Some people say what if Adobe Pulls the plug on a mac version of its suite. If this happens it would loose 90% of its business. A lot of design agency's spent thousands of dollars to use mac as their core systems. What I do think is that apple would probably buy a struggling company like Quark revamp it and crush adobe In-Design. Almost all of adobe's applications are written using bloated code. Adobe needs to stop basing their core business on FLASH only. You don't need a plug-in anymore to play video or even to do 3d graphics. Once webgl http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebGL is finished Adobe will be finished with FLASH.
Apple could conceivably buy pixelmator and start there, but I doubt if it's necessary. A great deal of what Photoshop does is already available in the Core functions of Mac OS X. They'd simply need to write a front end on what's already there.
That would create a problem with releasing a Windows version, but I think most of the Core stuff has already been ported to Windows, so it might not be so bad.
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Originally Posted by Arthur_Klok
If you want to be lazy, use Flash. But don't expect us to look at your site on our Apple products!
That's not quite accurate. Flash still works (sort of) on Mac desktops and laptops.
Rather, you should say "don't expect us to look at your site on ANY mobile device'. People keep forgetting that NONE of the mobile platforms offer a full version of Flash - and even the hyped 10.1 on Android is still months away (at best). It's not just Apple who is saying Flash doesn't belong on mobile devices.
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Originally Posted by macintel4me
With the presence Flash has on the internet Adobe has a real opportunity to provide tools to build Flash apps AND HTML5 apps. Think of Dreamweaver but for web apps instead just web sites. The tools could pump out either format. Those tools would truly be as popular as Photoshop. Just think of the devs flocking in droves to those tools to port there Flash apps to HTML5 so their apps support mobile devices as well. Adobe doesn't own the JPG, PNG or TIFF format and they are doing great with Photoshop. Adobe stop complaining and seize the day!!
Yes, a forward thinking company would have done that. They'd have built html 5 creation tools into Dreamweaver rather than fighting a losing battle to keep Flash going. But, then, Adobe hasn't been a forward thinking company for at least a decade.
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Originally Posted by Apple Ambivalent
I understand Apple wants to get everyone to play nice together. It is the amount of control that Apple seems to take to protect us all that has me scared to death. First they seem to have an arbitrary selection process for there apps store. Second they seem to have one set of APIs for them to develop apps and another APIs for everyone else. This creates a situation that allows them to take over any market some other developer creates. This is very similar to what MS did. The power that the apps store and APIs give Apple will be hard to not abuse.
Apple's decisions are not, by and large, arbitrary. Apple has very clear SDK rules. Almost every example of someone complaining about Apple being 'arbitrary' is because they broke the rules.
There are a very few exceptions (the political caricature one, for example), but out of 200,000 apps, the number is tiny - and some, if not all, of those were fixed on appeal.
[QUOTE=Apple Ambivalent;1609795]
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Originally Posted by jaypres
Apple is getting very close to a monopoly in mobile operating systems. If they keep having the success that they have had, it won't be long.
Apple has about 25% share of smart phones -- and less than 5% of all phones. How is that a monopoly?
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Originally Posted by sfoalex
I have to disagree strongly with you. A good case in point was Avid pulling out of the Mac market. That was said to be a nail in Apple's coffin. Apple doesn't just sit there and watch the product vanish entirely with no response. Apple bought several companies and the results arenthe Final Cut Suite which has basically marginalized Avid, the industry standard.
If Adobe and even Microsoft ever decided to drop Apple they'd live to regret it. Apple's response would be to build software that's better and cheaper than Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. And it can be done. Apple simply doesn't go after Adobe's market so long as Adobe doesn't force Apple to do so by pulling out.
Exactly. If Adobe pulled all their copies of CS5 for Mac off the shelves tomorrow, it could hurt Apple (but not as much as it would hurt Adobe). But if Adobe said "CS5 is the last Mac version we're doing", Apple could have new software out there long before it became a problem.
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Originally Posted by kotatsu
Wow, just wow.
Apple are out competing Adobe how exactly? Flash has near 100% penetration on PCs. Photoshop totally dominates the graphic design market.
Google dominates search. Android is a far more advanced OS than even iPhone OS 4, and Android market share is rapidly rising.
And as for MS... oh come on. Think before you type.
The difference, of course, is that you're looking at narrow slices. Look at Apple's position in the entire market today - and compare it to anyone else.
Microsoft's market share and market dominance have declined.
Google has increased in influence, but there are indications that they've maxed out. Still, Google is the only other player in the industry besides Apple that is growing its market presence.
Adobe is stagnant. They're doing exactly the same thing they've done for decades - and their market position hasn't changed for at least a decade.
Now, look at Apple. Fifteen years ago, their survival was in question. Ten years ago, they had managed to ensure that they would survive as a minor player in desktop PCs. Eight years ago, they started to gain a very strong position in laptop PCs (reaching 15% market share, IIRC). Five years ago, they took over the MP3 market. Three years ago, they took over the phone market. Today, they're poised to take over the tablet PC market.
The reality is reflected in what the market perceives the company as being worth. Ten years ago, Apple was worth less than Adobe. Today, they're worth at least 10 times as much. Ten years ago, Apple was worth less than 10% of Microsoft. Today, they're at 80-90%. Again, Google is the exception - Google has also done well.
So, saying that Apple has outperformed the rest of the industry is a very supportable position. Saying that Apple has outperformed Adobe is a no-brainer. No one with any knowledge of the industry could ever question that.
