1) Adobe will likely be the *last* company to join the app store
2) They won't offer the CS suite but individual apps if they do join the app store
3) No one ever said upgrades would be free for life, even in the iOS app store
Right now there are two or three rules to being in the Mac App store that leave out almost all decent software. Particularly of note is the fact that software with serial numbers or activation schemes is disallowed, and software that uses a non-standard installer is disallowed. So unless the rules change, Adobe is already out of the game.
I predict that by the time they realise they are in trouble and want to join the store, it will already be too late. The whole world is moving to small specialised apps. It's happening on the desktop, it's happening even faster in the new mobile platforms. The days of gigantic suites are already over whether Adobe and Microsoft realise it or not.
Better than most, Adobe has several apps in the iOS app store...
1) Adobe will likely be the *last* company to join the app store
2) They won't offer the CS suite but individual apps if they do join the app store
3) No one ever said upgrades would be free for life, even in the iOS app store
Right now there are two or three rules to being in the Mac App store that leave out almost all decent software. Particularly of note is the fact that software with serial numbers or activation schemes is disallowed, and software that uses a non-standard installer is disallowed. So unless the rules change, Adobe is already out of the game.
I predict that by the time they realise they are in trouble and want to join the store, it will already be too late. The whole world is moving to small specialised apps. It's happening on the desktop, it's happening even faster in the new mobile platforms. The days of gigantic suites are already over whether Adobe and Microsoft realise it or not.
I think you're onto something there...I know it's anecdotal, but I used to rely on Adobe Acrobat Professional. Way more powerful than I needed and expensive, too. Now I rely on PDFShrink and PDFPen...and they both do exactly what I want when it comes to PDF management.
I will never buy an MS product and will never buy an Adobe product either...even though Adobe created the PDF format.
The company slated to lose the most from this is MS. No matter what happens if tablets become a major component of PC sales, they will lose big. This will happen for several reasons.
Like netbooks, tablets won't carry a high paying version of Windows. Even if somehow MS manages to capture say, 25% of the "real" tablet market, that is, not the convertible notebook market that was previously thought of as the tablet market (and which is doing very poorly), they will not come close to the monopoly percentages they have for Windows.
This means that they won't be licensing an expensive OS to most of these devices, leading to a significant shrinkage to their margins and profits in that area (which is why MS hasn't been thrilled about netbook sales). Of course, it's likely they won't even come close to 25%, as both Android and iOS devices will dominate. That makes the situation even more of a problem for them. If we see tablets cutting into PC sales to the point where those sales begin to actually shrink, then they will suffer even more.
I believe that for several more years, PC sales will grow because of third world purchases, being that they are computer deprived. But at some point, that need will be filled. As in parts of the world where they have poor telecommunications infrastructure, they will largely skip the traditional purchasing habits, and move to the next generation devices. That follows Eastern Europe, Africa, parts of Asia, and elsewhere skipping modern landline phone technology and going directly to cell service. We'll see that with tablets as well, especially if Apple and others allow them to operate without need of pc's for backup, OS updates, etc.
This just continues to make it worse for MS as opposed to Apple (who I'm obviously concentrating on here), because MS is mostly dependent on highly overpriced software for the its very high GM and profits, as are most software companies. Their 78% GM would be even higher if not for the vast losses in other areas. Adobe's GM was north of 90% last I looked.
A reason why it will fall more, along with a shrinkage in actual dollar sales is because of the nature of tablets, Windows and otherwise. While Apple sells software in order to make its hardware offerings more attractive, MS sells software in order to make sales and profits. Therefore, Apple often prices its software cheaply enough for people to think of it as an easy purchase, and almost as an accessary to their hardware purchase.
MS prices its software so that they can make as much profit off their sales as possible.
So what happens to MS's other monopoly franchise? I'm of course talking about Office. Office is an even more secure monopoly than is Windows, because it sells well to Mac users too. It's got about 95% of the office suite market, more than Windows itself presently.
But Office won't work well on a 9" 1024 x600 screen. It won't work well with the semi touch activated UI MS uses in Win 7. So what happens? Apple took iWork and broke it up into pieces that only cost $9.95 apiece, and that have been extensively reworked for the touch UI. Can, and even more importantly, WILL MS do that for Office? If they don't, they lose Office sales completely. If they do, they end up with a completely different product. If they try to price it at the old levels, for either Office Pro, or Student/Teacher, they will lose significant sales.
And then there is the question being already asked. Will MS come out with a version for the iPad? To do so will help to further erode their Windows monopoly, as it will make people and business more comfortable with these new Apple products as Office already does for the Mac. If they don't, they risk the loss of their Office monopoly, and major sales and profits.
And while so far I haven't seem anything written about it, will MS do this for Android? The same questions work here as well.
It seems to me that in a few years, unless something happens that are unexpected, we will see a shrunken, and less profitable MS from what we will see a couple of years from today, once this kicks in.
I have no idea what will happen but if apps like Pixelmator, Opacity, & Coda get more recognition as a result of being on the app store it may force Adobe's hand. Right now you kind of have to be an insider to know about those products. With Apple's marketing machine behind them, a lot of small developers could do really well. I would love to see CS broken up into the individual apps again.
I've only bought Cs since it came out, but I was under the impression that you could still buy the individual programs. You can still buy upgrades for them.
Ya' know you you can set up that iMac in the family room with multiple users -- we have 6.
Ya' know how there is usually some contention as to who gets to use the computer, and when.
Ya' know how each user has his own User Name/Password and /home folder hierarchy
Ya' know how all users share common apps, widgets, and OS features.
Ya' know how each family member (especially the kids) wants their own computer, TV, Movie player.
...
What if Apple could jigger (CPU Cores, GPUs, RAM, Storage) on the next family iMac (or somesuch), the AirPort router, and Mac OS X so that:
-- it could handle multiple concurrent users logged and running -- each with his own /Home.
-- instead of using the iMac screen, each user could log in (and remain instant-on connected) through his iPad.
-- Some iPad stuff: email, surf, etc. (all the things that the iPad does now) would bypass the Family iMac and directly access the Internet through the WiFi router.
-- Other stuff, Photoshop, FCS Final Cut, other Mac /Applications and /Home files would be accessed by the iPad acting as a window into the Family iMac -- through a streaming/screen sharing app.
