It is an interesting mix of things, actually. Some things are missing -- a JavaScript or AppleScript interface for example. And small stuff like you can't rese

It is an interesting mix of things, actually. Some things are missing -- a JavaScript or AppleScript interface for example. And small stuff like you can't reseed the perlin noise generator in Photo. But some things are surprisingly better. Affinity Photo has live filter layers that work much better than smart objects, it has a frequency separation tool that is genuinely easier to use, it has proper blend curves that are enormously powerful (sharpening just the highlights? noise reduction just in the shadows?), and you can do things like use Lab curves on an RGB image. Affinity Designer I know less well, but the symbol and artboard support is astounding (bordering on what Sketch can do), and small things like the rounded corners support is amazing. Its one omission -- it doesn't have an autotrace. I am sure there are several things InDesign does that Publisher can't, but Publisher's integration with Photo and Designer is absolutely remarkable. This mix of missing features and improvements is exactly what you should hope for in a competing app; they don't have quite the same objectives in mind and they have started afresh rather than chasing a feature set.