Adobe releases major update to Creative Cloud desktop apps

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Comments

  • Reply 61 of 75
    dysamoriadysamoria Posts: 3,430member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by JeffDM View Post



    Not long after the release of CC, I had been helping someone with their project. The CC updater had an alert bubble pop in the corner every minute that it couldn't connect to the internet, the local WiFi was down. For $30 a month or more, I don't think I'd go for that kind of irritation.


     


    Well, then they shouldn't be an evil thieving pirate! (that's what these kinds of copy "protection" schemes are telling us paying customers; we're guilty regardless of being proven innocent by paying for a license - this industry has it so wrong and our corporate government is totally owned)

  • Reply 62 of 75
    danielswdanielsw Posts: 906member
    I heartily concur!
  • Reply 63 of 75
    colinetcolinet Posts: 2member
    I always assumed that the Adobe products were designed for professionals yet most of the comments above indicate otherwise. The users seem to be a bunch of whinging amateurs who expect their software for free. I'm sure Adobe and no one else will miss them when they take their $5 elsewhere. I'm sure all the publishers and graphics companies will be really happy to get Pixelmator files instead of industry standard stuff.

    Adobe is a business - businesses are there to make money (Money is NOT a crime - it's wonderful) If they didn't make money they would go out of business.

    I think the Creative Cloud is first class and as a professional I can claim it ALL against my tax.
    AND before many more of you comment you should read all the information.
  • Reply 64 of 75
    zoetmbzoetmb Posts: 2,654member
    I don't want to rely on the Cloud. I want the executable on my machine. I am frequently not connected to the Web. Even if I was willing to rely on the Cloud, I don't trust the security and many companies, such as ad agencies, won't either.

    Adobe should have given users a choice, they should have priced it cheaper so it better equated to upgrade pricing and they still should have made updates available to those people who bought the regular version.

    As others have stated, I'll use Photoshop until it stops working and then I'll never purchase another Adobe product and I've been a regular customer since the beginning - I used Aldus Pagemaker 1.0. I have my original camera raw files, but I suppose the sidecar files won't work in another app, which means I'll have to re-post process every image I want to re-use from that point, which pisses me off to no end, if true. I do like Photoshop, but I can get just about anything I need to do done in Apple's Aperture plus the NIK/Google plug-ins, which I use in Photoshop anyway. Or maybe I'll just go back and use Nikon's NX2 software.

    It's not a subscription concept is such a bad thing, but I don't like being pushed into a corner or as Unded put it, "paying Adobe's monthly 'protection money'".

  • Reply 65 of 75
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    colinet wrote: »
    I always assumed that the Adobe products were designed for professionals yet most of the comments above indicate otherwise. The users seem to be a bunch of whinging amateurs who expect their software for free. I'm sure Adobe and no one else will miss them when they take their $5 elsewhere. I'm sure all the publishers and graphics companies will be really happy to get Pixelmator files instead of industry standard stuff.

    ?

    Adobe Creative apps were never free in the first place. But with the upgrade plan that a lot of people take (say every other release), the new plan is more expensive. I don't think anyone really upgrades unless every version there is a clear need to, features of the new version pay for itself, or have money to burn. I've gotten away from monthly payments on a lot of things, I even paid cash for every car I've owned. If monthly payments works for you, fine, but I don't think it's smart use of money.

    With Illustrator being the only decent Mac app for vector drawing, it's a bit of a disappointment. It's that or Inkscape or a handful of other similarly contrived programs.

    I have a legit copy of Corel Draw X3 on a Windows notebook, and haven't ever needed to update, but I probably will next update just to align it better with a newer copy of Windows . Right now, I'm running about $5 a month. I've talked about what I do needs with people that have used newer copies. There are improvements, but the upgrades don't actually help what I do.

    I think the Creative Cloud is first class and as a professional I can claim it ALL against my tax.