So, it'd work like this;
-- You pick up an iPad (from a stack on the table) or use your personal iPad.
-- after identifying yourself (for a iPad from the stack) your Most-Recently-used iPad-specific stuff is cross-loaded from the Family iMac.
-- you do your IPad stuff, run some iPad apps
-- when ever you wish you run special iPad apps that use the Family iMac resources for heavy lifting.
-- it's seamless - you don't really care where the magic is being performed!
BTW, you can get at your stuff with an iPad from anywhere -- through WiFi or Cell radio
Ya' know you you can set up that iMac in the family room with multiple users -- we have 6.
Ya' know how there is usually some contention as to who gets to use the computer, and when.
Ya' know how each user has his own User Name/Password and /home folder hierarchy
Ya' know how all users share common apps, widgets, and OS features.
Ya' know how each family member (especially the kids) wants their own computer, TV, Movie player.
...
What if Apple could jigger (CPU Cores, GPUs, RAM, Storage) on the next family iMac (or somesuch), the AirPort router, and Mac OS X so that:
-- it could handle multiple concurrent users logged and running -- each with his own /Home.
-- instead of using the iMac screen, each user could log in (and remain instant-on connected) through his iPad.
-- Some iPad stuff: email, surf, etc. (all the things that the iPad does now) would bypass the Family iMac and directly access the Internet through the WiFi router.
-- Other stuff, Photoshop, FCS Final Cut, other Mac /Applications and /Home files would be accessed by the iPad acting as a window into the Family iMac -- through a streaming/screen sharing app.
So, it'd work like this;
-- You pick up an iPad (from a stack on the table) or use your personal iPad.
-- after identifying yourself (for a iPad from the stack) your Most-Recently-used iPad-specific stuff is cross-loaded from the Family iMac.
-- you do your IPad stuff, run some iPad apps
-- when ever you wish you run special iPad apps that use the Family iMac resources for heavy lifting.
-- it's seamless - you don't really care where the magic is being performed!
BTW, you can get at your stuff with an iPad from anywhere -- through WiFi or Cell radio
That's what I'd like to see!
It could be done. We'd be going back to the old idea of thin clients, almost back to the ancient days of terminals and mainframe. But Apple would need to totally regigger their OS and hardware. What you're asking for is a mainframe concept, or at least a minicomputer model. PC's aren't designed for simultaneous access.
For one MS Windows has become a rotting heap O' crap with all the viruses, malware and spyware some of which is enabled by MS design decisions.
The second issue is where is the innovation coming from in the PC industry? It certainly isn't the Windows machines. It is very interesting that Apple sales are actually up when looking at the Mac Line up as a whole. This tends to indicate that many people are coming to Apple from the Windows or Linux worlds. The obvious question is why and honestly I think it comes down to Apple hardware having a better reputation with respect to reliability and resistance to viruses and malware.
As to displacing 10% of PC sales that is debatable and frankly I don't have enough info to say one way or the other. However brisk sales of Apples new AIRs indicates that many people still want that keyboard, the just want it on a small portable that is reasonably fast. The big problem with many ATOM based netbooks and low end laptops is the lack of real CPU horsepower. Marginal performance coupled with bloated windows results in sluggish performance and a poor suer experience. Much of the lost sales projected could be recovered if the manufactures had more respectable offerings. It is pretty simple, if people start rejecting your crap hardware and you respond with more crap hardware then they will start to look elsewhere. Right now Dell has big problems because of this. Produce a line up that makes sense but doesn't compromise and the market is yours. It all boils down to the idea that the market isn't completely going away, rather it is simply transferring to different players.
It could be done. We'd be going back to the old idea of thin clients, almost back to the ancient days of terminals and mainframe. But Apple would need to totally regigger their OS and hardware. What you're asking for is a mainframe concept, or at least a minicomputer model. PC's aren't designed for simultaneous access.
The reason I say that is because the underlying OS is UNIX. This actually brings up an interesting question about Mac OS, can one telnet or secure shell log into a Mac in its base configuration. I never tried so I don't know but even if the base install doesn't support it the feature could be added or better yet the Apple could just merge in the server version with the desktop version of Mac OS.
Running a graphical app would require more work from what I can see. In the end though I think the better approach would be to run native iOS apps and then use the Mac as a server. I'm fully expecting the next version of ipad to be able to better support a wide array of software that the current iPad has trouble with. At this point why bother with the Mini computer approach of the past, the Mac would make a perfectly good local server. It looks very much like the goal is to support this use case as that is pretty much what AIR Print does. AIR Print (when it gets here) and some of Apples other initiatives pretty much indicate where Apple is going with the tech. They just need to get the software and hardware in place.
It could be done. We'd be going back to the old idea of thin clients, almost back to the ancient days of terminals and mainframe. But Apple would need to totally regigger their OS and hardware. What you're asking for is a mainframe concept, or at least a minicomputer model. PC's aren't designed for simultaneous access.
Yes... almost a thin client... but not quite. The iPad would be more of a plump client... Nah! that's not it. I've referred to it as an "agile client"... but that's not right either.
The iPad is a standalone [almost] device.
What if you consider the Family Mac as a "Power dongle" to one or more iPads.
By "Power dongle" I mean additional compute power, ability to run Power applications, store content, stream, backup, sync, cross-load when necessary.
In fact, the "Power dongle" can be 0 or more home boxes as well as a Cloud "Power dongle".
Most families would have an iMac as the "Power dongle" -- or a headless Mini.
Prosumers may use a MacPro or an iMac with multiple Displays as a "Power dongle".
Pros would use networked Macs, whatever models/configurations required, as a "Power dongle".
Grandma and Grandpa would use a new MobileMe as their "Power dongle".
Apple, already has software that distributes workload among multiple machines, and software that does fast user switching, virtualization, etc. With proper hardware, how difficult would it be to re-jigger Mac OS X Server to run 1 app-at-a-time for, say, 10 concurrent users.
-- Braden is working on his Pages or Word English paper
-- Standish is watching King Kong streamed from the media collection or playing the latest iPad game
-- Marlowe is using iMovie, PhotoBooth, iPhoto, etc. to create a clip for youtube
-- Mom is playing a few online games, while alternating among the family budget, surfing, shopping, and all the things moms do (including that recipe that she has on her iPad to take into the kitchen)
-- Grandpa periodically switches back and forth among XCode, FCP, Motion, QC... as well as posting to AI
What would it take to do that, concurrently, with 5 iPads and a shared "Power dongle"?
