Affinity Studio now free

After the V2 suite was released a few years ago, I realised I would never get the "old" Affinity product experience back -- the same experience and price-point that made me a great and productive self-taught illustrator / designer.

C'est la vie, all good things must come to an end. I'm glad the original team made it out with a financial reward (from Canva sale)...

Time for someone else to pick up the mantle! [and for everyone else to stop moaning]

What was the difference between v1 and v2?

V1 felt polished to a degree that implied the developers had thought a lot about how their product should provide a compelling user experience. It was also very performant and rarely crashed.

V2 was buggy from the off -- for me -- and crashed frequently. It felt palpably slower and the changes to the featureset IMO were perfunctory (I don't have concrete examples to mind but I remember feeling that way at the time).