    A tax deduction only means you don't pay tax on the money used to pay for the software, it doesn't reduce your tax bill by that amount. That's a very important distinction. Your line seems to suggest you don't understand that. You're still needlessly out more money, unless you compare it against buying every single update.
  • Reply 66 of 75
    robmrobm Posts: 1,068member
    colinet wrote: »
    I always assumed that the Adobe products were designed for professionals yet most of the comments above indicate otherwise. The users seem to be a bunch of whinging amateurs who expect their software for free. I'm sure Adobe and no one else will miss them when they take their $5 elsewhere. I'm sure all the publishers and graphics companies will be really happy to get Pixelmator files instead of industry standard stuff.

    Adobe is a business - businesses are there to make money (Money is NOT a crime - it's wonderful) If they didn't make money they would go out of business.

    I think the Creative Cloud is first class and as a professional I can claim it ALL against my tax.
    AND before many more of you comment you should read all the information.

    Nice first post.

    Dont wander in here and call people whingers and whiners, matey. You'll get a thwap round the ears for nothing, no kidding.
    Here's a thwap - you suggest that some of us will start handing over Pixelmator files, hmmm. That speaks volumes. You've been in pre-press forever, no doubt.

    Come back when you've paid thousands to Adobe over the years.
    Or just modify your attitude and try to understand that some people here have genuine reasons for disagreeing with Adobes change.

    And while I'm at it, let me tell you something about business. Competition is good. It brings out the best. Adobe doesn't have any competition in the pro graphics, design market right now. That is what has brought about this change. If there were one or two other serious players they wouldn't be trying to milk the cow.
  • Reply 67 of 75
    mike fixmike fix Posts: 270member


    In less than a day... instructions how to crack the CC suite are now online...  So I certainly doubt piracy had any part of Adobe's decision to go the rental route...as they also would have made it a lot more difficult to pirate...as it turns out it's quite simple.

  • Reply 69 of 75
    nkhmnkhm Posts: 928member
    mstone wrote: »
    I love posts like this. Really? What main features did they remove? You just want to trash them without bothering to mention what makes it a "Trainwreck".

    Right? You know, if you actually were a professional web developer you would already be familiar with all of the most advanced development environments available and not still be trying to find one.


    <img alt="" class="lightbox-enabled" data-id="27070" data-type="61" height="360" src="http://forums.appleinsider.com/content/type/61/id/27070/width/350/height/700/flags/LL" style="; width: 300px; height: 360px;" width="300">

    If you had used the dreamweaver CC software, and were familiar with dreamweaver, you would know what was missing rather than blindly defending it.

    All database connectivity wizards are gone, no more insert/uodate/delete wizards, by default the bindings, database and server behaviors panels are removed. There is now a work around as adobe realised very quickly they had made a mistake and furiously back pedalled. However, if you bring the panels back, it causes huge issues with stability.

    Other issues. The CSS panel is huge, unstable and counter-intuitive.

    Launch time and script editing are massively slower and stability all round is a mess. Create a new fluid grid? Crash. Insert data binding? Crash.

    It is a trainwreck.

    I am fully aware of several other pieces of software, however no one tool does everything that dreamweaver used to do.

    So quit with the blind defence and acknowledge the very real issues here.
  • Reply 70 of 75
    Almost 34,000 folks have signed.They don't like Adobe CC licensing.Show @Adobe how you feel. https://www.change.org/petitions/adobe-systems-incorporated-eliminate-the-mandatory-creative-cloud-subscription-model %u2026

    Another more fiscal way to show @Adobe you dont like the CC licensing scheme.http://adobe2014.tumblr.com #adobe2014
  • Reply 71 of 75
    robmrobm Posts: 1,068member
    Now theres a first post that others should be judged by. Thanks for the linkies !
    I had no idea that there were so many opposed. llol

    # 34,322
    The meek will speak.
  • Reply 72 of 75
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,309moderator
    robm wrote: »
    Now theres a first post that others should be judged by. Thanks for the linkies !
    I had no idea that there were so many opposed. llol

    # 34,322
    The meek will speak.

    Adobe has a few million users that currently make them around $3b per year. Apparently they lose at least $1b to pirated versions of the Suite. I would guess it's far higher than that - assuming of course that those people would be prepared to pay something for it in the first place.

