What's up with Adobe?

DavidTO

They come out with another new version of PS Elements, an it's still not Mac compatible. You want to run Elements, you're stuck on v4 on a Mac.

Ridiculous. Seriously.

Why?

jfriend

DavidTO wrote:

They come out with another new version of PS Elements, an it's still not Mac compatible. You want to run Elements, you're stuck on v4 on a Mac.

Ridiculous. Seriously.

Why?

I don't know if this is influencing Adobe or not, but Apple sucks a lot of the oxygen out of the Elements for the Mac market because iPhoto is on every Mac and meets the needs of many users. I'm not saying that iPhoto is the same thing as Elements, but I'd wager that 8 out of 10 PC users who bought Elements would not have bought it if they had iPhoto functionality for free. I think this makes the Mac market for Elements a lot, lot, lot smaller than the PC market.

The same thing happens on Windows. Microsoft sucked all the oxygen out of the email client world when they bundled Outlook in with Office. Since then, there's been zero innovation and no meaningful competitors.

colourbox

I would agree. On Windows, a huge part of Elements is the organizer and the tools for burning DVDs, printing books, etc. iPhoto does all that, so Adobe is like "why bother." Apple also has a nice little path from iPhoto to Aperture. Only Photoshop at the high end has no Apple competition, so Adobe happily sells that to any Mac user.

But since no one wants to compete with free, it's hard to find a cheap Mac app that actually has a brush tool in it. Which is a little hard to understand for those coming from Windows where you at least get MS Paint if you have to touch something up.

DavidTO

Well, Aperture and Lightroom compete head to head, I would think.

It's still no excuse, IMO. At LEAST make a universal binary version, eh?

Richard

DavidTO wrote:

At LEAST make a universal binary version, eh?

That's easier said than done. Remember that this is not a matter of one operating system running on two different processor architectures. It's two different operating systems running on a single processor architecture. The application programmer is only concerned with the operating system's API.

claudermilk

DavidTO wrote:

Well, Aperture and Lightroom compete head to head, I would think.

It's still no excuse, IMO. At LEAST make a universal binary version, eh?

And Aperture is far from free. It & LR are the same price, so equal footing there.

Nikolai

rsinmadrid wrote:

That's easier said than done. Remember that this is not a matter of one operating system running on two different processor architectures. It's two different operating systems running on a single processor architecture. The application programmer is only concerned with the operating system's API.

The only current way out to create a cross-platform app is to go Java, but, for some reasons, nobody wants to do that either And even if someone did, you probably would not like it anyway (I know I wouldn't, but that's me), 'cause it would be ugly, slow and very limited...

ivar

http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/09/24/elements/index.php

DavidTO

Cool!

CatOne

Nikolai wrote:

The only current way out to create a cross-platform app is to go Java, but, for some reasons, nobody wants to do that either And even if someone did, you probably would not like it anyway (I know I wouldn't, but that's me), 'cause it would be ugly, slow and very limited...

LightZone is written in Java.

But maybe you're citing that as an example without explicitly naming it

colourbox

Nikolai wrote:

The only current way out to create a cross-platform app is to go Java

I don't know enough about programming to know if this counts, but Lightroom is written in Lua... (same as World of Warcraft)

CatOne

colourbox wrote:

I don't know enough about programming to know if this counts, but Lightroom is written in Lua... (same as World of Warcraft)

No, Lightroom modules are written in Lua. Lightroom itself is likely C and C++. The modules extend the core Lightroom functionality but the product itself is unlikely to be completely Lua based.

And while C and C++ both exist on (nearly) all platforms, that's not really the point in portability, because the windowing libraries and foundation classes for each platform are completely separate.

SloYerRoll

DavidTO wrote:

Well, Aperture and Lightroom compete head to head, I would think.

It's still no excuse, IMO. At LEAST make a universal binary version, eh?

I agree w/ you David that there's not an excuse for this. My take isn't the "why bother" though. Why would adobe invest in Premier Pro and make it for Mac when Final Cut Pro still is a superior product (IMO, this is your area of expertise though).

I think it's more about targeting demographics. Users that buy Macs are less likely to buy lower level apps. Half if it is a mentality that Macs are so much better and you should have superior software to go w/ the superior hardware.. The other half is that Mac owners have already invested 50 - 200% more than a PC user (exceptions noted) and have the pockets (or credit cards) to go for the heavy apps. Mac has created a fantastic computer culture of users that truly believe when they get a Mac, their workflow will improve. Extensive studies have been done and the only time improvements were seen where when the user was on the machine full time and those differences were marginal.

There are so many PC versions that shopping for the best price has become best practive vs. finding the machine that's right for your needs.

It's like setting up a dollar store in Beverly Hills.

I still agree there's no excuse. I can see why this would be the case though.

DavidTO

Not sure I agree, Jon. Apple's market is consumer, not business, and consumers DO have a need for something more than iPhoto, but less than the full-blown PS. Also, you can't compare prices between Apple and build your own, or generic computers. The margin between Apple and it's direct competitors is very favorable, as far as I can see. You just have to omit the crippled low-baller machines that most PC makers sell to catch your eye.