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Originally Posted by Aquatic
All this Flash hate...I don't get it. Flash is a good idea, it just isn't optimized (by a long shot, I know) on Mac or i***. I imagine Adobe is working on that.
Sure they are. That's why it stinks just as badly today as it did when the iPhone came out. Adobe has had 3 years to improve it - and no signs yet (still no 10.1, but even that is limited in functionality and very, very late. Most reports are that it is still slow and uses too much CPU, anyway).
If Adobe were serious about improving Flash, they've had plenty of time to do it.
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Originally Posted by hexor
Sounds more like your programmer colleagues don't know much about objective c. There are 13 year olds writing native iPhone apps using objective-c and your university team can't handle that?
On a similar Macrumors thread, someone was talking about their introductory programming course where the instructor was teaching html 5 and Flash.
Sorry, but Flash isn't programming. Too many people don't understand what programming is about.
Steve is so shrewd at times. Beautiful bit of psychological manipulation there. And while Microsoft et al. were busy congratulating themselves over their "victory", Apple was busy outflanking them.
He wasn't at Apple when he said that? Irrelevant now. And Jobs made it irrelevant.
Apple haven't lost. The've won the desktop and laptop and OS argument. Quality in each instance.
They haven't lost any of those under his leadership. (They were losing without his leadership, yes. Well, Du-OH!)
Lemon Bon Bon.
Apple ended up locking MS out of the Premium end and confining them to the Bargain Bin.
When consumers with $$ aren't buying your product, you've got problems. When the Platinum consumers of the industry - those who build your brand - want nothing to do with your product, you'll still sell units, but to the lowest level of the retail pyramid. Ouch.
Apple ended up locking MS out of the Premium end and confining them to the Bargain Bin.
When consumers with $$ aren't buying your product, you've got problems. When the Platinum consumers of the industry - those who build your brand - want nothing to do with your product, you'll still sell units, but to the lowest level of the retail pyramid. Ouch.
A devastating summation of M$'s (and their desktop partners) problem.
Lemon Bon Bon.
PS. Anyone know if you can scan images/import directly into Pixelmator like you can with Photoshop?
Apple cant win. They favor an Open standard over adobe's proprietary crap and they still are the bad buy. Im sorry, i cant get upset over an FLash being asked to compete in a free market ( people are free not to buy apples Flash free products) or a open more efficient standard over a closed one.
The fact so many technology writers have their panties in a bunch over Flash and its crappy video is odd to me. Im a flash designer 10 years now and I still cant care less. I am looking forward to HTML5 content creation tools in my future.
Apple cant win. They favor an Open standard over adobe's proprietary crap and they still are the bad buy. Im sorry, i cant get upset over an FLash being asked to compete in a free market ( people are free not to buy apples Flash free products) or a open more efficient standard over a closed one.
The fact so many technology writers have their panties in a bunch over Flash and its crappy video is odd to me. Im a flash designer 10 years now and I still cant care less. I am looking forward to HTML5 content creation tools in my future.
If you think CS5 is pricey, price out the latest Quark products. Also their latest and greatest QuarkXPress 8 brags about Flash and Web support. Quark realizes they need Flash to survive.
I have been using Quark since 3.3. I am on version 8 now. Contrary to what I hear on the web, virtually 98% of the people I collect artwork from deliver it to me on Quark, despite my telling everyone of my clients that I accept Quark, InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, or PDFs as long as they are press ready.
I'll up front admit I do pay a premium to stick with Quark. I don't care one whip for the flash tools. I still use Quark much in the same way I always have. If Apple bought Quark, I'd be very happy. I was never really into InDesign. Not that it isn't an awesome app. I have nothing against it truly. I'm just very used to Quark and I so I just stick with it. I have hundreds of layouts in Quark and I just to see the point to switching to anything else. I will always have to be ready to accept Quark files, so no matter what I have to buy it. If I were merely an end user, I'd might see this differently. But since I collect from others as well as do company layouts, I just use what I know best.
Now, I won't always have the job I have. And so I keep my eyes open for potential good replacements. I have used Pixelmator and Vector Designer, but Photoshop and Illustrator are flat out better. But Freehand was truly awesome. Printers accepted it. It was truly professional grade.
When OSX first released I tried Caffeine, I think it was called. Or Tiffany, which is similar to photoshop. I also tried Corel products. All of these are close, but not close enough. I had wished and wished Apple would buy Macromedia and take on Fireworks, Freehand, etc.
I've never liked flash. Since OS 9 Flash has been a slow, buggy pile of steam. I have owned both PCs and Macs and the difference has always been easily seen. On the PC, flash is okay and pretty fast, but not perfect at all. But on the Mac, it's awful. I turn off all the flash on my Mac browser. I remember going to a keynote for Macromedia before flash was all over the place. I thought flash was going to make the web better. Think back to the days of web sites like Balthaser. But in that keynote, all the CEO of Macromedia talked about was flash for the sake of advertising. Now we have ads the fly right in front of the very text we are reading. On the WSJ, it just opens up consuming half the browser space to show me an ad. It's pegs the CPU to 100%. Certain things I have noticed make it unstable. As Steve Jobs said, it loves to crash. I have seen many times were a flash part of the site simply stops and you have to quit the browser and reload it. We all od this so quickly perhaps we don't even realize it. The plugin does die once in a while.
I personally want HTML5. I don't want flash on my iPad or Mac.