I've only bought Cs since it came out, but I was under the impression that you could still buy the individual programs. You can still buy upgrades for them.
You can but it is all messed up from an upgrade standpoint. Once we went to CS by way of upgrading PS it all went down hill. Now going back to single apps is too expensive. I wish I had held out but they made it almost impossible when they changed the upgrade requirements to be only 2 versions old. I really hate the bundle concept for many reasons but one of the worst reasons is that not every application in the suite needs to be upgraded at the same time.
One of the requirements, I believe, in the iOS app store is that you can't charge for upgrades. You have to remove the app and then offer a new one, which would cause an enormous problem for Adobe if that model was extended to the OS X app store. Especially since it abandons the user base if a security update is required they are just SOL. Their whole business model is based on milking their customers every two years for an unneeded upgrade. They do this by making file formats incompatible. I love the CS products but not even MS sticks it to their customers the way Adobe does.
Yes... almost a thin client... but not quite. The iPad would be more of a plump client... Nah! that's not it. I've referred to it as an "agile client"... but that's not right either.
The iPad is a standalone [almost] device.
What if you consider the Family Mac as a "Power dongle" to one or more iPads.
By "Power dongle" I mean additional compute power, ability to run Power applications, store content, stream, backup, sync, cross-load when necessary.
In fact, the "Power dongle" can be 0 or more home boxes as well as a Cloud "Power dongle".
Most families would have an iMac as the "Power dongle" -- or a headless Mini.
Prosumers may use a MacPro or an iMac with multiple Displays as a "Power dongle".
Pros would use networked Macs, whatever models/configurations required, as a "Power dongle".
Grandma and Grandpa would use a new MobileMe as their "Power dongle".
Apple, already has software that distributes workload among multiple machines, and software that does fast user switching, virtualization, etc. With proper hardware, how difficult would it be to re-jigger Mac OS X Server to run 1 app-at-a-time for, say, 10 concurrent users.
-- Braden is working on his Pages or Word English paper
-- Standish is watching King Kong streamed from the media collection or playing the latest iPad game
-- Marlowe is using iMovie, PhotoBooth, iPhoto, etc. to create a clip for youtube
-- Mom is playing a few online games, while alternating among the family budget, surfing, shopping, and all the things moms do (including that recipe that she has on her iPad to take into the kitchen)
-- Grandpa periodically switches back and forth among XCode, FCP, Motion, QC... as well as posting to AI
What would it take to do that, concurrently, with 5 iPads and a shared "Power dongle"?
.
This is not something I've thought about in detail.
You can but it is all messed up from an upgrade standpoint. Once we went to CS by way of upgrading PS it all went down hill. Now going back to single apps is too expensive. I wish I had held out but they made it almost impossible when they changed the upgrade requirements to be only 2 versions old. I really hate the bundle concept for many reasons but one of the worst reasons is that not every application in the suite needs to be upgraded at the same time.
One of the requirements, I believe, in the iOS app store is that you can't charge for upgrades. You have to remove the app and then offer a new one, which would cause an enormous problem for Adobe if that model was extended to the OS X app store. Especially since it abandons the user base if a security update is required they are just SOL. Their whole business model is based on milking their customers every two years for an unneeded upgrade. They do this by making file formats incompatible. I love the CS products but not even MS sticks it to their customers the way Adobe does.
Since I was using the major programs anyway, I just went for the suite. It's a bargain.
Adobe's programs are complex, and need to install more than a few things in the OS. I don't see how they could comply with the simple install supposedly required by the new App Store. I've never felt ripped off by Adobe's upgrades to this software, and eagerly await them. But then, i've always used them at a high enough level for the new features to have made sense for me. There are many people who need little of what this offers. They shouldn't be buying it anyway. For the rest of us, we never get enough. And they do have easy compatibility across versions. You can easily decide whether to save as the newest, with all the features in your file intact, or as one of several older versions will various features baked into the final file instead. It works well.
Yes... almost a thin client... but not quite. The iPad would be more of a plump client... Nah! that's not it. I've referred to it as an "agile client"... but that's not right either.
The iPad is a standalone [almost] device.
What if you consider the Family Mac as a "Power dongle" to one or more iPads.
By "Power dongle" I mean additional compute power, ability to run Power applications, store content, stream, backup, sync, cross-load when necessary.
In fact, the "Power dongle" can be 0 or more home boxes as well as a Cloud "Power dongle".
Most families would have an iMac as the "Power dongle" -- or a headless Mini.
Prosumers may use a MacPro or an iMac with multiple Displays as a "Power dongle".
Pros would use networked Macs, whatever models/configurations required, as a "Power dongle".
Grandma and Grandpa would use a new MobileMe as their "Power dongle".
Apple, already has software that distributes workload among multiple machines, and software that does fast user switching, virtualization, etc. With proper hardware, how difficult would it be to re-jigger Mac OS X Server to run 1 app-at-a-time for, say, 10 concurrent users.
-- Braden is working on his Pages or Word English paper
-- Standish is watching King Kong streamed from the media collection or playing the latest iPad game
-- Marlowe is using iMovie, PhotoBooth, iPhoto, etc. to create a clip for youtube
-- Mom is playing a few online games, while alternating among the family budget, surfing, shopping, and all the things moms do (including that recipe that she has on her iPad to take into the kitchen)
-- Grandpa periodically switches back and forth among XCode, FCP, Motion, QC... as well as posting to AI
What would it take to do that, concurrently, with 5 iPads and a shared "Power dongle"?
.
I think your apple fantasy family is in serious need for a family night where they talk to each other. (not using avatars on their iPads using the imac as a power dongle to generate the living space.) ha
My thoughts exactly. Every time I report one of his incarnations he gets banned pretty quickly; can't tell if the mods are basing it off IP address or actual content. If it's IP a simple report should nip it in the bud, if it's content I guess we'll have to wait for him to build up his usual record of crap.
There are many people who need little of what this offers. They shouldn't be buying it anyway. For the rest of us, we never get enough. And they do have easy compatibility across versions. You can easily decide whether to save as the newest, with all the features in your file intact, or as one of several older versions will various features baked into the final file instead. It works well.
