App developer Serif today launched Affinity Designer for iPad [Direct Link], a precise vector graphic design tool that aims to help users create marketing materials, websites, icons, user interface designs, concept art, and more, all without needing to be tied to a desktop computer.

The new app is based off the similarly titled Affinity Designer software available for Mac, and now optimized for iPad with Metal enhancements, full Apple Pencil support for drawing with pressure, tilt, and angle, and iCloud Drive integration for file storage and sharing.

affinity designer
When creating a design, Serif notes that panning and zooming is always live at 120 frames per second, and there are live gradients, transforms, effects, and adjustments available during the creation process. The app supports a split screen mode, wireframe view, and live pixel and retina view of vector artwork.

In terms of color and output features, Affinity Designer for iPad supports the professional CMYK, LAB, RGB, and Grayscale color models, as well as full 16-bit per channel editing and end-to-end ICC color management. Check out more of the app's features below:

- Seamless switching between tools and editing modes for frustration-free design.
- Advanced Lanczos 3 image resampling plus Bicubic, Bilinear and Nearest Neighbor methods.
- Live effects, blend modes, image adjustments, and raster and vector masks for any part of your design.
- Use the strengths of vector and raster behaviours for the best of both worlds.
- The best pen tool, pencil tool, corner tool, curve editing, geometry operations, and smart shape tools available.
- High quality raster tools for texturing, masking and finishing artwork. Create your own brushes too.
- Artboards, symbols, constraints and stored assets give the ultimate flexibility for UI and graphic design.

In February, Serif updated its Affinity Photo iPad app with a suite of powerful features, including the ability to shoot in RAW or HDR video directly within the app. At the end of last year, Apple awarded Affinity Photo as iPad App of the Year for 2017.

Affinity Designer is available for iPad Pro, iPad Air 2, and iPad (early 2017 and newer) for $13.99 [Direct Link], and requires iOS 11 or later.

Top Rated Comments

ck2875 Avatar
95 months ago
Honestly this was an instant buy for me. Designer with Apple Pencil will make this so insanely powerful. Serif makes great apps and they aren't trying to fleece users with the subscription model nonsense that is plaguing the App Store.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ck2875 Avatar
95 months ago
Is this cross compatible with the Mac version and does it use continuity by any chance? Since it doesn't seem to be mentioned outright, I suspect not, but that would be very useful to me.
Not sure about Continuity, but I was able to easily open my .Designer files created on the Mac version and stored in iCloud Drive.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
macduke Avatar
95 months ago
I was hoping they would charge more! The iPad probably doesn't deserve this app. I've been following this closely for the past year or so when they first teased it and I will be going home for lunch today just so that I can install this on my iPad and try it out as I forgot to put it in my bag. What a treat! I've been considering shutting off my Adobe CC account to use this software full-time (and I have an Adobe subscription at work as a fallback) and I think I'm going to try that now. I've purchased the Mac versions of both and this will make it easier to move between devices when working on a project. Now my only wish is that Serif would make my dreams come true and release a real replacement for Lightroom that syncs photos to iCloud and/or Dropbox across macOS and iOS and I could ditch Adobe entirely!
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Abazigal Avatar
95 months ago
Always great to see more pro apps coming to the iPad.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
grahamwright1 Avatar
95 months ago
Just purchased - this should be an awesome app!
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
tubular Avatar
95 months ago
This app is a delight on the Mac. Looking forward to trying it on the iPad.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)

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