All I see around me are folks trying alternative after alternative looking to leave Adobe. We just can't because nothing is as good. We're locked in. Look at Lightroom vs Aperture. Apple made a credible product. Apple would do a good job I think in making a Photoshop like application if they truly wanted to.
As for Microsoft, I think Apple could absolutely make something on par to Word if they wanted to. In quite a few ways I am starting to prefer Pages over Word. But Numbers needs work to be considered an Excel killer. It's not horrible and for most folks I am sure it's just fine. I could totally use Numbers if I had to and pretty much replace all I do with Excel with it. It would be a little harder and slower for me to create what I want, but I could do it.
Just the other day our company brought on a new hire. I asked to purchase another license of Office for the employee. My boss said, Give em Open Office. I had to pause in shock for a few minutes. The company is sick of buying Office licenses.
I think this is the mood going around. A lot of open source or inexpensive software is starting to get pretty okay. Pages, Keynote, Numbers. It's not an office killer, but it does the job. Open Office does the job. Pixelmater, no. Vector Designer, no. Microsoft is truly the first company to be targeted. Adobe's Acrobat is a target. I actually prefer PDFPen for business uses. But so far, nothing can pull me away from PS and Il. There is simply nothing else on par with these two. I wish that would change.
If Apple bought Pixelmator they could certainly hire the right people and put major resources into it and make it a much better app. Illustrator I don't think would be hard to topple at all. I think no one wants to truly try. Perhaps Adobe has too many patents in the right places.
They wont. Adobe wants OS layer control through flash eg: AIR future direction. having spent time with prior employees of Adobe related to flash dev I can tell you they think little of the mac and especially its users. Frankly were a bunch of fanatics to them, whist they would reason that they are trying to standardize the web. The WC3 standards are essentially free. Adobe is a closed corporation, and adobe is require to make a profit. Who do you trust. Adobe should have NEVER been allowed to buy Macromedia. Frankly I wish that Apple develops a nuclear option and kills Adobe, by getting Aperture to be a photoshop killer developing or licensing inkscape and buying CODA.
Here's an idea: Apple buys Adobe. Or buys another graphics company, adds in a few bits of code of their own, and does a Final Cut Pro on them, which is what Avid got when they abandoned the Mac. How'd that work out for you, Avid? Steve can be a killer when he wants to.
Taking a somewhat longer view - and I am just an observer not an expert so the chronology is not complete - In the beginning, the Apple Adobe relationship was symbiotic. Together they brought Postscript and laser printing to the desktop. That partnership flourished until Adobe decided that support of Microsoft was a better business decision than continued support of Apple. Since then, the relationship has seen its ups and downs - but for Apple it has been mostly down. That is, lag in Adobe applications and features for Mac versions, absence of support Apple initiatives when the interests of Microsoft would be adversely affected.
Those were business decisions made from a monetary rather than a relationship perspective. Now that the shoe is on the other foot Adobe resents the pinch.
Adobe (and before Macromedia) has been flogging buggy versions of Flash player and equally buggy development tools to Mac users for years. They have always had a strong bias towards Windows and treated Mac users like second class citizens. I think it's great that Apple is standing up and saying F**k You we don't want your crap software anyway.
The thing is, that is Adobe's decision because Flash is their product, just as Apple has the right to restrict what can and can't go on the iPhone or iPad.
I do not understand why people get so pissed at either Adobe or Apple when they make a business decision like this. It is their product to do with as they please, and if you do not like it, then buy a different product.
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Originally Posted by grking
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Originally Posted by Prof. Peabody View Post
It's their choice as to whether they go down in flames, or simply do what they claim to want to do and live on. CS suite has sucked on the Mac for several years now and no competitors of any note have come forward yet (except perhaps Pixelmator). Adobe should consider themselves lucky that no one has ate their lunch to date and buckle down and do some real work for a change.
You are right, it is their choice, and if they choose to produce a second rate product for the Mac, why complain?
I doubt you would argue that Apple should be forced to allow low level graphics access for hardware acceleration to improve performance, so why should Adobe be forced to make a good Mac version if they do not want to.
It is true that a company, to an extent, has the right to do as they wish. Adobe can do as it wants. And so should Apple.
The bottom line though is still the end user. Users of Apple products, like myself, have been relegated as second class citizens by those who preferred to focus most of their attention to MS-centric computers.
From personal experience, I contacted Adobe because I used a product of theirs. I was told that they did not have a version of the Adobe product that would be compatible with my computer. I was left with two choices, use my very old second generation iMac to use the Adobe; or buy a MS-centric computer, buy the latest version of the Adobe product.
Then, there is cost. The latest version for the Mac is $499, the upgrade is $149, while that of the MS-centric computers is $199, upgrade is $99.99. I cannot even upgrade because my version is considered too old.
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Originally Posted by grking
But we do not know if they are being stupid and lazy. You may think they are, and I may think they are, but for all we know, they may have looked at what it would take to optimize the code for Mac, looked at the size of the market, and decided that it was not worth it.
You nailed the very problem I encountered and continue to have problems with.
In the past, I invested in a number of softwares that were prepared by MS-centric software companies, only to find later on that they stopped further software development because there is not enough market.
As a predominantly Apple product user, it will cost me a fortune just to own and keep up with Adobe products, and they are not even optimized for Apple products.
So. if Apple can find a way to improve my experience with my Apple equipment, more power to Apple.
Yeah, Quadra. I know Freehand had it's fans. Shame it was discontinued? I always thought Illustrator was slow and bloated. I thought Xara handed it its ass in raw speed.