This does not describe anything close to our situation. We have several licenses of CS on PC and Mac and various tasks require or don't require all the advanced features. By and large it is a lot of open up a previous project, make some changes, save as a new version. Even though the majority of tasks only require limited feature set, ALL tasks require the CS suite since that is 'What We Use" as does everyone else in the industry. We would get along just fine until someone sends us a file we can't open, and it is NEVER because they used a new feature. It is ALWAYS because they just saved it and sent it. For some reason it is often a newbie who just got their first version of CS. With inDesign in particular you cannot save as a previous version. You can export as an interchange document which will get you back 1 version but the other person receiving the file needs to know what to do.
Please don't take offense, Mel, because we all know you are retired and we still love you, but I think you are a little out of touch with the day to day working environment of a modern advertising/publishing company.
It could be done. We'd be going back to the old idea of thin clients, almost back to the ancient days of terminals and mainframe. But Apple would need to totally regigger their OS and hardware. What you're asking for is a mainframe concept, or at least a minicomputer model. PC's aren't designed for simultaneous access.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
The reason I say that is because the underlying OS is UNIX. This actually brings up an interesting question about Mac OS, can one telnet or secure shell log into a Mac in its base configuration. I never tried so I don't know but even if the base install doesn't support it the feature could be added or better yet the Apple could just merge in the server version with the desktop version of Mac OS.
Running a graphical app would require more work from what I can see. In the end though I think the better approach would be to run native iOS apps and then use the Mac as a server. I'm fully expecting the next version of ipad to be able to better support a wide array of software that the current iPad has trouble with. At this point why bother with the Mini computer approach of the past, the Mac would make a perfectly good local server. It looks very much like the goal is to support this use case as that is pretty much what AIR Print does. AIR Print (when it gets here) and some of Apples other initiatives pretty much indicate where Apple is going with the tech. They just need to get the software and hardware in place.
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
This is not something I've thought about in detail.
Well, Think about it! I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Actually, I haven't thought about it in detail either.
In, the mainframe days, I could read core dumps with the best of them. I wrote a FIOS for the IBM 1301 and some IBM/BTAM crap for typewriter terminals and early IBM 2260 Display Terminals.
But the only stuff I've done at that level, recently, is JailBreak an AppleTV 1 to support Internet video streaming (with help from Erica Sadun), and then JailBreak and futz around with an iPhone gen 1.
I don't understand the significance of @wizard69's "This actually brings up an interesting question about Mac OS, can one telnet or secure shell log into a Mac in its base configuration. "
Though, I am sure that did both when fiddling with JailBroken iOS on the AppleTV and iPhone. So, I suspect that, with the proper setup, Mac OS X can be accessed this way..
The interactive graphical app is the big question.
Though, that could be mitigated in several ways:
-- greater WiFi bandwidth in the hardware
-- intelligent video compression ala h264 OS to OS
-- companion App on Mac to App on iPad.
In fact I am using VNC from an iPad to run Motion on an original Intel iMac 17 1.83 GHz Intel Core Duo, 2 GB RAM, ATI RadeonX1600 GPU.
When playing a simple Motion Project there is about a 2-second latency... not too bad
On my iMac 24 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM, ATI,RadeonHD2600 GPU
I routinely open 5 Screen Sharing windows to update software or transfer files. This works pretty good, even with quite a bit else running on the imac 24. One of these Macs is a Mini attached to an HDTV as a 1080P shared screen.
Also, we periodically stream movies from another Mini Media Library to 2 or 3 Macs, iPads or the AppleTV.
I think what I am saying is that there is a whole lot of Video going back and forth and it seems to work pretty well -- even though the hardware and OS are not designed for this.
I think your apple fantasy family is in serious need for a family night where they talk to each other. (not using avatars on their iPads using the imac as a power dongle to generate the living space.) ha
Actually it is a real family, active in church and sports -- who routinely read "books" together in the evening.
Time will tell. I don't think these cheap tablet options have been around long enough to come to a conclusion about the impact on Mac sales.
So far they have impacted Mac sales in a big way - a positive way!
The big losers so far are the Wintel vendors... Actually, with the losses some of them are taking on Netbooks, they are probably just as happy to loose those "sales".
So what happens to MS's other monopoly franchise? I'm of course talking about Office. Office is an even more secure monopoly than is Windows, because it sells well to Mac users too. It's got about 95% of the office suite market, more than Windows itself presently.
Under the licenses, the city paid for a the full Microsoft Office suite ? including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and other tools ? even if many employees used only Word and Outlook.
Under the new deal the city will pay only for the applications employees use.
This is a huge change in strategy for Microsoft where forced bundling has been the strategy for... well, forever! It also represents a significant shift in revenue. I'm sure they are making up for it with the cloud deal - or are they? And even if they are, at best they are breaking even/treading water. Not very inspiring.
With Apple squeezing them on the mobile front, and Google squeezing them on the desktop, Microsoft must really be feeling the pressure (or at least I hope they are! Time to get competitive MS!)
This does not describe anything close to our situation. We have several licenses of CS on PC and Mac and various tasks require or don't require all the advanced features. By and large it is a lot of open up a previous project, make some changes, save as a new version. Even though the majority of tasks only require limited feature set, ALL tasks require the CS suite since that is 'What We Use" as does everyone else in the industry. We would get along just fine until someone sends us a file we can't open, and it is NEVER because they used a new feature. It is ALWAYS because they just saved it and sent it. For some reason it is often a newbie who just got their first version of CS. With inDesign in particular you cannot save as a previous version. You can export as an interchange document which will get you back 1 version but the other person receiving the file needs to know what to do.
Please don't take offense, Mel, because we all know you are retired and we still love you, but I think you are a little out of touch with the day to day working environment of a modern advertising/publishing company.
You're telling me that you use an older version, and so when a newbie sends you a file in the newest format, you can't open it? If that's so, it's odd to me, because it never would have occurred to me to not upgrade all our software as upgrades came out. Has that changed in the industry as a whole? some people upgrading, and others not? Then the industry HAS changed. A few years ago, we ALL upgraded.
I thought we were talking about PS, not InDesign.
It's not like I stay in my coffin for months at a time. I have plenty of contacts still, and I still go to the various conventions and shows.