    The move to the Cloud with regular updates isn't going to stop piracy entirely as online blogs are quick to promote:

    http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2276670/adobe-creative-cloud-suite-cracked-within-24-hours

    It still makes piracy harder though. Adobe is a publicly trading company so they can't give away new features for free, just updates that contain bug fixes. That's the case with Apple too apparently. With the cloud model, they can get round this and offer new features whenever they want so if someone breaks the licensing, they just make a new update and someone with the old version has to wait on it being cracked again. This would make it inconvenient for someone in a business situation. Kind of the same deal with jailbreaking an iPhone - eventually it becomes more convenient to play along.

    You can see in the comments at the above link the usual excuses promoting piracy. This happened before the cloud change too though, the justifications were that Adobe charged too much. Here's a few comments that can be found in various places:

    "I know there is alot there so if anyone knows how to get serials for all these then i would be most greatful.
    Basicly most of Creative Suite 5 Master Collection. and there is NO WAY im paying over $2000 it all."

    "I would probably buy CS5 Master if it was selling for $499, but $2000+ is just too much"

    "Food, Rent or CS5. I can’t seem to earn enough to afford all three. 2500 USD isn’t much, but developing 3-4 projects montly earns me 300-500 USD. Blame the global economy."

    "For $500 I would be in but $2500 is crazy for someone who isn’t working with it professionally."

    "If you want to keep the programs from your more expensive $2500 CS4 Production Premium package and only upgrade certain programs to CS5 to save a bit of money. Good F ‘in luck! You loose those programs that you paid a very good penny for that are not in the cheaper upgrade package! Not fair at all! Adobe thought everything out to screw you as a customer. What kind of scam company takes away software that you invested in and paid a very, very large amount of money for, when you upgrade to a smaller design package? Can you say BBB?
    I despise this company with all my might. They are a big reason why I will not ever be updating any of my programs to CS5 ever, unless it’s a free copy and you can deal with all the bugs and “What the hell were you thinkings” when you work in there apps.
    These guys are only looking out for themselves!! I say Rip these a-holes off as much as you can and as often as you can!!!"

    There are millions of people downloading the CS Suite without paying so of course a portion of those will complain about that option being made more difficult. Adobe has stated that they realised the CS Suite was far too expensive for people and the Cloud is part of their strategy to making it more accessible to people on low incomes:

    http://torrentfreak.com/tired-of-the-war-on-piracy-adobe-hopes-to-turn-pirates-into-customers-130625/

    Now, it's not just people who would pirate the software that have a reason to object to the new licensing. There are perfectly valid reasons such as it costing more money in the long run for some and not being able to use the same apps when you stop paying. The problem isn't so much an objection to cloud licensing there but the lack of a permanent license option and Adobe has suggested they might allow people to have a permanent license of CS6 after paying for CC for a period of time.

    They are trying to figure out the best way to have a sustainable business for the long term. Say that they dropped Creative Cloud tomorrow and went back to the old way, it would just revert back to the old complaints that few people can afford over $2k and the piracy levels would remain high. There is a business model that will work out best for both Adobe and the customers. So far, the reviews of the Creative Cloud are overwhelmingly positive from both customers who have signed up and Adobe's engineers so it's not as if it's a disaster that some would like it to be. They've already topped 700k subscribers:

    http://www.macworld.com/article/2042386/adobe-creative-cloud-subscriptions-hit-700-000.html

    There's a long way to go as they need to hit about 4 million but I think they'll manage it and it will be a healthier way forward for the company in the long term. People assume they can get the government to force Adobe to change their business model but that's like getting the government to force Apple to make Macs cheaper because they have a monopoly on Final Cut Pro or even to force Adobe to not charge $2k+ for their software. Adobe has a right to make a business decision to license software the same way Microsoft does. If the market decides against it, the same thing will happen to them as happened to Quark but a petition of 30k isn't going to bring that about when they have 700k customers signing up.

    The people at Adobe will listen to what people say. If there's a better way for people to pay for the software legally, they'll consider it. Suggestions like 'I want the option to pay $500 for the whole suite once in my life and reserve the right to complain if it breaks during that time' is probably not going to fly because it's not sustainable for Adobe.

