Canva vs. Microsoft

From Meta’s new $1,500 headset to Elon Musk’s “Burnt Hair” perfume, it’s been an action-packed week. Microsoft joined the mix with its annual 3-day Ignite conference — here’s the biggest news from Day 1:

Microsoft’s committed to making OpenAI’s tech accessible with a new design app powered by DALL-E 2. Microsoft Designer is a free, AI-powered graphic design app that helps you design high quality social media posts, digital postcards, and more. Mohit Anand, a Product Manager at Microsoft, launched Designer on Product Hunt and said that its purpose is to “empower anyone to create designs with ease, using the power of AI.”

“With ‘start from scratch’ within Designer, you can simply describe an image you want to see, and the app does the work for you to create something totally unique,” said Liat Ben-Zur, Corporate Vice President, Product Marketing

Designer also uses AI to make template suggestions as you build out a presentation in PowerPoint, and the team plans to eventually integrate Designer into Microsoft Edge. We wonder how Canva users will feel about this. 👀

For lovers of both the Apple ecosystem and Xbox, Apple Music is now available on Xbox consoles. Next year, Apple Music and Apple TV will launch across Windows. iCloud is also coming to Microsoft devices — the new iCloud for Windows app will enable Apple users to see their iPhone pictures and videos on the Photos app in Windows. This is the crossover we knew we needed.

In hardware, the Surface Laptop 5, Surface Pro 9, and Surface Studio 2+ are also on the way.

But Designer’s use of DALL-E will likely continue to be the show stealer this Ignite. Early adopters so far are excited and discovering the product’s capabilities, like a Send to Phone feature.

“Keen observer!” responded Mohit Anand. “You can just send your created design to your phone with a simple scan of QR code :) Hope you like it.” He also notes users can access the product “Soon!... Just add your email… and we'll let you know when you've got access. 😊”

• Creepy or genius? 100,000 Humans That Don’t Exist is a gallery of 100,000 AI-born people that can be used in mockups, ads, games, or other projects.

• BeginnerBank helps early-stage startups get product-led growth by lowering the up-front cost of principal product design.

• The Modern Health integrates with Google Calendar to provide daily health recommendations that can increase your well-being at work.

• Lolli helps you turn your existing credit or debit card into a Bitcoin rewards card.

ICYMI, the VR version of Among Us launches on November 10th.