Adobe buying Macromedia didn't pan out too well. We lost alot of good programs on both sides. Reduced competition...shame.
Adobe forgot where they've come from. ....
Freehand was always the best. What happened is a perfect example of monopoly power. Adobe bought up enough stuff to swallow the market and push out competing products based solely on monetary concerns. Freehand was the better of the vector tools by a large margin yet it's gone simply because of stupid business reasons, not because it was an inferior product.
So much for Capitalism always allowing the best product to flourish.
I have been cruising around Adobe's website today and it strikes me there is a much bigger problem with Adobe than just the low quality of it's offerings. Their entire raison d'être seems to be to service business concerns as opposed to creating a great product. All the text refers to how you can monetize your designs. All the new features go on about how they increase client partner communication or some such business baffle-gab.
Even if they did a 180 degree turnaround and recoded everything in Cocoa, they still would see themselves as "enterprise" software and as serving the needs of the design *business* not the design professional themselves.
There is still a real need for a product for the "lone creative" or the small shop. There is a still a need for more focussed products that do one or a few jobs well instead of the giant suite that does everything badly. Adobe will not change it's culture unless it fails, is bought out, or even dies completely and is reborn under new ownership. This is not likely to happen. People who don't like the CS suite (and they are legion) should really be looking elsewhere already, and people like the Pixelmator team should start getting more serious about making a clear alternative product that actually does what he consumers want.
Well, what I meant was only useful purpose is for video. Not saying flash is any good at it.
I laugh when people cite lack of flash as some sort of knock against iPhone. I'd say it's one of the best reason why iPhone is so much better mobile web device.
Flash sucks ass and it has no place on your desktop or your mobile device.
Unfortunately if Apple were to make this customer's option, all you ever hear is people botching about iPhone browser sucking ass. Because most people will install flash and have terrible experience an just blame Apple.
I don't think we should automatically assume Apple has the upper-hand here. If Adobe's CS Suite wasn't available for the Mac platform, I bet a lot less people would be using the platform.
If Apple threaten Adobe's business, Adobe can do far more damage in reverse. Obviously it affects their business somewhat initially too but it won't be long-lasting.
I really don't see why there has to be such a huge problem - the tech industry always seems to fight towards problems than find solutions. Adobe are well known as the best company for content creation software. If they simply took on board Apple's Canvas addition to the HTML 5 spec and developed software like Flash but using Javascript instead of Actionscript, how would they lose money?
If anything, they'd make more money because designers would be able to build entire sites by themselves in the software without learning code and know that their site is standards compliant. Device manufacturers don't have to wait for hardware-acceleration support, they can build it in themselves.
It's not an overnight deal but if Adobe can change 60 million lines of code in one year in a CS update, they can pull this off too.
It may require converging Dreamweaver and software like the Flash app but it would help sell the CS 5 Suite way more than iPhone targeting from the Flash software. It should even be able to fulfill that role as they'd be able to publish apps that run on webkit's HTML 5 and Javascript interpreter and they will work on any HTML 5 compliant platform - Nexus One, Droid, iPhone, iPod, iPad, Blackberry, all netbooks/laptops/desktops running Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari and every OS - that's not more than the Flash install base (thanks once again Internet Explorer for the lack of standards support) but it's a big market and a potential way to kill IE too. Developers can all accelerate it as fast as they want, which is more than they can do with a Flash plugin.
Like I say, if they'd all just try and work together on this stuff, it would be easier in the end for publishers and consumers who are the only ones that really matter in all this. It's not about a pissing content between companies to see who actually has the last word, it's about providing business solutions that generate revenue and keep the web interesting and the constant bickering is helping no one.
Adobe's products are mostly closed off and that's not good for the future of the web, nor are plugins. It should never have been allowed to go this far to have nearly all web video dependent on a single company. Adobe just need to do the smartest thing and play along. They will come off better for it in the end.
There is a dichotomy in the goals between predominantly software company and predominantly hardware company.
This can be glimpsed from the strategy of Microsoft and Apple. Microsoft does have its own hardware products but its bread and butter are its software products -- Windows, MS Office, Windows Mobile OS. In contrast, while Apple also creates many softwares, it's major sources of income are its hardware creations, Mac computers, iPod line, iPhone and iPad.
Software companies like Miicrosoft and Adobe would want to become the predominant in their business and could do so best by making their software code unique once they gain a hold of the market.
Apple realized, after losing the battle of portable computers, that its best bet would be software based on standards so that the softwares developed by other software companies would work for Apple products. It is for this reason that Apple has worked to influence the adoption of codes that will go into the standards. It is known that Apple contributed some its own software technology to achieve this goal.
However, just like software companies, Apple as a predominantly hardware company has to find an edge in technology to differentiate its hardware from other hardware companies. It has been very successful in doing this with its Mac computers so that it can be a niche player, charge premium and still make more profit than the largest players in computer hardware. Using its reputation for quality and "it just works", its latest set of creations -- iPod series, iPhine and now iPad -- are not only know for their quality but has caught the interest of the public, so that they became the predominant in their market.
Apple ended up locking MS out of the Premium end and confining them to the Bargain Bin.
When consumers with $$ aren't buying your product, you've got problems. When the Platinum consumers of the industry - those who build your brand - want nothing to do with your product, you'll still sell units, but to the lowest level of the retail pyramid. Ouch.
Don't forget the business world. I don't think MS$ cares much about the hardware as long as they get the server and most of the business market.