Comments
1) Adobe will likely be the *last* company to join the app store
2) They won't offer the CS suite but individual apps if they do join the app store
3) No one ever said upgrades would be free for life, even in the iOS app store
Right now there are two or three rules to being in the Mac App store that leave out almost all decent software. Particularly of note is the fact that software with serial numbers or activation schemes is disallowed, and software that uses a non-standard installer is disallowed. So unless the rules change, Adobe is already out of the game.
I predict that by the time they realise they are in trouble and want to join the store, it will already be too late. The whole world is moving to small specialised apps. It's happening on the desktop, it's happening even faster in the new mobile platforms. The days of gigantic suites are already over whether Adobe and Microsoft realise it or not.
Better than most, Adobe has several apps in the iOS app store...
1) Adobe will likely be the *last* company to join the app store
2) They won't offer the CS suite but individual apps if they do join the app store
3) No one ever said upgrades would be free for life, even in the iOS app store
Right now there are two or three rules to being in the Mac App store that leave out almost all decent software. Particularly of note is the fact that software with serial numbers or activation schemes is disallowed, and software that uses a non-standard installer is disallowed. So unless the rules change, Adobe is already out of the game.
I predict that by the time they realise they are in trouble and want to join the store, it will already be too late. The whole world is moving to small specialised apps. It's happening on the desktop, it's happening even faster in the new mobile platforms. The days of gigantic suites are already over whether Adobe and Microsoft realise it or not.
I think you're onto something there...I know it's anecdotal, but I used to rely on Adobe Acrobat Professional. Way more powerful than I needed and expensive, too. Now I rely on PDFShrink and PDFPen...and they both do exactly what I want when it comes to PDF management.
I will never buy an MS product and will never buy an Adobe product either...even though Adobe created the PDF format.
Best
Like netbooks, tablets won't carry a high paying version of Windows. Even if somehow MS manages to capture say, 25% of the "real" tablet market, that is, not the convertible notebook market that was previously thought of as the tablet market (and which is doing very poorly), they will not come close to the monopoly percentages they have for Windows.
This means that they won't be licensing an expensive OS to most of these devices, leading to a significant shrinkage to their margins and profits in that area (which is why MS hasn't been thrilled about netbook sales). Of course, it's likely they won't even come close to 25%, as both Android and iOS devices will dominate. That makes the situation even more of a problem for them. If we see tablets cutting into PC sales to the point where those sales begin to actually shrink, then they will suffer even more.
I believe that for several more years, PC sales will grow because of third world purchases, being that they are computer deprived. But at some point, that need will be filled. As in parts of the world where they have poor telecommunications infrastructure, they will largely skip the traditional purchasing habits, and move to the next generation devices. That follows Eastern Europe, Africa, parts of Asia, and elsewhere skipping modern landline phone technology and going directly to cell service. We'll see that with tablets as well, especially if Apple and others allow them to operate without need of pc's for backup, OS updates, etc.
This just continues to make it worse for MS as opposed to Apple (who I'm obviously concentrating on here), because MS is mostly dependent on highly overpriced software for the its very high GM and profits, as are most software companies. Their 78% GM would be even higher if not for the vast losses in other areas. Adobe's GM was north of 90% last I looked.
A reason why it will fall more, along with a shrinkage in actual dollar sales is because of the nature of tablets, Windows and otherwise. While Apple sells software in order to make its hardware offerings more attractive, MS sells software in order to make sales and profits. Therefore, Apple often prices its software cheaply enough for people to think of it as an easy purchase, and almost as an accessary to their hardware purchase.
MS prices its software so that they can make as much profit off their sales as possible.
So what happens to MS's other monopoly franchise? I'm of course talking about Office. Office is an even more secure monopoly than is Windows, because it sells well to Mac users too. It's got about 95% of the office suite market, more than Windows itself presently.
But Office won't work well on a 9" 1024 x600 screen. It won't work well with the semi touch activated UI MS uses in Win 7. So what happens? Apple took iWork and broke it up into pieces that only cost $9.95 apiece, and that have been extensively reworked for the touch UI. Can, and even more importantly, WILL MS do that for Office? If they don't, they lose Office sales completely. If they do, they end up with a completely different product. If they try to price it at the old levels, for either Office Pro, or Student/Teacher, they will lose significant sales.
And then there is the question being already asked. Will MS come out with a version for the iPad? To do so will help to further erode their Windows monopoly, as it will make people and business more comfortable with these new Apple products as Office already does for the Mac. If they don't, they risk the loss of their Office monopoly, and major sales and profits.
And while so far I haven't seem anything written about it, will MS do this for Android? The same questions work here as well.
It seems to me that in a few years, unless something happens that are unexpected, we will see a shrunken, and less profitable MS from what we will see a couple of years from today, once this kicks in.
I have no idea what will happen but if apps like Pixelmator, Opacity, & Coda get more recognition as a result of being on the app store it may force Adobe's hand. Right now you kind of have to be an insider to know about those products. With Apple's marketing machine behind them, a lot of small developers could do really well. I would love to see CS broken up into the individual apps again.
I've only bought Cs since it came out, but I was under the impression that you could still buy the individual programs. You can still buy upgrades for them.
Ya' know you you can set up that iMac in the family room with multiple users -- we have 6.
Ya' know how there is usually some contention as to who gets to use the computer, and when.
Ya' know how each user has his own User Name/Password and /home folder hierarchy
Ya' know how all users share common apps, widgets, and OS features.
Ya' know how each family member (especially the kids) wants their own computer, TV, Movie player.
...
What if Apple could jigger (CPU Cores, GPUs, RAM, Storage) on the next family iMac (or somesuch), the AirPort router, and Mac OS X so that:
-- it could handle multiple concurrent users logged and running -- each with his own /Home.
-- instead of using the iMac screen, each user could log in (and remain instant-on connected) through his iPad.
-- Some iPad stuff: email, surf, etc. (all the things that the iPad does now) would bypass the Family iMac and directly access the Internet through the WiFi router.
-- Other stuff, Photoshop, FCS Final Cut, other Mac /Applications and /Home files would be accessed by the iPad acting as a window into the Family iMac -- through a streaming/screen sharing app.
So, it'd work like this;
-- You pick up an iPad (from a stack on the table) or use your personal iPad.
