Still think I'm over reacting?

serpicolugnut

serpicolugnut

OS X Supreme Being
OK, I took a bit of flack a few months ago for suggesting that since Adobe was dropping Premiere for the Mac, that we should be wary of Adobe "reconsidering" Mac support in it's other key applications (PS, AI, ID and GL).

Most of you thought I was jumping the gun a bit (which I was, but that's not the point), and thought it next to impossible that Adobe would even consider going that route....

Well, take a look at this post on ThinkSecret about how Adobe feels about Apple, and how concerned they are about Apple developing their own creative suite.

ThinkSecret Story

From the story...

"Apple can be unpredictable," Adobe's plans say, according to a source. "We will need to keep a close eye on Apple."
Click to expand...

Further more....

Microsoft is another company Adobe will be watching. Adobe believes that with Microsoft's industry resources, it could quickly develop a Creative Suite competitor. However, sources said Adobe views Apple as a greater threat.
Click to expand...

So Adobe is already twitching that Apple might develop their own PS, AI or ID competitors. Remember, Adobe dropped Premiere from the Mac primarily due to Apple having FCP.

It's pretty telling that Adobe views Apple a greater threat than Microsoft, considering Microsoft is already attempting to supplant .PDF with .DOC for the portable document standard.

And now, for the unspoken conspiracy theories...

Remember Caffeine Software? They made a program called "TIffany". It was created during the NeXT days, and was considered a Photoshop competitor. Many of it's users still claim that it outshines Photoshop in many areas of functionality. Well, Caffeine Software disappeared earlier this year. No warning. No notice as to why.

There's a strong suspicion that Apple hired the main developer away to work on a Photoshop competitor, that may/may not be in Apple's immediate plans. It could be to provide a trump card in case Adobe ever threatened PS extinction, or it might be part of Apple's plan to actually offer a PS type competitor to Mac users.

Truth be told, there are several smaller products out there that could be ramped up and retooled to compete with Adobe's apps if Apple was under the gun to do so (Stone Studio's Create would make a good starting point for a serious Illustrator competitor).
 
is FCP better than Premiere ?
(just askin out of interest)

a friend of mine told me that FCP was very easy to learn & use (he was a beginner)
 
much better

i personally dont think apple would touch ps, ai and id... fcp was another factor, it had to do with macs being billed as professional machines, and they needed something integrated i believe...

but, lets wait and see i guess, i hope adobe doesnt abandon ship
 
Adobe IS valuable to Apple... Still, if Apple will offer something better than ANY given Adobe comparable product and Adobe will abandon the Apple platform, they will be SO full of HUGE B$...

They should improve their products instead of abandoning a platform just because a better product exists... :p
 
I agree hulkaros.
I'm not sure I'd like to see a world where Apple has its OWN apps for doing EVERYTHING (although this would be kinda cool) because you would ultimately get the argument (from a buyers point of view) that they dont have any of the "main" applications (people never think of what they want to do, they think of what they want to use...)
 
Let's look at that quote again...

QUOTE: "Apple can be unpredictable," Adobe's plans say, according to a source. "We will need to keep a close eye on Apple."

Well, that's nothing we - or Apple - should be afraid of. The phrase instead means that Adobe is a bit afraid of Apple. FCP showed them that they're not, as they probably believed for a long time, safe.
A few years ago, we wouldn't have thought that Apple would try and attack other companies on the software market. But I think Steve Jobs (and his people at Apple) did the right thing. Apple needed profits. And the machines alone didn't cut it. So you had a basis. Apple lost money. Apple was a good hardware company. But also a good software company. However, they made no MONEY with their software, although they could. Now there was another problem: Too many players in the consumer area. So what to do? Yep. Destroy competition à la Microsoft. But better still. While Microsoft usually just killed competition by making their pro versions available for free (an old story, don't wanna go there), Apple made good and free consumer versions and even better, expensive (but still cheaper than the competition) pro versions. iMovie & Final Cut Pro. iDVD and DVD Studio Pro. They bought stuff and made it better. Now, they're suddenly looked at as a software vendor, too!

Back to Adobe... What if Apple were to say: "Hey, we've watched Adobe do Photoshop long enough. They didn't always go where we wanted. Let's do that better." (Won't happen, I guess.) Well: Photoshop would, after YEARS, finally get some competition again. And that would be good for the customer. Remember: Competition's good.

