An Expanded Studio Link: The Graphics Application That Unites It All

Although I certainly have no special knowledge regarding October 30, I think a single unified app is unlikely.

On the side of agreement, all of the code is already there. It is only the User Interface that segregates function into 3 separate apps. Also, there is Studio Link as a predecessor, and this has been a resounding success.

However, I think creating a single app instead of three is unlikely.

1) The user interface for such an app could be a disaster. So much function shoehorned into a single UI. Think of APhoto - it already has 4 Personas with icons, plus Personas for focus merge, HDR, astrophotography, and panoramas. Add the other two apps (each with their own complex interfaces) and the result could easily be somewhere well on the wrong side of confusing.

2) A single unified app would require Serif/Canva to double or triple the price of such an app. If they did not, revenue would plummet. The only other obvious option to maintain revenue is a subscription, and I believe that this is even less likely.

3) Although I own Designer and Publisher, I use them only rarely. For me, Photo is what I work in 98+% of the time. I purchased the other two primarily to give support to Serif and because they were relatively inexpensive. I imagine that there are a lot of people out there, like me, who really only want the function of one of the three apps. Can you convince them that buying all three, at 2 or 3 times the price and with a more complicated interface, is a good idea? Sounds like an uphill battle to me.

So, time will tell and there’s less than 2 weeks until we all find out what the Affinity folks have up their collective sleeves. I would be surprised if it were a single app. (But I've been surprised before!)

I hope it is not all online.

I just now looked at the Canva website for the first time and I see why they like Discord.

Quote from Tom

I hope it is not all online.

I just now looked at the Canva website for the first time and I see why they like Discord.

And today's outage of AWS services showed what a disaster an online-only version would be for professional use. For example, Canva (like a good chunk of other internet services) was down for several hours. Imagine, you're on a deadline and you can't finish your work because of another outage of the online services.