-- after identifying yourself (for a iPad from the stack) your Most-Recently-used iPad-specific stuff is cross-loaded from the Family iMac.
-- you do your IPad stuff, run some iPad apps
-- when ever you wish you run special iPad apps that use the Family iMac resources for heavy lifting.
-- it's seamless - you don't really care where the magic is being performed!
BTW, you can get at your stuff with an iPad from anywhere -- through WiFi or Cell radio
That's what I'd like to see!
.
Ya' know you you can set up that iMac in the family room with multiple users -- we have 6.
Ya' know how there is usually some contention as to who gets to use the computer, and when.
Ya' know how each user has his own User Name/Password and /home folder hierarchy
Ya' know how all users share common apps, widgets, and OS features.
Ya' know how each family member (especially the kids) wants their own computer, TV, Movie player.
...
What if Apple could jigger (CPU Cores, GPUs, RAM, Storage) on the next family iMac (or somesuch), the AirPort router, and Mac OS X so that:
-- it could handle multiple concurrent users logged and running -- each with his own /Home.
-- instead of using the iMac screen, each user could log in (and remain instant-on connected) through his iPad.
-- Some iPad stuff: email, surf, etc. (all the things that the iPad does now) would bypass the Family iMac and directly access the Internet through the WiFi router.
-- Other stuff, Photoshop, FCS Final Cut, other Mac /Applications and /Home files would be accessed by the iPad acting as a window into the Family iMac -- through a streaming/screen sharing app.
So, it'd work like this;
-- You pick up an iPad (from a stack on the table) or use your personal iPad.
-- after identifying yourself (for a iPad from the stack) your Most-Recently-used iPad-specific stuff is cross-loaded from the Family iMac.
-- you do your IPad stuff, run some iPad apps
-- when ever you wish you run special iPad apps that use the Family iMac resources for heavy lifting.
-- it's seamless - you don't really care where the magic is being performed!
BTW, you can get at your stuff with an iPad from anywhere -- through WiFi or Cell radio
That's what I'd like to see!
It could be done. We'd be going back to the old idea of thin clients, almost back to the ancient days of terminals and mainframe. But Apple would need to totally regigger their OS and hardware. What you're asking for is a mainframe concept, or at least a minicomputer model. PC's aren't designed for simultaneous access.
The second issue is where is the innovation coming from in the PC industry? It certainly isn't the Windows machines. It is very interesting that Apple sales are actually up when looking at the Mac Line up as a whole. This tends to indicate that many people are coming to Apple from the Windows or Linux worlds. The obvious question is why and honestly I think it comes down to Apple hardware having a better reputation with respect to reliability and resistance to viruses and malware.
As to displacing 10% of PC sales that is debatable and frankly I don't have enough info to say one way or the other. However brisk sales of Apples new AIRs indicates that many people still want that keyboard, the just want it on a small portable that is reasonably fast. The big problem with many ATOM based netbooks and low end laptops is the lack of real CPU horsepower. Marginal performance coupled with bloated windows results in sluggish performance and a poor suer experience. Much of the lost sales projected could be recovered if the manufactures had more respectable offerings. It is pretty simple, if people start rejecting your crap hardware and you respond with more crap hardware then they will start to look elsewhere. Right now Dell has big problems because of this. Produce a line up that makes sense but doesn't compromise and the market is yours. It all boils down to the idea that the market isn't completely going away, rather it is simply transferring to different players.
It could be done. We'd be going back to the old idea of thin clients, almost back to the ancient days of terminals and mainframe. But Apple would need to totally regigger their OS and hardware. What you're asking for is a mainframe concept, or at least a minicomputer model. PC's aren't designed for simultaneous access.
The reason I say that is because the underlying OS is UNIX. This actually brings up an interesting question about Mac OS, can one telnet or secure shell log into a Mac in its base configuration. I never tried so I don't know but even if the base install doesn't support it the feature could be added or better yet the Apple could just merge in the server version with the desktop version of Mac OS.
Running a graphical app would require more work from what I can see. In the end though I think the better approach would be to run native iOS apps and then use the Mac as a server. I'm fully expecting the next version of ipad to be able to better support a wide array of software that the current iPad has trouble with. At this point why bother with the Mini computer approach of the past, the Mac would make a perfectly good local server. It looks very much like the goal is to support this use case as that is pretty much what AIR Print does. AIR Print (when it gets here) and some of Apples other initiatives pretty much indicate where Apple is going with the tech. They just need to get the software and hardware in place.
It could be done. We'd be going back to the old idea of thin clients, almost back to the ancient days of terminals and mainframe. But Apple would need to totally regigger their OS and hardware. What you're asking for is a mainframe concept, or at least a minicomputer model. PC's aren't designed for simultaneous access.
Yes... almost a thin client... but not quite. The iPad would be more of a plump client... Nah! that's not it. I've referred to it as an "agile client"... but that's not right either.
The iPad is a standalone [almost] device.
What if you consider the Family Mac as a "Power dongle" to one or more iPads.
By "Power dongle" I mean additional compute power, ability to run Power applications, store content, stream, backup, sync, cross-load when necessary.
In fact, the "Power dongle" can be 0 or more home boxes as well as a Cloud "Power dongle".
Most families would have an iMac as the "Power dongle" -- or a headless Mini.
Prosumers may use a MacPro or an iMac with multiple Displays as a "Power dongle".
Pros would use networked Macs, whatever models/configurations required, as a "Power dongle".
Grandma and Grandpa would use a new MobileMe as their "Power dongle".
Apple, already has software that distributes workload among multiple machines, and software that does fast user switching, virtualization, etc. With proper hardware, how difficult would it be to re-jigger Mac OS X Server to run 1 app-at-a-time for, say, 10 concurrent users.
-- Braden is working on his Pages or Word English paper
-- Standish is watching King Kong streamed from the media collection or playing the latest iPad game
-- Marlowe is using iMovie, PhotoBooth, iPhoto, etc. to create a clip for youtube
-- Mom is playing a few online games, while alternating among the family budget, surfing, shopping, and all the things moms do (including that recipe that she has on her iPad to take into the kitchen)
-- Grandpa periodically switches back and forth among XCode, FCP, Motion, QC... as well as posting to AI
What would it take to do that, concurrently, with 5 iPads and a shared "Power dongle"?