Comments
Some people say what if Adobe Pulls the plug on a mac version of its suite. If this happens it would loose 90% of its business. A lot of design agency's spent thousands of dollars to use mac as their core systems. What I do think is that apple would probably buy a struggling company like Quark revamp it and crush adobe In-Design. Almost all of adobe's applications are written using bloated code. Adobe needs to stop basing their core business on FLASH only. You don't need a plug-in anymore to play video or even to do 3d graphics. Once webgl http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebGL is finished Adobe will be finished with FLASH.
Apple could conceivably buy pixelmator and start there, but I doubt if it's necessary. A great deal of what Photoshop does is already available in the Core functions of Mac OS X. They'd simply need to write a front end on what's already there.
That would create a problem with releasing a Windows version, but I think most of the Core stuff has already been ported to Windows, so it might not be so bad.
If you want to be lazy, use Flash. But don't expect us to look at your site on our Apple products!
That's not quite accurate. Flash still works (sort of) on Mac desktops and laptops.
Rather, you should say "don't expect us to look at your site on ANY mobile device'. People keep forgetting that NONE of the mobile platforms offer a full version of Flash - and even the hyped 10.1 on Android is still months away (at best). It's not just Apple who is saying Flash doesn't belong on mobile devices.
With the presence Flash has on the internet Adobe has a real opportunity to provide tools to build Flash apps AND HTML5 apps. Think of Dreamweaver but for web apps instead just web sites. The tools could pump out either format. Those tools would truly be as popular as Photoshop. Just think of the devs flocking in droves to those tools to port there Flash apps to HTML5 so their apps support mobile devices as well. Adobe doesn't own the JPG, PNG or TIFF format and they are doing great with Photoshop. Adobe stop complaining and seize the day!!
Yes, a forward thinking company would have done that. They'd have built html 5 creation tools into Dreamweaver rather than fighting a losing battle to keep Flash going. But, then, Adobe hasn't been a forward thinking company for at least a decade.
I understand Apple wants to get everyone to play nice together. It is the amount of control that Apple seems to take to protect us all that has me scared to death. First they seem to have an arbitrary selection process for there apps store. Second they seem to have one set of APIs for them to develop apps and another APIs for everyone else. This creates a situation that allows them to take over any market some other developer creates. This is very similar to what MS did. The power that the apps store and APIs give Apple will be hard to not abuse.
Apple's decisions are not, by and large, arbitrary. Apple has very clear SDK rules. Almost every example of someone complaining about Apple being 'arbitrary' is because they broke the rules.
There are a very few exceptions (the political caricature one, for example), but out of 200,000 apps, the number is tiny - and some, if not all, of those were fixed on appeal.
[QUOTE=Apple Ambivalent;1609795]
Apple is getting very close to a monopoly in mobile operating systems. If they keep having the success that they have had, it won't be long.
Apple has about 25% share of smart phones -- and less than 5% of all phones. How is that a monopoly?
I have to disagree strongly with you. A good case in point was Avid pulling out of the Mac market. That was said to be a nail in Apple's coffin. Apple doesn't just sit there and watch the product vanish entirely with no response. Apple bought several companies and the results arenthe Final Cut Suite which has basically marginalized Avid, the industry standard.
If Adobe and even Microsoft ever decided to drop Apple they'd live to regret it. Apple's response would be to build software that's better and cheaper than Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. And it can be done. Apple simply doesn't go after Adobe's market so long as Adobe doesn't force Apple to do so by pulling out.
Exactly. If Adobe pulled all their copies of CS5 for Mac off the shelves tomorrow, it could hurt Apple (but not as much as it would hurt Adobe). But if Adobe said "CS5 is the last Mac version we're doing", Apple could have new software out there long before it became a problem.
Wow, just wow.
Apple are out competing Adobe how exactly? Flash has near 100% penetration on PCs. Photoshop totally dominates the graphic design market.
Google dominates search. Android is a far more advanced OS than even iPhone OS 4, and Android market share is rapidly rising.
And as for MS... oh come on. Think before you type.
The difference, of course, is that you're looking at narrow slices. Look at Apple's position in the entire market today - and compare it to anyone else.
Microsoft's market share and market dominance have declined.
Google has increased in influence, but there are indications that they've maxed out. Still, Google is the only other player in the industry besides Apple that is growing its market presence.
Adobe is stagnant. They're doing exactly the same thing they've done for decades - and their market position hasn't changed for at least a decade.
Now, look at Apple. Fifteen years ago, their survival was in question. Ten years ago, they had managed to ensure that they would survive as a minor player in desktop PCs. Eight years ago, they started to gain a very strong position in laptop PCs (reaching 15% market share, IIRC). Five years ago, they took over the MP3 market. Three years ago, they took over the phone market. Today, they're poised to take over the tablet PC market.
The reality is reflected in what the market perceives the company as being worth. Ten years ago, Apple was worth less than Adobe. Today, they're worth at least 10 times as much. Ten years ago, Apple was worth less than 10% of Microsoft. Today, they're at 80-90%. Again, Google is the exception - Google has also done well.
So, saying that Apple has outperformed the rest of the industry is a very supportable position. Saying that Apple has outperformed Adobe is a no-brainer. No one with any knowledge of the industry could ever question that.
All this Flash hate...I don't get it. Flash is a good idea, it just isn't optimized (by a long shot, I know) on Mac or i***. I imagine Adobe is working on that.
Sure they are. That's why it stinks just as badly today as it did when the iPhone came out. Adobe has had 3 years to improve it - and no signs yet (still no 10.1, but even that is limited in functionality and very, very late. Most reports are that it is still slow and uses too much CPU, anyway).
