Affinity Publisher 2 for iPad

This software is so unusable, it is the opposite of user friendly. I use the desktop version quite successfully, and got this because I thought I could make changes on the move, but a simple thing like changing the boarders on a table is painful to say the least. Do not buy, just take your laptop with you, waste of money

Having previously been a professional graphic artist for 16 years and in need of a professional suite of graphic design and publishing Apps I discovered Affinity Suite. All three Apps are excellent, packed with features, great support and community, a wealth of official and third party filters, textures etc. The user interface is excellent too and very easy to transition to from the likes of Ad**e (which is my background). The one off payment licence option is incredible value and allows you to download all the versions you want (Mac, iPad, PC etc). I use mostly Designer for vector illustrating and Publisher for (no surprise here) publishing illustrated books. Photo is also excellent but I’ve yet to properly delve into it. I’m still learning the Apps using the excellent Workbooks as reference when I get stuck. I can’t recommend this suite enough.

The Affinity suite is incredibly ambitious. It’s amazing being able to design booklets on an iPad! The interface has a lot of quirks. Primarily it is extremely low contrast shades of grey. It is often hard to tell if a button or toggle is on or off. That coupled with the fact that often the highlighted buttons are actually off. There’s a lack of consistency (different icons meaning the same thing and highlight states are opposite) and some menus and preference panes contain far too many settings in one place, and preference panes are not aligned. It’s a designer’s/dyslexic’s nightmare! There is no use of colour in the UI, which would instantly solve the low contrast accessibility issues (it entirely fails WCAG contrast checks). The only colour is used in the tools. Slightly naff looking icons that don’t require colour (Superpaint, Photoshop etc. etc.) I’d hoped for a bit of refinement in V2, but the focus has been on features. With a more usable and consistent UI, this app could achieve the quality of the Adobe products it is punching against, and earn a rightly deserved 4-5 stars. My current 3 stars may seem harsh for the work and love that’s clearly been put in so far, but if you’re making a product to design with, you need a designer to design the interface.

Love the app, but it crashes on iPad 2020

I noticed upon making a document, I can only insert a number of images before it won’t let me anymore. Then I will make a new document and it’s totally random on if it lets me insert them or not. I bought this app with the promise of inserting images. I’d appreciate a refund or some help with this problem or some insight at all

Doesn’t work well on iPad when using stage manger , it crashes every time when trying to use two open applications at the same time.

I cannot get it to export, it is driving me insane. One out of 200 times I might accidentally get to the export page but that‘s about it. Seriously guys, fix your bugs for ipad. You‘re the only thing we‘ve got ffs.

Promised to update my review if and when basic missing features were added (ie. import PDFs without breaking paragraphs of text into hundreds of individual text boxes,etc). Happily, Affinity is now adding the basic features users expect of a top publishing app and it’s starting to deserve a seat alongside Affinity Photo and Designer. In all the apps there remain a list of unintuitive oddities that logic alone will not solve, requiring you to keep having to hit the astonishingly poor range of practical help and support videos. Support documentation is so terrible that you’re forced to search for third party solutions, ALL of which seem to be horrible! It’s also the ONLY app I know which places your work at risk (1990s style) by NOT SAVING what you’ve created (‘live’ seems to mean ‘unsaved’), forcing you to manually keep saving, and it keeps asking if you want to overwrite previous versions or ‘save as…’, leaving you confused and unsure if your work is safe. It’s another illogical, confusing workflow, but I know the team trying to simplifying things. Affinity publisher 2 gets 4 stars from me because it’s obvious that the developers are working hard to create - what will undoubtedly become - the No.1 publishing/design/photo apps in the world, and that effort absolutely deserves our patience and support!

08 Sep 23: Update: So, finally, after many months, & an update of criticism, finally, but; “and what?” The upgrade path does not answer the question: ‘Loyal Users’ who got you off your feet to where you are! 01 Sep 23: NO response received on any sort of decent pricing structure for loyal users (from V.1.0) who helped you grow, make the apps what they are, then? Shame: It tells people everything they need to know for when Version 3.0 arrives in the future (although, I imagine by that time, it’ll be closer to £299.99 for the package). The reviews at this price point are quite frankly, shocking! I’m looking for alternatives (not CreativeCloud etc.) ORIGINAL REVIEW: … is more about what I’d pay as a V. 1.0 ‘Upgrader’. It’s still relatively young in its version 2.0 cycle, so, understandably there’ll be issues, for a while. (I’m not sure if/what the beta programme was, but you’d think they’d iron out a lot of issues, no?) Now, see; I’m not criticising the app suite, I’m simply giving an opinion. So, team, no need to jump in with any comments, I’m convinced it’ll get there, and I’ll be on board. Final comment: Version 1.0 Users have been there from the start. They’ve helped to shape the scenery and the nomenclature of the apps. Therefore; by all means - new users - £169.99 ☑ Loyal users - £89.99 Max 👍🏻

This is pretty poor. It won’t even allow me to import documents from Drive or Dropbox or even from my files on iPad. It just doesn’t react to anything selected. Such a waste of time EDIT: I’m not sure why the developer has posted the generic “We’re sorry to hear about your bad experience. Please contact us” message. I contacted them multiple times before leaving this review and they basically told me to push off. Once they’ve got your money, they don’t care at all. Definitely avoid this App!!