ago

                So first you say their sw is slow, but in the next response you say speed isn't a priority for you? :) I'm a Sketch user myself, but this hatred is just stupid.

                4 points
                • Account deleted 5 years ago

                  yeah what I meant is programs like Photoshop and Indesign are bloated and slow. Comparing sketch and XD is basically diminishing returns. They're so fast I can't see a difference.

                  0 points
                  • Luca Vavassori, 5 years ago

                    Did you try XD though? First you say you don't need to try it, now you say XD and Sketch are both fast, which implies you have tried XD.

                    2 points
                    • Account deleted 5 years ago

                      I did actually, got it last night and played around with it for a few hours. It seems the same as sketch, but with missing features. If you use it that's cool, it's just not for me. It's not worth changing my workflow (sketch+craft/invision+principle) to get back into adobe's stuff which at this point I've weaned myself off for fear of getting burnt again.

                      1 point
    • Alexandru NăstaseAlexandru Năstase, 5 years ago

      Indeed man!

      0 points
  • fsdgerh wrheherfsdgerh wrheher, 5 years ago

    I've used pretty much every design tool out there but XD still has my heart. I feel like the "desktop preview" is my most used function of the whole program and why I stick with it.

    6 points
    • Alexandru NăstaseAlexandru Năstase, 5 years ago

      Same here, did 2 projects in it up until now and it was just fast, clean and the developers really enjoyed it's simplicity.

      2 points
  • Kishore SKishore S, 5 years ago

    Is this really happening? OMG.

    2 points
  • Dragos Gavrila, 5 years ago

    All this, but you still can't open old Freehand files in Illustrator. Sad...

    1 point
  • Davin M., 5 years ago

    Is there any chance that Sketch also can open .xd files?

    1 point
    • Dragos Gavrila, 5 years ago

      Don't be silly. Why would they (Sketch team) bother with wasting time opening an inferior format in their app? Asking for a friend...

      1 point
      • Davin M., 5 years ago

        I will wait to see which is the inferior one in the future.

        2 points
      • Matt KelshMatt Kelsh, 5 years ago

        I don't know very much about how a .XD file is put together, but I do know that Sketch's file format is rubbish. Remember when you couldn't work off of dropbox?

        0 points
    • Alexandru NăstaseAlexandru Năstase, 5 years ago

      There's a convertor from PSD to Sketch from Avocode which does a good job but sketch doesn't open .XD files.

      1 point
  • Andrea Zager, 5 years ago

    Has anyone switched to using XD after using Sketch? If yes, what are the prons & cons for doing so....

    0 points
  • Xaris Rattas, 5 years ago

    As a Windows user, I would be willing to change my workflow from Photoshop/ InVision to XD. I think I could live with it's missing features... But since there are no hand-off options (either natively or via InVision collaboration), this would be useless. I guess I have to wait until Studio will become publicly available...

    0 points
  • Perttu Talasniemi, 5 years ago

    This is good news! But we still need the sticky elements for prototyping!

    0 points
  • Alexandru NăstaseAlexandru Năstase, 5 years ago

    The release details https://theblog.adobe.com/march-2018-update-adobe-xd/

    0 points