If Adobe were serious about improving Flash, they've had plenty of time to do it.
Sounds more like your programmer colleagues don't know much about objective c. There are 13 year olds writing native iPhone apps using objective-c and your university team can't handle that?
On a similar Macrumors thread, someone was talking about their introductory programming course where the instructor was teaching html 5 and Flash.
Sorry, but Flash isn't programming. Too many people don't understand what programming is about.
"The desktop computer industry is dead. Innovation has virtually ceased. Microsoft dominates with very little innovation. That's over. Apple lost. "
--Steve Jobs
He wasn't at Apple when he said that? Irrelevant now. And Jobs made it irrelevant.
Apple haven't lost. The've won the desktop and laptop and OS argument. Quality in each instance.
They haven't lost any of those under his leadership. (They were losing without his leadership, yes. Well, Du-OH!)
Lemon Bon Bon.
Steve is so shrewd at times. Beautiful bit of psychological manipulation there. And while Microsoft et al. were busy congratulating themselves over their "victory", Apple was busy outflanking them.
Lemon Bon Bon.
He wasn't at Apple when he said that? Irrelevant now. And Jobs made it irrelevant.
Apple haven't lost. The've won the desktop and laptop and OS argument. Quality in each instance.
They haven't lost any of those under his leadership. (They were losing without his leadership, yes. Well, Du-OH!)
Lemon Bon Bon.
Apple ended up locking MS out of the Premium end and confining them to the Bargain Bin.
When consumers with $$ aren't buying your product, you've got problems. When the Platinum consumers of the industry - those who build your brand - want nothing to do with your product, you'll still sell units, but to the lowest level of the retail pyramid. Ouch.
Apple ended up locking MS out of the Premium end and confining them to the Bargain Bin.
When consumers with $$ aren't buying your product, you've got problems. When the Platinum consumers of the industry - those who build your brand - want nothing to do with your product, you'll still sell units, but to the lowest level of the retail pyramid. Ouch.
A devastating summation of M$'s (and their desktop partners) problem.
Lemon Bon Bon.
PS. Anyone know if you can scan images/import directly into Pixelmator like you can with Photoshop?
The fact so many technology writers have their panties in a bunch over Flash and its crappy video is odd to me. Im a flash designer 10 years now and I still cant care less. I am looking forward to HTML5 content creation tools in my future.
And yes, the CS UI for mac sucks.
Apple cant win. They favor an Open standard over adobe's proprietary crap and they still are the bad buy. Im sorry, i cant get upset over an FLash being asked to compete in a free market ( people are free not to buy apples Flash free products) or a open more efficient standard over a closed one.
The fact so many technology writers have their panties in a bunch over Flash and its crappy video is odd to me. Im a flash designer 10 years now and I still cant care less. I am looking forward to HTML5 content creation tools in my future.
And yes, the CS UI for mac sucks.
If you think CS5 is pricey, price out the latest Quark products. Also their latest and greatest QuarkXPress 8 brags about Flash and Web support. Quark realizes they need Flash to survive.
I have been using Quark since 3.3. I am on version 8 now. Contrary to what I hear on the web, virtually 98% of the people I collect artwork from deliver it to me on Quark, despite my telling everyone of my clients that I accept Quark, InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, or PDFs as long as they are press ready.
I'll up front admit I do pay a premium to stick with Quark. I don't care one whip for the flash tools. I still use Quark much in the same way I always have. If Apple bought Quark, I'd be very happy. I was never really into InDesign. Not that it isn't an awesome app. I have nothing against it truly. I'm just very used to Quark and I so I just stick with it. I have hundreds of layouts in Quark and I just to see the point to switching to anything else. I will always have to be ready to accept Quark files, so no matter what I have to buy it. If I were merely an end user, I'd might see this differently. But since I collect from others as well as do company layouts, I just use what I know best.
Now, I won't always have the job I have. And so I keep my eyes open for potential good replacements. I have used Pixelmator and Vector Designer, but Photoshop and Illustrator are flat out better. But Freehand was truly awesome. Printers accepted it. It was truly professional grade.
When OSX first released I tried Caffeine, I think it was called. Or Tiffany, which is similar to photoshop. I also tried Corel products. All of these are close, but not close enough. I had wished and wished Apple would buy Macromedia and take on Fireworks, Freehand, etc.
I've never liked flash. Since OS 9 Flash has been a slow, buggy pile of steam. I have owned both PCs and Macs and the difference has always been easily seen. On the PC, flash is okay and pretty fast, but not perfect at all. But on the Mac, it's awful. I turn off all the flash on my Mac browser. I remember going to a keynote for Macromedia before flash was all over the place. I thought flash was going to make the web better. Think back to the days of web sites like Balthaser. But in that keynote, all the CEO of Macromedia talked about was flash for the sake of advertising. Now we have ads the fly right in front of the very text we are reading. On the WSJ, it just opens up consuming half the browser space to show me an ad. It's pegs the CPU to 100%. Certain things I have noticed make it unstable. As Steve Jobs said, it loves to crash. I have seen many times were a flash part of the site simply stops and you have to quit the browser and reload it. We all od this so quickly perhaps we don't even realize it. The plugin does die once in a while.
I personally want HTML5. I don't want flash on my iPad or Mac.
All I see around me are folks trying alternative after alternative looking to leave Adobe. We just can't because nothing is as good. We're locked in. Look at Lightroom vs Aperture. Apple made a credible product. Apple would do a good job I think in making a Photoshop like application if they truly wanted to.
