Today we announce Animator by Haiku: a new name and a new look for the UI animation tool we released a year ago as Haiku for Mac. In this post I'll review our progress over the last year, explain why we're retiring our Free Plan, and list a number of FAQs about the transition.
What's new in a year?
Since our initial launch in Feb 2018, we introduced:
Support for Figma & Adobe Illustrator
In addition to Sketch, you can use Figma or Illustrator to create and organize vector and bitmap assets for animation in Haiku.
Path morphing, color animations, and more
Now as well as affine properties like rotation, scale, and position, you can animate color, vector paths, and even create stroke-drawing effects. Over the last year, Animator has evolved to be the most powerful and most approachable animation tool that lets you ship your work to production.
Support for Vue and Angular
Beyond just React, you can use Animator components inside any Angular or Vue project. Step up your animations with true, code-driven interactions for any Web codebase.
More robust Lottie support Haiku changed the game for UI animation when we released the first alternative to After Effects for creating Lottie animations. We've had countless users call us the "Sketch of UI Animation" (where Haiku Animator : After Effects :: Sketch : Photoshop)
Throughout 2018 we made our Lottie export more complete and reliable than ever, providing the very best solution on the market for creating cross-platform UI animations.
Retiring our Free Plan and Reducing Prices
When we launched Haiku for Mac a year ago, we cast a wide net of features and functionality, and released it all for free. We wanted to see how the world responded to a workflow that connects design and code in unprecedented ways.
We've learned and grown a lot as a product and company in the last year. We rolled out Pro in August and have since been put into commercial use by talented folks in industries from education to financial consulting to tech start-ups to branding and advertising.
We love empowering our users to design and build amazing UIs! In order to do this, and to keep our doors open, our business needs to be sustainable. Thus, we've decided it's necessary to retire Haiku Animator's Free Plan and replace it with a 14-day free trial.
Along with that transition, we're reducing our prices — Animator Pro now starts at $15/month.
Early adopters with Free Plans, we're taking care of you through this transition — check your inbox :)
FAQs
What happens to my projects after my Free Trial is over?
Your projects will always remain available to you. However, you will be unable to edit Haiku projects visually, export new Lottie files, export new GIFs or Videos, or perform new Publishes from an expired account.
What happens to my Private projects that I created during my free trial or Pro subscription?
Your private projects will remain private. We will NOT make private projects public. Note that you also always have access to your project files on your own computer (see next FAQ).
How do I find my projects on my computer after my trial or Pro subscription expires?
From the dashboard, select your project, and choose Open in Finder.
This folder holds your entire project and all of its source code — this project can be run with our open source Animator Core and does not require Haiku Animator to run.
How do I find my latest published links after my trial or Pro subscription expires?
From the dashboard, hover over your project and choose "View online." Note that if you never Published your project, it will not be available on our servers and you must instead access your files locally on your own hard drive.
How do I export a Lottie file, GIF, or Video once my trial is expired?
You cannot export Lottie files, GIFs, or Videos after your free trial has expired or Pro subscription has lapsed. If you want to perform subsequent exports, you must first upgrade your account to Pro.
Questions not answered here?
Drop us a line at support@haikuforteams.com
Ever onward
Thank you all for your ongoing support! We continue doggedly on our mission to revolutionize software creation by unifying design and code. Keep an eye out for some very big news from the Haiku team, very soon.
p.s. check out our new website!
