PS 7 - OSX savior or killer?

Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
Since the start, PS 7 has been seen as the savior of OSX - now it's out, along with the OS9 and XP versions (apparently heavily optimized for the Win platform).



But for pros, PS (like QuarkXpress) is the core of a meta-application including many 3rd party plugins - none of which work in OSX.



So will PS7 save OSX, or will pro users simply sigh in relief at the upgrade, content that they can stay in OS9 for the foreseeable future?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 7
    amorphamorph Posts: 7,112member
    That depends. Corel is hard at work porting their plugins to work with PS 7 under OS X, according to a note posted on today's MacFixIt. Any plugins under active development will probably follow, because everyone knows that OS 9 is on the way out.



    Designers have some wiggle room, though, because PS 7 and its current plugins - along with any number of future plugins, courtesy of Carbon - run just fine in OS 9. Hey, that sounds like a slogan.



    In other news, this fall will see the lumbering behemoth that is Quark bring XPress to OS X along with a thoroughly revamped and expanded workflow-management system, according to the Naked Mole Rat.
  • Reply 2 of 7
    spookyspooky Posts: 504member
    Saviour? I don't think so. I mean what does it do on OSX that it doesn't do under XP?



    Killer? Maybe. Its now obvious that OSX whilst nice doesn't seem to offer any amazing technology that developers can or will take advantage of. Thus, what would the other 95% switch for?
  • Reply 3 of 7
    moogsmoogs Posts: 4,296member
    I have a better question: why would anyone assume that without the business of "the other 95%" Apple can't survive (and by extension that OS X can't survive)? With ~30 Million users, a $40M profit in a lousy economy, the boom of new apps from Adobe to Unsanity to Edu Labs...boy that all spells doom to me.



    Do the math guys. We don't *need* the other 95%. It would be nice to have a few million extra users padding Apple's coffers every year but it's not a requirement for good things to continue happening for us.



    <img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[No]" />



    [ 04-18-2002: Message edited by: Moogs ]</p>
  • Reply 4 of 7
    cowerdcowerd Posts: 579member
    Much of Apple's profit comes from investments made on the $4.3 billion in assets. Most high-tech firms do not figure stock options as a part of employee compensation, and therefore as an operating expense. If done so, losses for most high-techs would be staggering--think of Stevie's most recent stock package.



    Also Apple would not be targeting "the other 95%" if they felt is was not in there interests to do so. Say what you will about Apple's present financial health, but the fact remains that a larger user share would benefit Apple and users, including more drivers [faster to market and for more hardware, and possibly better written], better technology from Moto and IBM [a larger customer always has more juice in product decisions], and dare I say it cheaper, and possibly a wider variety of products from Apple.



    ps--The boon of new apps are merely ports or replacements for missing features from OS9. Power School maybe a killer app, but it is for a niche market. OSX has yet to have its killer app on the scale of Pagemaker, one that really changed a whole series of professions [well besides OSX, but only so many people care about what OS they are running--see MS failed upgrade strategy]. More interesting things are going on in open source and PC world regarding P2P, and other network things that will be huge in the near future.



    [ 04-18-2002: Message edited by: cowerd ]</p>
  • Reply 5 of 7
    kedakeda Posts: 722member
    Ok, back to the topic...PS7



    I got my upgrade last night and spent the evening doing some run-of-the-mill graphics. Overall, the application performs well. It is a bit slower than the 6 in OS9, but it is nothing that got in the way of my work. The file browser is cool, but I didnt try too many of the new tools (except the layer modes). By comparison, it is much faster than .ai10.



    Savior or killer? Neither, IMO. It is a step toward the wide-spread adoption of OSX. I must say, it was very nice running PS, ImgR, Ill, OmniWeb at once w/o worrying about memory. Im happy w/the upgrade and dont regret spending the money.



    BTW, one of the Preferences allow you to set the maximum amount of memory PS uses. Its in the form of a percentage of overall memory. I set mine to 75% (of 768MB), Ill experiment and see what works best.
  • Reply 6 of 7
    matsumatsu Posts: 6,558member
    [quote]Originally posted by Keda:

    <strong>Ok, back to the topic...PS7



    It is a bit slower than the 6 in OS9, but it is nothing that got in the way of my work. </strong><hr></blockquote>



    Killer? That could be it. Now I realize that new software rarely gets FASTER without at least a proportional investment in hardware, but nobody wants to spend a lot of money for essentially the same features to go slower. The healing tools look very interesting though.



    Also, I think Windows versions of photoshop are getting better all the time, though even there an XP+photoshop upgrade probably warrants some hardware upgrading if you want to see FASTER performance. And that's where the Mac problem really is, is not. While both platforms offer substantial performance increases over machines of 18 months ago, the PC has gone a bit (or a lot, depending) further than the Mac has -- each relative to their own previous hardware offerings, not really to compare them to each other.



    I think, for Apple to get OSX photoshop to really take off, they have to cook-up a suite of plugins for Adobe products -- all of them as fast as can be altivec and MP aware -- and make them available exclusively to users of Adobe and Corel on MACS. Give the PC artist/designer a reason to switch! Not just plugins, but a choice of plugins tied together in genuinely useful and powerful ways, both directly to each other, and to the meta-app (photo-shop) within which they work.



    Software has been a resounding success, use it give more reasons to buy the hardware, heck, make light versions of the plug-ins free with every mac purchase.



    Salesman: I got this $1600 512MB RAM P4 2.6Ghz here that's faster than that $2500 mac. And the same graphics software is available for it!



    Buyer: But can I get these awesome exclusive Photoshop/InDesign/After-effects plugin suites for the PC?



    Salesman: Ummm, no, but you can still get photoshop and search around for suitable substitues.



    Buyer: Nah, I want to get to work NOW, and KNOW that EVERYTHING works together perfectly.



    Salesman: I'll throw in an extra 512MB of RAM on the PC...



    Buyer: That still won't give me access to the apps I want. I think I'll take the mac ...
  • Reply 7 of 7
    savior for OSX?... yes, at least one of the saviors. without photoshop and or flash, OSX has few other hopes.



    photoshop a savior for consumer and professioanls?... no. after reading up and looking into it, i don't see that many new additons than from 6. yeah, it looks nice and you can do a couple new things, but does it save time or change the medium in a huge way... no.
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