As for Microsoft, I think Apple could absolutely make something on par to Word if they wanted to. In quite a few ways I am starting to prefer Pages over Word. But Numbers needs work to be considered an Excel killer. It's not horrible and for most folks I am sure it's just fine. I could totally use Numbers if I had to and pretty much replace all I do with Excel with it. It would be a little harder and slower for me to create what I want, but I could do it.
Just the other day our company brought on a new hire. I asked to purchase another license of Office for the employee. My boss said, Give em Open Office. I had to pause in shock for a few minutes. The company is sick of buying Office licenses.
I think this is the mood going around. A lot of open source or inexpensive software is starting to get pretty okay. Pages, Keynote, Numbers. It's not an office killer, but it does the job. Open Office does the job. Pixelmater, no. Vector Designer, no. Microsoft is truly the first company to be targeted. Adobe's Acrobat is a target. I actually prefer PDFPen for business uses. But so far, nothing can pull me away from PS and Il. There is simply nothing else on par with these two. I wish that would change.
If Apple bought Pixelmator they could certainly hire the right people and put major resources into it and make it a much better app. Illustrator I don't think would be hard to topple at all. I think no one wants to truly try. Perhaps Adobe has too many patents in the right places.
They wont. Adobe wants OS layer control through flash eg: AIR future direction. having spent time with prior employees of Adobe related to flash dev I can tell you they think little of the mac and especially its users. Frankly were a bunch of fanatics to them, whist they would reason that they are trying to standardize the web. The WC3 standards are essentially free. Adobe is a closed corporation, and adobe is require to make a profit. Who do you trust. Adobe should have NEVER been allowed to buy Macromedia. Frankly I wish that Apple develops a nuclear option and kills Adobe, by getting Aperture to be a photoshop killer developing or licensing inkscape and buying CODA.
Here's an idea: Apple buys Adobe. Or buys another graphics company, adds in a few bits of code of their own, and does a Final Cut Pro on them, which is what Avid got when they abandoned the Mac. How'd that work out for you, Avid? Steve can be a killer when he wants to.
Just been looking at the Pixelator info' page.
Phew. It's quite feature rich. I may buy this. Impressive.
With another few point releases...
Lemon Bon Bon.
You might be interested in this:
http://www.pixelmator.com/support/vi...t=180&start=45
A sign of (great) things to come . . .
Those were business decisions made from a monetary rather than a relationship perspective. Now that the shoe is on the other foot Adobe resents the pinch.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stashman View Post
Adobe (and before Macromedia) has been flogging buggy versions of Flash player and equally buggy development tools to Mac users for years. They have always had a strong bias towards Windows and treated Mac users like second class citizens. I think it's great that Apple is standing up and saying F**k You we don't want your crap software anyway.
The thing is, that is Adobe's decision because Flash is their product, just as Apple has the right to restrict what can and can't go on the iPhone or iPad.
I do not understand why people get so pissed at either Adobe or Apple when they make a business decision like this. It is their product to do with as they please, and if you do not like it, then buy a different product.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Prof. Peabody View Post
It's their choice as to whether they go down in flames, or simply do what they claim to want to do and live on. CS suite has sucked on the Mac for several years now and no competitors of any note have come forward yet (except perhaps Pixelmator). Adobe should consider themselves lucky that no one has ate their lunch to date and buckle down and do some real work for a change.
You are right, it is their choice, and if they choose to produce a second rate product for the Mac, why complain?
I doubt you would argue that Apple should be forced to allow low level graphics access for hardware acceleration to improve performance, so why should Adobe be forced to make a good Mac version if they do not want to.
It is true that a company, to an extent, has the right to do as they wish. Adobe can do as it wants. And so should Apple.
The bottom line though is still the end user. Users of Apple products, like myself, have been relegated as second class citizens by those who preferred to focus most of their attention to MS-centric computers.
From personal experience, I contacted Adobe because I used a product of theirs. I was told that they did not have a version of the Adobe product that would be compatible with my computer. I was left with two choices, use my very old second generation iMac to use the Adobe; or buy a MS-centric computer, buy the latest version of the Adobe product.
Then, there is cost. The latest version for the Mac is $499, the upgrade is $149, while that of the MS-centric computers is $199, upgrade is $99.99. I cannot even upgrade because my version is considered too old.
But we do not know if they are being stupid and lazy. You may think they are, and I may think they are, but for all we know, they may have looked at what it would take to optimize the code for Mac, looked at the size of the market, and decided that it was not worth it.
You nailed the very problem I encountered and continue to have problems with.
In the past, I invested in a number of softwares that were prepared by MS-centric software companies, only to find later on that they stopped further software development because there is not enough market.
As a predominantly Apple product user, it will cost me a fortune just to own and keep up with Adobe products, and they are not even optimized for Apple products.
So. if Apple can find a way to improve my experience with my Apple equipment, more power to Apple.
CGC
Yeah, Quadra. I know Freehand had it's fans. Shame it was discontinued? I always thought Illustrator was slow and bloated. I thought Xara handed it its ass in raw speed.
Adobe buying Macromedia didn't pan out too well. We lost alot of good programs on both sides. Reduced competition...shame.
Adobe forgot where they've come from. ....
Freehand was always the best. What happened is a perfect example of monopoly power. Adobe bought up enough stuff to swallow the market and push out competing products based solely on monetary concerns. Freehand was the better of the vector tools by a large margin yet it's gone simply because of stupid business reasons, not because it was an inferior product.
