Affinity Publisher 2 for iPad

I never expected the iPad apps to be so unlimited and so feature rich. It’s not any compromise to work on the iPad with this app.

Love using it for the publications I have been working on. Affordable, and works well. No glitches. Worth getting!

I want to love this part of the suite as much as I do Designer and Photo..but honestly Affinity Publisher is CONSTANTLY crashing! I’m running on an ipad pro M1 so it clearly isn’t a performance issue. I am writing this review to help another avoid starting a project with this app before it becomes stable. I hope there will be an update soon. Features are always appreciated but a solid base is always essential. (Suggestion : at least put a short cut save option other than having to exit the doc. It would be appreciated on all the three apps.)

I use Affinity designer a lot love it! Thought this one would live up to Affinity designer quality but nope! Can not make files when adding own photos in program crashes, and loses all saved progress. Because you have to leave the file to save the file, (that should be updated and should be in the file menu to save within the file) to help at least keep progress with all the crashes… As well the file save PDF file is not working! Keep saving as an error document. Very frustrating! The app version is not good at all. Stick to the computer one. Not worth spending the money. I have tried many routes since July 2023 (2 months) to get my book to work and has not with the save problems and continual crashes. Which has left me to now having to restart the entire thing book from scratch. Definitely not impressed.

I hate to post a negative review, but this software is so infuriating to use. It crashes or glitches frequently, and randomly, has poor/no documentation, and “support” is attrocious due to their insistence on using forums, rather than a proper ticketing system. The Good: You can transfer files between desktop and iPad to work on them how and as you need. You pay once for the whole fricking suite. The Bad: Did you want palm rejection or gesture control settings? Tough. The system is set to work in one way and tough luck if you need to disable or change anything. Did you want to draw without the colour picker popping up? Tough. There are no settings for it, so it sucks to be you. Did you want to draw a vector line using a brush? Go for it. Then go back and pick the brush again because the software refuses to let you actually draw using anything other than a plain, round vector brush, so you have to then pick the brush afterwards. Again. What’s that? You changed the stroke width before choosing the brush you just changed to? Well, you’ll have to change the stroke weight again because every brush has a different default stroke weight and ignores the current setting. Did you want to add a gradient to an object or shape? Go to the FX section and set it up exactly how you want. What’s that? You want to change the direction of the gradient, maybe to make it vertical instead of horizontal? Tough. That setting doesn’t exist. Did you want to change the colour you’ve selected? Well, go wild … up until it glitches and decides to snap back to the previous colour every. single. time. (The only work around I’ve found is closing the document and going back into it, which is great up until it starts doing it again 20 seconds later. Lather, rinse, repeat.) Did you want to know how something works? Go to their website and look through the wonderful, text-based documentation. What’s that? You want to actually have images to go along with the “step-by-step” instructions? Sucks to be you. Did you want to know how something works specifically on the iPad? Fat chance of that happening. If it ain’t on the quick guide, you’re up a creek. Nevermind that the interface is quite different, you’re on your own. Did you want to duplicate a layer? Try tapping on the later to bring up the menu … oh, you wanted things like copy/paste, clear layer and duplicate layer there? HA! It’s hidden in a squirrely menu at the top of the screen, because that makes sense and is intuitive. Supposedly. F

It is an amazing and very powerful app. It is very fast and responsive. You can work on a same file with desktop and iPad version. The UI can be much better.

Not enough intuitive design. Impossible to find the fill feature for text boxes and shapes. Text is clunky, very poor support for Bluetooth keyboard, constantly stops working in app (but works elsewhere). Overall not enough thought on the simple stuff. Very disappointed.

I have not had any problems with the iPad version other than I wish Apple had a better font manager built in. Affinity has really made my iPad a viable work tool now. This is the only professional layout on IOS iPad I know of and I look forward to it developing even more features and adding the couple of missing ones present on the desktop version. I switched to Affinity years ago and I like how they work and how responsive they have been when I had a problem. This app might finally let me get rid of my laptop for travelling.

But for now I wish I could bill Affinity for the hours I spent redoing client work when the most random actions somehow corrupts the file and causes the app to crash and crash and crash

Every freaking time I needed to do something, there was always a way, even if it took a 20 second google search to figure it out! So blown away by the amount of features this one app provides!