.
I've only bought Cs since it came out, but I was under the impression that you could still buy the individual programs. You can still buy upgrades for them.
You can but it is all messed up from an upgrade standpoint. Once we went to CS by way of upgrading PS it all went down hill. Now going back to single apps is too expensive. I wish I had held out but they made it almost impossible when they changed the upgrade requirements to be only 2 versions old. I really hate the bundle concept for many reasons but one of the worst reasons is that not every application in the suite needs to be upgraded at the same time.
One of the requirements, I believe, in the iOS app store is that you can't charge for upgrades. You have to remove the app and then offer a new one, which would cause an enormous problem for Adobe if that model was extended to the OS X app store. Especially since it abandons the user base if a security update is required they are just SOL. Their whole business model is based on milking their customers every two years for an unneeded upgrade. They do this by making file formats incompatible. I love the CS products but not even MS sticks it to their customers the way Adobe does.
Yes... almost a thin client... but not quite. The iPad would be more of a plump client... Nah! that's not it. I've referred to it as an "agile client"... but that's not right either.
The iPad is a standalone [almost] device.
What if you consider the Family Mac as a "Power dongle" to one or more iPads.
By "Power dongle" I mean additional compute power, ability to run Power applications, store content, stream, backup, sync, cross-load when necessary.
In fact, the "Power dongle" can be 0 or more home boxes as well as a Cloud "Power dongle".
Most families would have an iMac as the "Power dongle" -- or a headless Mini.
Prosumers may use a MacPro or an iMac with multiple Displays as a "Power dongle".
Pros would use networked Macs, whatever models/configurations required, as a "Power dongle".
Grandma and Grandpa would use a new MobileMe as their "Power dongle".
Apple, already has software that distributes workload among multiple machines, and software that does fast user switching, virtualization, etc. With proper hardware, how difficult would it be to re-jigger Mac OS X Server to run 1 app-at-a-time for, say, 10 concurrent users.
-- Braden is working on his Pages or Word English paper
-- Standish is watching King Kong streamed from the media collection or playing the latest iPad game
-- Marlowe is using iMovie, PhotoBooth, iPhoto, etc. to create a clip for youtube
-- Mom is playing a few online games, while alternating among the family budget, surfing, shopping, and all the things moms do (including that recipe that she has on her iPad to take into the kitchen)
-- Grandpa periodically switches back and forth among XCode, FCP, Motion, QC... as well as posting to AI
What would it take to do that, concurrently, with 5 iPads and a shared "Power dongle"?
.
This is not something I've thought about in detail.
You can but it is all messed up from an upgrade standpoint. Once we went to CS by way of upgrading PS it all went down hill. Now going back to single apps is too expensive. I wish I had held out but they made it almost impossible when they changed the upgrade requirements to be only 2 versions old. I really hate the bundle concept for many reasons but one of the worst reasons is that not every application in the suite needs to be upgraded at the same time.
One of the requirements, I believe, in the iOS app store is that you can't charge for upgrades. You have to remove the app and then offer a new one, which would cause an enormous problem for Adobe if that model was extended to the OS X app store. Especially since it abandons the user base if a security update is required they are just SOL. Their whole business model is based on milking their customers every two years for an unneeded upgrade. They do this by making file formats incompatible. I love the CS products but not even MS sticks it to their customers the way Adobe does.
Since I was using the major programs anyway, I just went for the suite. It's a bargain.
Adobe's programs are complex, and need to install more than a few things in the OS. I don't see how they could comply with the simple install supposedly required by the new App Store. I've never felt ripped off by Adobe's upgrades to this software, and eagerly await them. But then, i've always used them at a high enough level for the new features to have made sense for me. There are many people who need little of what this offers. They shouldn't be buying it anyway. For the rest of us, we never get enough. And they do have easy compatibility across versions. You can easily decide whether to save as the newest, with all the features in your file intact, or as one of several older versions will various features baked into the final file instead. It works well.
Yes... almost a thin client... but not quite. The iPad would be more of a plump client... Nah! that's not it. I've referred to it as an "agile client"... but that's not right either.
The iPad is a standalone [almost] device.
What if you consider the Family Mac as a "Power dongle" to one or more iPads.
By "Power dongle" I mean additional compute power, ability to run Power applications, store content, stream, backup, sync, cross-load when necessary.
In fact, the "Power dongle" can be 0 or more home boxes as well as a Cloud "Power dongle".
Most families would have an iMac as the "Power dongle" -- or a headless Mini.
Prosumers may use a MacPro or an iMac with multiple Displays as a "Power dongle".
Pros would use networked Macs, whatever models/configurations required, as a "Power dongle".
Grandma and Grandpa would use a new MobileMe as their "Power dongle".
Apple, already has software that distributes workload among multiple machines, and software that does fast user switching, virtualization, etc. With proper hardware, how difficult would it be to re-jigger Mac OS X Server to run 1 app-at-a-time for, say, 10 concurrent users.
-- Braden is working on his Pages or Word English paper
-- Standish is watching King Kong streamed from the media collection or playing the latest iPad game
-- Marlowe is using iMovie, PhotoBooth, iPhoto, etc. to create a clip for youtube
-- Mom is playing a few online games, while alternating among the family budget, surfing, shopping, and all the things moms do (including that recipe that she has on her iPad to take into the kitchen)
-- Grandpa periodically switches back and forth among XCode, FCP, Motion, QC... as well as posting to AI
What would it take to do that, concurrently, with 5 iPads and a shared "Power dongle"?
.
I think your apple fantasy family is in serious need for a family night where they talk to each other. (not using avatars on their iPads using the imac as a power dongle to generate the living space.) ha
My thoughts exactly. Every time I report one of his incarnations he gets banned pretty quickly; can't tell if the mods are basing it off IP address or actual content. If it's IP a simple report should nip it in the bud, if it's content I guess we'll have to wait for him to build up his usual record of crap.
And.......gone.
There are many people who need little of what this offers. They shouldn't be buying it anyway. For the rest of us, we never get enough. And they do have easy compatibility across versions. You can easily decide whether to save as the newest, with all the features in your file intact, or as one of several older versions will various features baked into the final file instead. It works well.