So much for Capitalism always allowing the best product to flourish.
I have been cruising around Adobe's website today and it strikes me there is a much bigger problem with Adobe than just the low quality of it's offerings. Their entire raison d'être seems to be to service business concerns as opposed to creating a great product. All the text refers to how you can monetize your designs. All the new features go on about how they increase client partner communication or some such business baffle-gab.
Even if they did a 180 degree turnaround and recoded everything in Cocoa, they still would see themselves as "enterprise" software and as serving the needs of the design *business* not the design professional themselves.
There is still a real need for a product for the "lone creative" or the small shop. There is a still a need for more focussed products that do one or a few jobs well instead of the giant suite that does everything badly. Adobe will not change it's culture unless it fails, is bought out, or even dies completely and is reborn under new ownership. This is not likely to happen. People who don't like the CS suite (and they are legion) should really be looking elsewhere already, and people like the Pixelmator team should start getting more serious about making a clear alternative product that actually does what he consumers want.
So. if Apple can find a way to improve my experience with my Apple equipment, more power to Apple.
CGC
What are you going to do in the meantime?
Well, what I meant was only useful purpose is for video. Not saying flash is any good at it.
I laugh when people cite lack of flash as some sort of knock against iPhone. I'd say it's one of the best reason why iPhone is so much better mobile web device.
Flash sucks ass and it has no place on your desktop or your mobile device.
Unfortunately if Apple were to make this customer's option, all you ever hear is people botching about iPhone browser sucking ass. Because most people will install flash and have terrible experience an just blame Apple.
Completely agree.
http://www.pixelmator.com/support/viewtopic.php?p=11275
A sign of (great) things to come . . .
I'd say so, if this small company can keep it together.
The demo version is useable (apparently, fully functional) for 30 days. I'm no Photoshop jock, but it looks very good.
I don't think we should automatically assume Apple has the upper-hand here. If Adobe's CS Suite wasn't available for the Mac platform, I bet a lot less people would be using the platform.
If Apple threaten Adobe's business, Adobe can do far more damage in reverse. Obviously it affects their business somewhat initially too but it won't be long-lasting.
I really don't see why there has to be such a huge problem - the tech industry always seems to fight towards problems than find solutions. Adobe are well known as the best company for content creation software. If they simply took on board Apple's Canvas addition to the HTML 5 spec and developed software like Flash but using Javascript instead of Actionscript, how would they lose money?
If anything, they'd make more money because designers would be able to build entire sites by themselves in the software without learning code and know that their site is standards compliant. Device manufacturers don't have to wait for hardware-acceleration support, they can build it in themselves.
It's not an overnight deal but if Adobe can change 60 million lines of code in one year in a CS update, they can pull this off too.
It may require converging Dreamweaver and software like the Flash app but it would help sell the CS 5 Suite way more than iPhone targeting from the Flash software. It should even be able to fulfill that role as they'd be able to publish apps that run on webkit's HTML 5 and Javascript interpreter and they will work on any HTML 5 compliant platform - Nexus One, Droid, iPhone, iPod, iPad, Blackberry, all netbooks/laptops/desktops running Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari and every OS - that's not more than the Flash install base (thanks once again Internet Explorer for the lack of standards support) but it's a big market and a potential way to kill IE too. Developers can all accelerate it as fast as they want, which is more than they can do with a Flash plugin.
Like I say, if they'd all just try and work together on this stuff, it would be easier in the end for publishers and consumers who are the only ones that really matter in all this. It's not about a pissing content between companies to see who actually has the last word, it's about providing business solutions that generate revenue and keep the web interesting and the constant bickering is helping no one.
Adobe's products are mostly closed off and that's not good for the future of the web, nor are plugins. It should never have been allowed to go this far to have nearly all web video dependent on a single company. Adobe just need to do the smartest thing and play along. They will come off better for it in the end.
There is a dichotomy in the goals between predominantly software company and predominantly hardware company.
This can be glimpsed from the strategy of Microsoft and Apple. Microsoft does have its own hardware products but its bread and butter are its software products -- Windows, MS Office, Windows Mobile OS. In contrast, while Apple also creates many softwares, it's major sources of income are its hardware creations, Mac computers, iPod line, iPhone and iPad.
Software companies like Miicrosoft and Adobe would want to become the predominant in their business and could do so best by making their software code unique once they gain a hold of the market.
Apple realized, after losing the battle of portable computers, that its best bet would be software based on standards so that the softwares developed by other software companies would work for Apple products. It is for this reason that Apple has worked to influence the adoption of codes that will go into the standards. It is known that Apple contributed some its own software technology to achieve this goal.
However, just like software companies, Apple as a predominantly hardware company has to find an edge in technology to differentiate its hardware from other hardware companies. It has been very successful in doing this with its Mac computers so that it can be a niche player, charge premium and still make more profit than the largest players in computer hardware. Using its reputation for quality and "it just works", its latest set of creations -- iPod series, iPhine and now iPad -- are not only know for their quality but has caught the interest of the public, so that they became the predominant in their market.
CGC
Apple ended up locking MS out of the Premium end and confining them to the Bargain Bin.
When consumers with $$ aren't buying your product, you've got problems. When the Platinum consumers of the industry - those who build your brand - want nothing to do with your product, you'll still sell units, but to the lowest level of the retail pyramid. Ouch.
Don't forget the business world. I don't think MS$ cares much about the hardware as long as they get the server and most of the business market.