Quark XPress 6 Pre-Release

[snapdove]

I've tested QXP6 pre-release and it's just slightly faster than ID2 (both running in 10.2.4 with QE enabled) when working in a 24-page full colour magazine. It crashes a lot but that’s to be expected.

As per usual, Quark hasn’t implemented the Aqua look and feel properly but Adobe's competition has certainly made them lift their game in the features list.

In Australia QXP sells for near AU$4000.00 (US$2000.00) and as a result large magazine publishers like Murdock + Aust Consolidated Press have changed from QXP5 to ID2 and get this, at the same time from Mac to PC.

I’m a freelancer who has forked out the dosh and is locked into the upgrade path; QXP is my bread and butter. If they can roll out v6 for OSX with little or no problems in this depressed economy they will retain their Mac market share by default.

What worries me is the steady migration to the Window platform. Take Adobe, they sell three page layout programs but only one is OSX native and ID2 is slower on Mac than PC. This week they posted marketing material to their website that shows their preference to Adobe products running on Microsoft’s OS. Adobe’s PDF and OpenType technology is much much more feature rich on Windows and new technology like Atmosphere and Extreme are not available for Mac.

Apple had better pull an IBM branded G5 out of the hat soon. Are you reading this Steve?

[toast]

Originally posted by snapdove
What worries me is the steady migration to the Window platform. Take Adobe, they sell three page layout programs but only one is OSX native and ID2 is slower on Mac than PC. This week they posted marketing material to their website that shows their preference to Adobe products running on Microsoft?s OS. Adobe?s PDF and OpenType technology is much much more feature rich on Windows and new technology like Atmosphere and Extreme are not available for Mac.

PageMaker and FrameMaker are kinda obsolete products now, IMHO.
Adobe has many reasons to prefer the Wintel platform: it's far more stable than it was before, it's 30 times larger than the Mac platform, and it's FAST_!

Many people refuse to consider the speed issue with OSX. They say speed is not so important because OSX is so wonderful that it compensates. Companies won't have the same reasoning .

[snapdove]

While I agree that PM is on its last version (maybe) FM has a very good following and can't be replaced by ID for long technical docuements.

I've read that Apple has done a good job in optimising Pantha to speed up GUI, mutl-threading and support for quad-CPUs.

[potter__]

I have a copy of the new Quark 6 Beta, I have tested the quark 5 beta as well as the InDesign 2. I can honestly say that my feelings for quark up to version 5 were good. It was the software for production artists. But when the team at Quark decided to go to web design as well as production, they meddled into areas which they shouldn't have. They made problems with the software.
Currently, I am running OS 10.2 only, and I refuse to drop 9.2 or anything lower then jaguar onto my system. With the release of 6 I am certain that quark is going down. InDesign 2.0.2 only has 2 problems with it. (Which I will not mention and therefore challenge you to try to find.) With the push of InDesign from Apple, it seems that they know what the future holes.
Hopefully with the upcoming InDesign 3 (which from insider information) is coming out soon, they will have perfected the software and made it ready for total takeover of the industry.

[toast]

I hope one of the two problems you're challenging us with, potter, is speed. Because I can tell ID is SLOW compared to Quark.