Serif Updates Affinity Apps for 'Superfast Performance' With M1 Chip

Following Apple's unveiling this week of Macs with the M1 chip, Serif has released new versions of its Affinity apps for Mac that include support for macOS Big Sur and compatibility with Apple Silicon machines.

affinity designer running on macos big sur

This means that Affinity Designer, Affinity Photo, and Affinity Publisher can be installed and run on Apple's latest 13-inch MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and Mac mini without using Apple's Rosetta 2 translation layer.

Serif says that its suite of apps are now actively optimized for the M1 chip, "making Affinity apps the first professional creative applications to offer native ‌M1‌ support."

This is great news for our users because the architecture of the M1, particularly having such a high-performance GPU with unified memory with the CPU, is perfect for professional creative applications. The advantages are particularly noticeable when working on documents with thousands of pixel layers, vector objects and text. Edits to pixel layers are best handled on the GPU, while vector and text on the CPU, so when you have unified memory, it allows much faster handling of these complex documents.

With the new ‌M1‌ ‌MacBook Air‌, Serif reports a three-times speed increase when using its software. Mac customers with the ‌M1‌ can apparently expect a smoother, more responsive user experience when painting, pixel editing, using filter effects, document rendering, and more.

‌M1‌ also allows many more elements such as adjustment layers and live filters to be maintained before performance is constrained, allowing for a more non-destructive workflow, even in complex documents.

The 1.8.6 update for Affinity apps on macOS is now available.

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Top Rated Comments

xxray Avatar
61 months ago
Affinity has always been innovative and quick to be innovative. Their philosophy since day 1 of really optimizing performance for Apple devices, along with no subscriptions, really is so commendable. I can’t wait for the day that I get to try using their products on Apple Silicon Macs.
Score: 21 Votes (Like | Disagree)
James_C Avatar
61 months ago
Affinity Photo is a great App, used that to replace Photoshop three years ago. I have not looked back.
Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)
RFolk Avatar
61 months ago
Awesome Affinity. Probably one of the best alternative to Adobe at the moment . (with an affordable price)
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)
citysnaps Avatar
61 months ago
Sadly, Affinity still does not have an Adobe Lightroom equivalent. Still hoping for the future.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
b656 Avatar
61 months ago
Optimized for M1 or not, I have to say Affinity apps are absolutely fantastic. I love them so much that I feel guilty I got them during a sale.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Jupeman Avatar
61 months ago
All Hail Affinity. I am happy they exist as an alternate. I'm a happy user!
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)