Monthly Archives: July 2018

Affinity Designer on the iPad!

We’ve known for awhile that Affinity was bringing it’s fantastic vector app Designer to the iPad. It began on the Mac 4+ years ago and I’ve enjoyed using it along with Affinity Photo (also on the Mac) but since moving to the iPad I’ve wished for it on the iPad.

In June of 2017 Affinity released Affinity Photo for iPad which has proven an amazing app and not surprisingly has garnered great reviews and an Apple Design Award. Having Photo on the iPad was actually better for me than Designer would have been because as a web designer I’m often in need of an app that allows me to work with images as a part of a graphic design followed by outputting a web-optimized image. But of course once I had a taste of Affinity Photo for iPad I was eager to get Designer as well.

An interesting thing though, about both of these apps, is that they reach pretty deeply into the abilities of the other. Which is to say Photo has amazing vector tools and Designer has excellent raster tools. Also, as on the Mac, I can create a new file in Photo and then open it in Designer or the other way around. So, say I start a project in Photo and then decide I need add some text on a path. It’s no problem to open the file in Designer and add my text on a path. I can finish there or send the file right back over to Photo. It’s a great workflow and easy with iPad drag and drop. That said, if you want to make adjustments to a photo you want to do it in Photo. And if you want to do a primarily vector project you’re better off doing in Designer. But you’ve got the freedom to jump back and forth if the app you’re working in falls short.

I’ve made great use of Affinity Photo over the past year designing everything from event posters to anniversary invitations to promotional real estate postcards to web graphics. It’s a powerful tool. Now with Designer on my iPad I’ll be able to cover the tasks that were missing. For example, the above mentioned text on a path. I don’t need that often but when I do I can now do it on the iPad rather than sending a file to my Mac.

Another fantastic feature of Designer that’s missing in Photo that I’d like to mention is vector brushes using the pencil tool or vector brush tool. A very handy way to quickly draw lines and non-standard shapes with a wide variety of brushes, solid strokes or dashed strokes.

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While I was downloading the new app from Affinity I received an email from them letting me know it was available. The first thing I did upon successful download was start-up a new document. Just for fun and using the graphic in their email as my inspiration I spent the next couple hours playing. At some point during this time I hit upon something I needed help with so hopped over to the Affinity website and checked out some of their video tutorials. I think I was looking for the different touch-based gestures which are, thankfully, covered very well in one of the tutorials. Then I got back to the exploration and pulled over a few files from Affinity Photo and opened them up. Then a few Designer files from my Mac. I spent the rest of the day giving it a run through and what fun! I don’t currently have a client project that calls for it but I’ll be playing with it as time permits. What I can say thus far is that it is almost completely on par with the desktop version of Designer.

Taking advantage of the touch interface is something every iPad app creator should have as a priority. This may be less important with text apps but with a graphics app such as Designer it’s important. Not surprisingly using Apple’s Pencil with Designer is a fantastic experience. Using the above mentioned vector tools with pressure sensitivity via the Pencil is very useful. I’m super happy with the number of touch gestures that have been implemented. 2 finger tap to undo, 3 finger tap to redo, 2 finger and hold while dragging an object to duplicate, dragging up or down on Stroke Studio icon to change the width of stroke or on the Navigator Studio icon to change the zoom are just a few of the many. Gesture support in Designer is comprehensive and very well thought out.

So, what’s lacking? It can’t be all good can it? The only miss that I’ve discovered thus far is an easy way to discover keyboard shortcuts. It has them, but it does not have the usual informational overlay display brought up by holding the command key. This has become common and I’m used to it working with most apps and it’s very handy. With Designer (and Photo) you have to jump out of your document and go to the app help and search for it. I’ve also noticed a few moments when attempting to move around a document or moving objects, where things get a bit jumpy. That said, for the most part, things are very smooth, very fast. The experience is just as good as what I have on my Mac. Well, no, actually, it’s better because it’s on the iPad and I prefer the iPad!

As with Photo, Designer is exactly the kind of app that works fantastically with a touch screen and with the Pencil. Such a treat to work directly on the screen with this kind of app. These are exactly the kind of apps the iPad needs to be taken more seriously as a computer for getting real work done. Whether related to the release of Designer or not, the day after its release Adobe announced that it would be releasing a full version of Photoshop for iPad at some point in the next year or so. And at some point in the future Illustrator. Personally, I’m all in on Affinity and have no interest in Adobe’s subscription model. Affinity has a great user base that is growing well and I’m really happy to see that. Competition in the iOS ecosystem is great and having such a solid non-Adobe option from a smaller company offering a range of excellent cross-platform products is wonderful for users.