Even if Apple got 30% of the 'Photoshop'-Market with their new product, Adobe would still sell lots of Photoshop licenses. And quite certainly, Adobe wouldn't leave the Mac market - only to see Apple open up their minds and say: "Hey! We can do this on Windows, too!"
 
Originally posted by fryke
"Hey! We can do this on Windows, too!"
Click to expand...

That would be the bomb! Maybe they could shake up everyone by porting FCP! Now that would make Adobe mad! ;)
 
FCP is way better... Apple making a Photoshop type app, that i don't see happening, Apple needs the user base of Adobe products. If anything, Apple is forcing companies to up their game, what better way to force better products than through good ole competition. I remember MacPaint, was that by Apple? A lot of people are using Fireworks more and more, it opens PS files, it's a threat to Photoshop when it comes to lower end users, but not for the high end user.

My PS is like a Swiss Army knife, it has the tools to suit all my needs, yet it gets better.
 
"Photoshop 8, Illustrator 11, InDesign 3, GoLive 7"

Apple has nothing that even comes close to competing with those packages. Photoshop cannot be beat by anyone, anywhere. AI is tough to beat too. Apple would be insane to get into the InDesign/Quark mix. Apple might be well suited to create or buy a low end HTML GUI editor, or maybe even a higher end package that is tightly integrated with X's Apache/Perl/etc. abilities, but I doubt they would bother.

FCP is a different story, because FCP sells boxes. An Apple branded HTML editor isn't going to sell boxes. For those who think/wish FCP would be ported to Windows, perish the thought. It will NEVER happen.

Yes, Apple is a competitor to Adobe in some areas. All Adobe is saying is that they need to monitor that for profitability. To me, there is no implication that they will wipe out Adobe Mac apps as part of that strategy unless (like Premiere) they believe they can no longer profit from it.
 
The reason you'll never see FCP for Windows is because Apple wants to entice video editors to buy their hardware to use their fantastic software. Sure, they could get Avid for Windows for $1500 more, but if they don't need the extra features, FCP will do nicely.

I'm not sure if it would be a good thing for Apple to make Adobe killers or not (besides FCP). It could alienate Adobe from the platform, sucking away an awesome library of software, or it could get Adobe hopping to make their products better than they already are. Imagine if you had 2 similar, compatible programs for editing photos besides simply Photoshop. Prices would go down to entice users, and the feature base would increase, hopefully in a stylish and elegant way.
 
The only problem i see with Adobes products lately is that they are beginning to be bloat-ware.
A simple test: put AI next to Freehand.
Freehand is a lot snappier (as snappy as it was pre OSX. both AI and PS takes forever to start when compared to how they performed 2-3 versions back. and they use a lot more memory.
p.s. i got a 700 kb disc here with illustrator 1.1 AND system 6 (or 5, dont remember). :)
 
There is one other factor that is against Any of the Adobe/Macromedia/Whoever companies that develop for both platforms simulatenously. I can't speak for PS as i dont use it, but i would image it is the same. Take a look at a program designed for and written on a Mac, using Coccoa. Apple were right. beautiful. Look at something like fireworks, a C++(?) app written for two platforms simultaneously, then applied to each's UI. The UI of the apps features though, remain the same. The collapse buttons in pallettes, pup up boxes. It all SCREAMS carbon/c++/port.
And sure, functionality is by far more important than how "pretty" something is, but if let's say, apple made a creative image application (lets use 'Create' for now) using GIMP libraries, (or acquired an existing app/company) and created a beautiful, intuitive, Coccoa interface that was a joy to use, which would you use? PS/FireWorks/Illustrator/etc or Create?
 
Adobe software has definitely become bloatware. In fact, if you look at the rumored features there for the upcoming suite, there's very little new substance, just fine tuning and small feature sets (which may be nice and all, but there's nothing groundbreaking). Hopefully they can now start the speed tweaking. Rumors have it that speed was a priority for AI. I'd like the same priority for InDesign. I'd pay full price for an upgrade across all apps if the only benefit was a speed increase. I'm really not looking for any new features (though I'm always surprised by one or two that are cool that I never thought of).