And Apple users aren't made of money, for the most part, they're just interested in a quality that cannot be found in PC computers.

As for Premiere, that's a definite what the heck. FCP is so far ahead, Adobe will have to spend some serious money to catch up, and I'm just not sure they'll be able to catch up. But maybe there are those out there that are Adobe users on so many levels that Premiere makes sense for their limited needs. I don't know about that, just that FCP is ruling the roost right now.

SloYerRoll

I do see your points David. While you have changed my stance a bit on this, to a certain extent we'll agree to disagree.

I'm not talking about the homegrown beast I have or others. I'm just speaking on the cookie cutter dell's & etc. I could be wrong, but I'm fairly confident that you can go to any local computer store and buy a Apple equivalent ready made machine at about a third of the price. I'll do some research though since I haven't really priced things retail in a while. The reason behind this is in the following paragraph...

I will agree w/ value on Macs. They build quality and do not cut corners like the heavy hitters in the mass computer building industry. Case in point my 2001 G4 QS is still sitting right here waiting for me to task it w/ it's next project. I can't say the shelf life on any retail PC could beat, let alone match that. I have only sepnt money on upgrades for this machine, no repairs.
In the consumer market we live in today though. I don't see the need to have a machine that runs for 7+ years though. There's no way I'll be using the same machine in 7 years even if it still is in perfect condition. I keep my Mac around since it's not broke and I really do love that machine. Also having cross platforms at your disposal can come in VERY handy. Technology changes to fast for this to be a viable option to me.

I probably did a poor job trying to say my point about Apple users and money. Going to quality over quantity is usually synonymous w/ having the ability to spend that money (once again, exceptions noted). I was merely implying that if your going for quality, your not going to stop at the machine and get inferior software. A chain is only as strong as it's weakest link. I know nothing about Elements, I'm sure it's not inferior in regards to standards. My point was the mindset behind the ppl that normally buy Macs. No digs or offence in my statement at all.

-Jon

beacazil

DavidTO wrote:

They come out with another new version of PS Elements, an it's still not Mac compatible. You want to run Elements, you're stuck on v4 on a Mac.

Ridiculous. Seriously.

Why?

Have you ever looked at GIMP for OSX, David? It is free and, while not a PS replacement, definitely in the PS class. I used it for years on PC and Linux platforms. The Mac port is at http://gimp.org/macintosh/

DavidTO

I own CS3. My need for PSE is for my wife and children. I'm not gonna set them loose on GIMP. I want PSE because I want something that has simple tools they can use.

jfriend

DavidTO wrote:

I own CS3. My need for PSE is for my wife and children. I'm not gonna set them loose on GIMP. I want PSE because I want something that has simple tools they can use.

I am not impressed with Elements for medium level users who want simple things to be simple, but want access to a little more functionality than iPhoto offers, but don't need anywhere near the power or complexity of CS3. I'd put my wife and teenager in that category. I used Elements myself for three years before I bought CS2 (now CS3) and while it had lots of power, IMO it is not the best thing for folks in that middle category. Many simple things are not nearly as simple as they should be and many things in Elements are still more "image editor oriented" than they are optimized for people who just want to fix photos. Maybe the mac version of Elements is better than the Windows version - I haven't seen it. What I wish there was for this type of audience is a "light" version of Lightroom for $99. IMO, that would be way better than Elements for many photographers.

KED

DavidTO wrote:

They come out with another new version of PS Elements, an it's still not Mac compatible. You want to run Elements, you're stuck on v4 on a Mac.

Ridiculous. Seriously.

Why?

It's ridiculous on more than one level -- my iMac is Intel-based, and NO version of PS Elements is supported on that, and based on a phone call to Adobe, there are no current plans to change that. So for Intel-based iMac owers, it's CS3 or nothing, which means for me, it's nothing. I'd rather spend the marginal dollars on gear, and make do with Aperture.

El Kiwi

CatOne wrote:

No, Lightroom modules are written in Lua. Lightroom itself is likely C and C++. The modules extend the core Lightroom functionality but the product itself is unlikely to be completely Lua based.

And while C and C++ both exist on (nearly) all platforms, that's not really the point in portability, because the windowing libraries and foundation classes for each platform are completely separate.

Actually, I read an interesting article from one of the lead LR guys here.

That article wrote:

So what we do with Lua is essentially all of the application logic from running the UI to managing what we actually do in the database. Pretty much every piece of code in the app that could be described as making decisions or implementing features is in Lua until you get down to the raw processing, which is in C++. The database engine is in C; the interface to the OS is in C++ and Objective C as appropriate to platform. But most of the actually interesting material in the app beyond the core database code (which is SQLite) and the raw processing code (which is essentially Adobe Camera Raw) is all in Lua.

Cool stuff.

jonh68

Business decisions always come down to money. I would guess the investment cost does not bode well with the market research or past experiences with Elements on Mac's. I can't blame a company for not investing in somethng that will not have a high rate of return.