    I personally wish every company selling expensive software went this route, even if it was just an option. Maya, AutoCAD, Mari, Cinema4D, Nuke, game engines like CryEngine, Unreal. Imagine if Apple did this with Final Cut Pro. They could charge $10/month or less. Not having a jumping-off point is a problem that needs to be solved but that may just involve having restricted versions of the software outside the license like the way Quicktime Pro has menu items blocked out when it's not licensed. They can even put adverts in them.

    One thing I think they should do is similar to what insurance companies do, which is lower the rate the longer you pay (in the case of insurance, the longer you don't have a claim). This way it makes it better to stay as a paying customer than to stop because if you stop paying for long enough, you'd lose the discount and they can have a table that shows the discount rates over time.
  • Reply 73 of 75
    robmrobm Posts: 1,068member
    Marvin wrote: »
    Adobe has a few million users that currently make them around $3b per year. Apparently they lose at least $1b to pirated versions of the Suite. I would guess it's far higher than that - assuming of course that those people would be prepared to pay something for it in the first place.

    Yea - that's the problem with Adobe throwing a piracy number out there. It assumes those people would pay. I'd think not. How many students have a pirated copy of PS ? - millions, I'd guess. How many can use it professionally - hell, from what Ive seen very, very few. Id think the same for the rest of the suite. So what have they actually lost in terms of sales - they say a billion, I couldn't even begin to quantify it but I'd suggest that's its a number way, way south of their billion. Who actually knows ?
    Marvin wrote: »
    The move to the Cloud with regular updates isn't going to stop piracy entirely as online blogs are quick to promote:

    http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2276670/adobe-creative-cloud-suite-cracked-within-24-hours

    It still makes piracy harder though. Adobe is a publicly trading company so they can't give away new features for free, just updates that contain bug fixes. That's the case with Apple too apparently. With the cloud model, they can get round this and offer new features whenever they want so if someone breaks the licensing, they just make a new update and someone with the old version has to wait on it being cracked again. This would make it inconvenient for someone in a business situation. Kind of the same deal with jailbreaking an iPhone - eventually it becomes more convenient to play along.

    You can see in the comments at the above link the usual excuses promoting piracy. This happened before the cloud change too though, the justifications were that Adobe charged too much. Here's a few comments that can be found in various places:

    Yea - I see the usual. lol
    If we do the numbers from me # 34322 x say $1000 a pop = $34,322,000
    A long way from a billion. Means nothing, I know. But, just saying.
    Marvin wrote: »
    There are perfectly valid reasons such as it costing more money in the long run for some and not being able to use the same apps when you stop paying. The problem isn't so much an objection to cloud licensing there but the lack of a permanent license option and Adobe has suggested they might allow people to have a permanent license of CS6 after paying for CC for a period of time.

    They might allow, they might allow ! If I pay them enough. Ive done that. They however are continuing to load worthless helper apps onto my machine !
    phhhst. See right there is where Adobe starts to get my hackles up.
    I don't want their bloat - I despise that stupid Bridge, Air and Download Manager. I like their apps PS AE Pr are good solid, AI is ok but necessary for me sometimes, Dr - well it is what is, a buggy mess but I can live with it. Plenty of software alternatives there, tho.
    Marvin wrote: »
    They are trying to figure out the best way to have a sustainable business for the long term. Say that they dropped Creative Cloud tomorrow and went back to the old way, it would just revert back to the old complaints that few people can afford over $2k and the piracy levels would remain high. There is a business model that will work out best for both Adobe and the customers. So far, the reviews of the Creative Cloud are overwhelmingly positive from both customers who have signed up and Adobe's engineers so it's not as if it's a disaster that some would like it to be. They've already topped 700k subscribers:

    http://www.macworld.com/article/2042386/adobe-creative-cloud-subscriptions-hit-700-000.html

    There's a long way to go as they need to hit about 4 million but I think they'll manage it and it will be a healthier way forward for the company in the long term. People assume they can get the government to force Adobe to change their business model but that's like getting the government to force Apple to make Macs cheaper because they have a monopoly on Final Cut Pro or even to force Adobe to not charge $2k+ for their software. Adobe has a right to make a business decision to license software the same way Microsoft does. If the market decides against it, the same thing will happen to them as happened to Quark but a petition of 30k isn't going to bring that about when they have 700k customers signing up.