As I've said before. Software developers are always playing catchup to the hardware. Also, they need to create a prerceived "need", which basically means they add so-called features so you feel you need to upgrade. The artists for The Hulk still use Photoshop 4 appararently because all versions after that are pure bloat. I'm hard pressed to argue with them, though I'd rather run a bit slower in X, than have to use 9.
 
well apple is kind of pushing After Effects out of thier way with Live Type (part of FCP4). I know that a lot of people where i live use AE for making cool lettering, but apple makes it mind numbingly easy! (btw i am in love with live type and soundtrack)
 
Even with Live Type, AE is a great program for more than just type. I use it for a ton of things, and when i find the time, i want to do more things with it within my flash projects. But i will have to say i want to get Live Type and make a few things that at this time would take too long t create within AE, well considering you have a life.
 
You'd think, if a hardware company like Apple can make something like video type effects super easy to use, a software company like Adobe could too.

It's interesting how people just give up when Apple reveals their new iProducts and Products Pro. Yes, it's extremely easy to use, it works very well, and it doesn't cost very much comparatively; well, the secret to successful competition is to make your product even better. Software companies don't seem to be getting that.
 
Actually, Adobe's latest version of Premiere is a direct response to the now-dominant Final Cut Pro. Previous versions of Premier were a joke in comparison. Premiere Pro looks really, really good on paper (I haven't used it and don't plan on it, but I'm not blind either, it appears to be a very good app). So I guess my point is simply that developers like Adobe understand quite well what competition is and what they need to do to stay competitive. Their latest suite is an example of that.

Quark on the other hand has delivered a completely lackluster app and is once again resting on their laurels. I hope InDesign crushes them to dust.

Aside:
LiveType is wickedly cool, extremely innovative and very easy to use. It's also pathetically slow, very limited in its current font selection and not as properly integrated with FCP as it should be. LiveType is exactly what Flash should have integrated into the app.
 
Originally posted by serpicolugnut
Remember Caffeine Software? They made a program called "TIffany". It was created during the NeXT days, and was considered a Photoshop competitor. Many of it's users still claim that it outshines Photoshop in many areas of functionality. Well, Caffeine Software disappeared earlier this year. No warning. No notice as to why.

There's a strong suspicion that Apple hired the main developer away to work on a Photoshop competitor, that may/may not be in Apple's immediate plans. It could be to provide a trump card in case Adobe ever threatened PS extinction, or it might be part of Apple's plan to actually offer a PS type competitor to Mac users.

Truth be told, there are several smaller products out there that could be ramped up and retooled to compete with Adobe's apps if Apple was under the gun to do so (Stone Studio's Create would make a good starting point for a serious Illustrator competitor).
Click to expand...

Okay, just to slow down some of the strange rumors, I have been working very closely with both Andrew Stone (Stone Design) and Stan Jirman (Caffeine Software) and neither of them have even hinted that Apple is even interested in them. Stan is still writing great software, but Caffeine was just more trouble than it was worth (for now).

All of their software (both Stan's and Andrew's) is some of the best I've used (currently I use the full versions of Create, PStill, TimeEqualsMoney, Curator and PixelNhance, and have used the full version of TIFFany for NEXTSTEP). I can't say enough about them.

The reason it is important to dispel these rumors is that neither of these guys is getting money from Apple for their work. Stan stopped developing TIFFany (for now) because he couldn't afford it. If people think Apple is going to be buying TIFFany, why would they buy a license now (which you still can by the way, Andrew has a TIFFany section of his Stone Design store for it).

Apple has, at times, brought some developers in-house (Renaud Boisjoly comes to mind), but they have also gone around developers like Dan Wood.

It is important that we support the smaller developers. I hope that no one else in the community has to take the steps that Stan did, and the best way to make sure that doesn't happen is to buy software that you like by them.

If you think TIFFany was great, guess what, it still is! So is Create! So is Watson! Lets help keep them making software. Buy now!

-end shameless plug for friends- :p
 
It's important to support smaller developers and keep them away from the greedy clutches of the Evil Empire. Microsoft has sunk their talons into too many companies, and for them to get more great companies like Caffeine would just perpetuate the cycle.
 
Originally posted by arden
Microsoft has sunk their talons into too many companies, and for them to get more great companies like Caffeine would just perpetuate the cycle.
Click to expand...
<sniff> I miss Bungie... <sniff>
 
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