iPad Users Finally Get a Free Alternative to Adobe

Affinity has launched on iPad, bringing Canva’s design suite to Apple’s tablets with extensive features and a dedicated interface.

About a year ago, when Canva announced that it was making Affinity free, many users could hardly believe it. The decision brought together Serif’s three paid applications—previously known as Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer and Affinity Publisher—into a single creative tool. Combining photo editing, vector design and page layout, the suite emerged as a free alternative to Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign.

From the outset, however, some worried that making Affinity free might mean an end to its development and updates. Over the past year, Canva has demonstrated otherwise. Last month, the company introduced new RAW image editing features, and now, with the release of a dedicated iPad version, it has filled one of the suite’s most significant remaining gaps.

The Full Affinity Experience on iPad

Before the unified, free desktop version of Affinity arrived, standalone versions of Affinity Photo 2, Affinity Designer 2 and Affinity Publisher 2 were already available for iPad. Customers who had purchased these applications could continue using them, but those versions did not support the new .af file format.

The new Affinity for iPad brings most of the desktop version’s capabilities to Apple’s tablets, with an interface designed from the ground up for touch interaction. It also supports Apple Pencil features such as pressure and tilt sensitivity for drawing and image masking. Advanced Apple Pencil Pro features, including barrel roll, squeeze and hover detection, are supported as well.

One of the new additions is Sketch Studio, which provides tools for freehand drawing and converting sketches into vectors. Other dedicated tools include Mask Tool for masking and Sketch to Shapes for turning hand-drawn sketches into graphic shapes.

As on the desktop, the drawing, vector design, photo editing and page layout workspaces all use the shared .af format. This integration allows users to move between creative workflows without exporting, converting files or rebuilding elements. Non-destructive edits are also displayed in real time.

For freehand drawing, the application includes a brush library with customizable settings for each brush. Drawings remain editable within the file and can be developed further at later stages without having to redraw or reconstruct the original sketch.

RAW image editing and the ability to create multipage, print-ready documents are also included.

AI Tools Require a Paid Subscription

Some of Affinity’s AI features are available through a Canva AI Studio subscription. These include Generative Expand for extending images, resolution enhancement, noise reduction and Decompose Layer. The latter can turn a flattened image into separate, editable layers.

iPad Becomes a More Capable Tool for Creative Work

The release of a dedicated Affinity app is part of a broader expansion of professional software on Apple’s tablets. Adobe’s Photoshop, Illustrator and Premiere, alongside DaVinci Resolve for video editing and Maxon’s ZBrush for 3D sculpting, have already introduced dedicated iPad versions.

With Affinity joining this lineup, the iPad Pro becomes an increasingly capable platform for professional design and visual content creation. It enables more flexible workflows, from working outside the studio and remotely to completing part of a project in a different setting before continuing on the desktop.

Affinity for iPad is free and is available to download from the App Store. A free Canva account is required to use the application, while access to its AI tools requires a paid Canva subscription.

https://www.affinity.studio/ipad-app