The simple reason I prefer the iPad

A few days ago Affinity released it’s fantastic app Designer for the iPad. I’ll be posting about that soon. A day or two later Adobe announced it would be bringing the full version of it’s Photoshop app to the iPad and sometime in the future probably Illustrator as well. Well, let’s just say that for many people who now use the iPad for doing work with images and graphics these two things were big news. On twitter I came across an exchange by a fairly well known former Adobe employee and former project manager of Photoshop and chimed in. The context of the conversation was Photoshop for mobile:

@jnack: @stroughtonsmith I forgot I said all that aloud. 😌 It remains unclear that anyone wants full Photoshop or similar on iPad, and I’d expect more of a Lightroom CC/Rush play (stripped down, rethought). We’ll see.

@dennyhenke: @stroughtonsmith @jnack Well, I for one use my iPad everyday for client work. I’m fully invested in Affinity apps at this point and would have paid them triple what they asked. At this point I only use Adobe for InDesign projects. I can’t tell you the last time I opened Photoshop or Illustrator.

@jnack: @dennyhenke @stroughtonsmith What advantages do you find in the iPad relative to, say, a MacBook Air (similar weight)? Battery life, touch screen, other?

@dennyhenke: @jnack @stroughtonsmith Form factor is key. With a laptop I must always have a keyboard attached and there’s no touch screen. With iPad I can and do use it often without a keyboard. Also, the Pencil is a joy to use with apps such as those made by Affinity. Last, I greatly prefer iOS/touch.

Of course I’ve written many times about why I now prefer the iPad as my primary computer but thought I’d share again here as a riff off of the above exchange. It really can be summed up as simply having an ultraportable, flexible form factor that can be used with a keyboard or without, with a finger or with the Pencil. A computer based on incredibly powerful hardware that never gets hot in my lap, runs in complete silence and which now has a mature OS that is a delight to use and which has an increasingly powerful app ecosystem that helps me get my work done.

While a Mac has a great operating system and a pretty great app ecosystem, I am always stuck with the keyboard. I used Mac laptops ever since the first iBook and never thought I’d be without one but with the iPad I have something better and after 2+ years I see no reason to go back.

A fix for AirPods low volume

I’ve had my AirPods since the first shipment, December 2016 and have noticed that the volume seems quite a bit lower. I clean them fairly regularly. At half volume I can barely detect the audio. In other words, half volume seems to be low. High volume is what I would think of as half volume. I’ve compared output between iPad, iPhone, Watch and Mac and all seem to be about the same. If there is a difference it would be that the iPhone and Mac are slightly lower. Watch and iPad seem slightly higher but at half volume the audio was barely detectable.

I did yet another search to see if I could turn-up any tricks for resetting the volume of AirPods. I again tried the usual suggestions of turning off bluetooth, disconnecting, unpairing, repairing, etc. Nothing worked. I came to the conclusion that it had to be a build up of wax under the grill. Perhaps in cleaning it from the surface some of it get’s pushed through rather than scraped off. That seems the likely culprit.

I took an extreme measure. I’m not suggesting anyone do this because it might ruin your AirPods. Nowhere on their website does Apple suggest this. But for myself, I figured that as low as the volume was, it couldn’t get much worse. My AirPods were nearly unusable so I put 1 drop of ear wax removal liquid onto the mesh of each AirPod. I was very careful to just do ONE drop. I let it sit for a minute or two. I tapped them a few times to assist in getting the fluid through. I assumed that because the fluid did not just go right through that there must indeed be wax under/inside the grill. I waited. I tapped again a few times. Some of it very slowly disappeared through the mesh. I turned them over to drain. I used a small bit of tissue to wipe the mesh. I gently blew into the three other holes of the air pod tapped the airpods against a table mesh side down. I can’t really say that I saw anything come back out, liquid or wax.

At that point in the process I was hoping that while the wax might not make its way back out through the mesh it would at least be dislodged enough that it might clear the way for more sound to get through. The result: slight improvement. I tried it all again with another drop to each AirPod. I let it sit then wiped and blew. Then I did a third drop. The whole process took maybe an hour of just letting them sit then wiping then blowing and testing between each drop. When I decided to stop I’d noticed about a 30% improvement. Still not as loud as I remember them being new or as loud as the wired EarPods are (they never get used), but now much more useable. At full volume now they are almost too loud again. I might actually need to bump the volume down a wee bit.

So, for me, this has helped. It might ruin your AirPods as it is a deliberate attempt to get a drop of liquid inside. I’ve read accounts of people running them through the wash and still working after so I took the chance. I’ll likely do it again when I notice another degradation. But this is not something that Apple recommends.

Update: A few weeks later and the sound is still improved. Actually, it seemed to me that after a few days the sound had actually improved further. As though whatever was inside had further dissolved or had moved further out of the way. I’d say at this point that they sound at about 50% improved and while not as loud as new they are much more usable. I’m not struggling to hear them and have actually turned the volume down from the highest setting. When I notice the volume decreasing again I will definitely repeat the above process.