    I totally agree that everybody, every company needs to make money.
    Marvin wrote: »
    The people at Adobe will listen to what people say. If there's a better way for people to pay for the software legally, they'll consider it. Suggestions like 'I want the option to pay $500 for the whole suite once in my life and reserve the right to complain if it breaks during that time' is probably not going to fly because it's not sustainable for Adobe.

    Yea - the Ol I paid once, its mine forever, is a nowhere, silly argument.
    They are tools to create with - I expect to pay for good tools.
    BUT - I don't want anything else other than the tool.
    Marvin wrote: »
    I personally wish every company selling expensive software went this route, even if it was just an option. Maya, AutoCAD, Mari, Cinema4D, Nuke, game engines like CryEngine, Unreal. Imagine if Apple did this with Final Cut Pro. They could charge $10/month or less. Not having a jumping-off point is a problem that needs to be solved but that may just involve having restricted versions of the software outside the license like the way Quicktime Pro has menu items blocked out when it's not licensed. They can even put adverts in them.

    Ads, Marvin ? Noooo, brother !
    I know you're just flying an idea out there but ...
    Christ, lmao. I make ads. I def don't want to see them in an app GUI.
    Marvin wrote: »
    One thing I think they should do is similar to what insurance companies do, which is lower the rate the longer you pay (in the case of insurance, the longer you don't have a claim). This way it makes it better to stay as a paying customer than to stop because if you stop paying for long enough, you'd lose the discount and they can have a table that shows the discount rates over time.

    As I said before, they arecreative tools that Adobe is selling.
    It's a giant mental jump for me to buy into that they could apply an insurance model to the sale of software.
    No offence intended. The insurance model only exists if you fear that something might happen to something tangible you own.
    Software we interact with - but it's out there in never, never land in a physical sense. Sorry, can't see that happening.

    What, I can suggest to Adobe is that they prune out all the needless "features" and offer what they used to sell. Standalone apps that are reasonably priced. Thats all they have to do. Forget the bloat. Completely unnecessary.
    Failing that then the door is open for some other company or companies.
    I made the point before, they are in a monopolistic situation which they have created and are now trying to exploit. Fair enough, business is business.
    Just don't expect that everybody will just roll over and accept it.
    One of the few choices we have in this world is where we choose to spend our disposable income.
    No business should expect that we should follow where they lead, unless we have no choice.
    Anyways, I start to digress into anarchy.

    oh and I now can see I fcuked up the quotes, jus a noob !
    lol, /slurp tag
    cheers, r
  • Reply 74 of 75
    thepixeldocthepixeldoc Posts: 2,257member
    kpluck wrote: »
    Thank the pirates and the stock market. The only reason Adobe switched to this model was to even out their revenue stream to help their financials and to try and curtail some of the illegal use of its software.

    That being said, for most people doing work with their products, the subscription is a non-issue. We are talking about 1 billable hour a month, for many it is probably more like 30 minutes, to pay for the subscription. If you don't like it, stick with the version you have and don't worry about it. You will probably be able to run it forever in a virtual machine regardless of what upgrades come to OS X in the future.

    -kpluck

    Well Adobe can't use that excuse anymore... since the main Adobe CC programs (Photoshop, Premier, InDesign, and Illustrator) were cracked within 24-hours of their release.

    I'm going to give Adobe the benefit of the doubt, and truly hope they make some new features available soon to all of the above programs. That is what they have "stated" they want to do: to get off of an 18-month version upgrade time-line, to being able to offer features as soon as they're ready to ship.

    I'm holding out for that first wave before subscribing to CC.... that is if it ever comes at all.
  • Reply 75 of 75
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,309moderator
    robm wrote: »
    Yea - that's the problem with Adobe throwing a piracy number out there. It assumes those people would pay. I'd think not. How many students have a pirated copy of PS ? - millions, I'd guess.