This does not describe anything close to our situation. We have several licenses of CS on PC and Mac and various tasks require or don't require all the advanced features. By and large it is a lot of open up a previous project, make some changes, save as a new version. Even though the majority of tasks only require limited feature set, ALL tasks require the CS suite since that is 'What We Use" as does everyone else in the industry. We would get along just fine until someone sends us a file we can't open, and it is NEVER because they used a new feature. It is ALWAYS because they just saved it and sent it. For some reason it is often a newbie who just got their first version of CS. With inDesign in particular you cannot save as a previous version. You can export as an interchange document which will get you back 1 version but the other person receiving the file needs to know what to do.
Please don't take offense, Mel, because we all know you are retired and we still love you, but I think you are a little out of touch with the day to day working environment of a modern advertising/publishing company.
It could be done. We'd be going back to the old idea of thin clients, almost back to the ancient days of terminals and mainframe. But Apple would need to totally regigger their OS and hardware. What you're asking for is a mainframe concept, or at least a minicomputer model. PC's aren't designed for simultaneous access.
The reason I say that is because the underlying OS is UNIX. This actually brings up an interesting question about Mac OS, can one telnet or secure shell log into a Mac in its base configuration. I never tried so I don't know but even if the base install doesn't support it the feature could be added or better yet the Apple could just merge in the server version with the desktop version of Mac OS.
Running a graphical app would require more work from what I can see. In the end though I think the better approach would be to run native iOS apps and then use the Mac as a server. I'm fully expecting the next version of ipad to be able to better support a wide array of software that the current iPad has trouble with. At this point why bother with the Mini computer approach of the past, the Mac would make a perfectly good local server. It looks very much like the goal is to support this use case as that is pretty much what AIR Print does. AIR Print (when it gets here) and some of Apples other initiatives pretty much indicate where Apple is going with the tech. They just need to get the software and hardware in place.
This is not something I've thought about in detail.
Well, Think about it! I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Actually, I haven't thought about it in detail either.
In, the mainframe days, I could read core dumps with the best of them. I wrote a FIOS for the IBM 1301 and some IBM/BTAM crap for typewriter terminals and early IBM 2260 Display Terminals.
But the only stuff I've done at that level, recently, is JailBreak an AppleTV 1 to support Internet video streaming (with help from Erica Sadun), and then JailBreak and futz around with an iPhone gen 1.
I don't understand the significance of @wizard69's "This actually brings up an interesting question about Mac OS, can one telnet or secure shell log into a Mac in its base configuration. "
Though, I am sure that did both when fiddling with JailBroken iOS on the AppleTV and iPhone. So, I suspect that, with the proper setup, Mac OS X can be accessed this way..
The interactive graphical app is the big question.
Though, that could be mitigated in several ways:
-- greater WiFi bandwidth in the hardware
-- intelligent video compression ala h264 OS to OS
-- companion App on Mac to App on iPad.
In fact I am using VNC from an iPad to run Motion on an original Intel iMac 17 1.83 GHz Intel Core Duo, 2 GB RAM, ATI RadeonX1600 GPU.
When playing a simple Motion Project there is about a 2-second latency... not too bad
On my iMac 24 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM, ATI,RadeonHD2600 GPU
I routinely open 5 Screen Sharing windows to update software or transfer files. This works pretty good, even with quite a bit else running on the imac 24. One of these Macs is a Mini attached to an HDTV as a 1080P shared screen.
Also, we periodically stream movies from another Mini Media Library to 2 or 3 Macs, iPads or the AppleTV.
I think what I am saying is that there is a whole lot of Video going back and forth and it seems to work pretty well -- even though the hardware and OS are not designed for this.
.
I think your apple fantasy family is in serious need for a family night where they talk to each other. (not using avatars on their iPads using the imac as a power dongle to generate the living space.) ha
Actually it is a real family, active in church and sports -- who routinely read "books" together in the evening.
Ha!
Time will tell. I don't think these cheap tablet options have been around long enough to come to a conclusion about the impact on Mac sales.
So far they have impacted Mac sales in a big way - a positive way!
The big losers so far are the Wintel vendors... Actually, with the losses some of them are taking on Netbooks, they are probably just as happy to loose those "sales".
So what happens to MS's other monopoly franchise? I'm of course talking about Office. Office is an even more secure monopoly than is Windows, because it sells well to Mac users too. It's got about 95% of the office suite market, more than Windows itself presently.
Oh, there is no refuge for Microsoft in Office.
This is from a story about Microsoft and New York City entering a new cloud computing deal:
Under the licenses, the city paid for a the full Microsoft Office suite ? including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and other tools ? even if many employees used only Word and Outlook.
Under the new deal the city will pay only for the applications employees use.
This is a huge change in strategy for Microsoft where forced bundling has been the strategy for... well, forever! It also represents a significant shift in revenue. I'm sure they are making up for it with the cloud deal - or are they? And even if they are, at best they are breaking even/treading water. Not very inspiring.
With Apple squeezing them on the mobile front, and Google squeezing them on the desktop, Microsoft must really be feeling the pressure (or at least I hope they are! Time to get competitive MS!)
This does not describe anything close to our situation. We have several licenses of CS on PC and Mac and various tasks require or don't require all the advanced features. By and large it is a lot of open up a previous project, make some changes, save as a new version. Even though the majority of tasks only require limited feature set, ALL tasks require the CS suite since that is 'What We Use" as does everyone else in the industry. We would get along just fine until someone sends us a file we can't open, and it is NEVER because they used a new feature. It is ALWAYS because they just saved it and sent it. For some reason it is often a newbie who just got their first version of CS. With inDesign in particular you cannot save as a previous version. You can export as an interchange document which will get you back 1 version but the other person receiving the file needs to know what to do.
Please don't take offense, Mel, because we all know you are retired and we still love you, but I think you are a little out of touch with the day to day working environment of a modern advertising/publishing company.
You're telling me that you use an older version, and so when a newbie sends you a file in the newest format, you can't open it? If that's so, it's odd to me, because it never would have occurred to me to not upgrade all our software as upgrades came out. Has that changed in the industry as a whole? some people upgrading, and others not? Then the industry HAS changed. A few years ago, we ALL upgraded.
I thought we were talking about PS, not InDesign.
It's not like I stay in my coffin for months at a time. I have plenty of contacts still, and I still go to the various conventions and shows.