    That estimate was from a 3rd party company but the numbers are fairly inconclusive. They would be counted as lost sales if Adobe had a payment option they could afford, which CC should be. I think it's $30/m for students.
    robm wrote: »
    Ads, Marvin ? Noooo, brother !
    I know you're just flying an idea out there but ...
    Christ, lmao. I make ads. I def don't want to see them in an app GUI.

    :D I know, I hate ads too but it would just be a jumping-off point. People who don't want to keep paying can be forced to sit through an ad when they want to use the software. Adobe only needs to get a revenue of about $1-2/day. People do it on Youtube all the time and that seems to pay the bills.
    robm wrote: »
    The insurance model only exists if you fear that something might happen to something tangible you own.
    Software we interact with - but it's out there in never, never land in a physical sense.

    The insurance discount example is mainly just a way to incentivize keeping paying. The pricing model itself is really treating software like a service instead of a product. Some products like single-player video games don't really need much maintenance and they are single use - same deal with movies. When you cross over into a service like with multiplayer games, online games, Netflix, Hulu etc, those are all successful subscription models for intangible products.

    Some software requires ongoing maintenance because the industry it serves keeps changing. Perhaps people can pay a large subscription to begin with until they've paid off the software and then they drop down to a maintenance subscription. People like the idea that once they pay up the software that they can freeze the version they have and just live with it but that creates its own problems with versions getting out of sync from one user to another.

    I think there would be a consensus that Adobe's software is too expensive. When you look at something like Netflix, they charge about $8/month so if you use it for 40 years, you pay $3,840 and don't own any movies. But, that's only enough money to be able to own 192x $20 movies anyway and the idea is that you'd have likely watched more than 192 movies during the 40 years so it can be better value to subscribe than to own.

    In terms of the Adobe Suite, the assumption to make would be concerning how much money Adobe expects one individual user to pay in their lifetime. Say that someone has a working career of 40 years, $600 x 40 = $24000 and then still paying into retirement. I think a more reasonable setup could be a full subscription first until they pay up $2500 and then they drop down to a maintenance subscription at say $300 per year. If an individual stops using it and stops paying and doesn't renew the subscription within a set time, they have to go back to a higher rate. Once an individual user has paid $600 x 4 years + $300 x 36 years = $13,200 in their lifetime, they would get a single permanent CC license with free updates that lasted as long as that person was alive.

    Right now, they make $3b/year so over 40 years, they'd expect at least $120b. It would be higher because of inflation but we'll go with that. This 3-stage model would require that they get about 9 million subscribers to make the same money. Apparently they have an addressable market of 20-30 million, which will grow in 40 years.

    It's clearly at an experimental stage and people are rightly concerned about being locked into a pricing model that isn't favourable. They just need to give users an assurance that they won't screw them over, perhaps in a legal agreement. A permanent license gave people some assurance and control automatically, even though in practise that's not entirely the case.
    robm wrote: »
    they are in a monopolistic situation which they have created and are now trying to exploit.

    Assuming they are a monopoly, surely that means that charging over $2k for their software is similarly exploitative. If people have no choice but to buy their software then they are forcing every user to pay a lot of money anyway. Like I say, they already make $3b a year - I think the average works out at around $300 per user. The CC average will probably work out around the same ($600/y is just the max). The advantage for them with the CC model is that it should just scale up higher in volume because it's more accessible to people.
    Well Adobe can't use that excuse anymore... since the main Adobe CC programs (Photoshop, Premier, InDesign, and Illustrator) were cracked within 24-hours of their release.

    I don't think the purpose is primarily to stop piracy but to make it feasible for people to pay. Freelancers on low incomes would never come up with over $2k because it would require putting away $100/m for about 2 years and they don't have that luxury. Now, it's not much worse than paying a cable or phone bill. It like iTunes - you can go and steal the music all you want but it's affordable enough and they have a wide collection of music that paying for it is usually easier. You can jump through whatever hoops to keep getting new cracked versions of the CS Suite but a lot of people will be fine with the $50/m alternative.

    I think the pricing should be $10/m per app and you can pick whatever bundle you like. When you hit either $30-40/m, you just get the full suite. That would be for individuals. For groups/businesses, the pricing should be higher because of tax status and because they pretty much have to be making money from its use.
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