[godzookie2k]

http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/18378.html

[suhail]

Lots of things in Gable's interview were interesting, but I think he is not a user but a spectator, he had some silly comments like:

"iPhoto may seem innocent enough, but with a few more features it's a free version of Photoshop."
Uhh… yeh, sure!!

"Everyone talks about the impact InDesign is having, but in the trenches out there, QuarkXPress is still the product of choice, and I don't see that changing as long as it continues to work well and is supported by third-party integrators."
I don't think he really know what InDesign can do, or the difference between the two.

"But I think the lack of OS X support is more emotional than real -- I don't see that many large publishing companies rushing to adopt OS X. It may seem late to the Mac faithful, but Quark will be okay if they release that product in the next six to eight months."
I don't think he realizes how much downtime OSX saves the publishing industry, does he remember PageMaker? Moreover, does he already know that Apple is going to roll-out an OSX only bootable hardware, OS9 will very quickly become a nuisance.

[godzookie2k]

OSX only bootable machines aren't going to automagically make every mac in the world not boot os9 overnight. Studios just simply wont upgrade hardware until the software is there, and even if thats not the case, osx only bootable machines probably won't see significant market penetration for some time.

Saved downtime is great and all, but a) OSX is still UI slow. which leads to lost productivity, albeit slight. b) osx applications still crash and lost data via application crash and lost data via os crash still equals....lost data and lost time. Systems can stay up for weeks for all I care but unless they are servers, this isn't a major factor imho. The application crash/data loss factor is the same amount of lost time as a system crash to me.

[suhail]

I wish for all my competitors to stick with OS9.

[art_director]

my experience has been that os x increases my productivity. i say this because every time an app flakes out on me i just restart it without having to reboot the computer. of course, entourage flaked on me huge yesterday and now i can't get it to start up any longer.

as for quark, well, i think that app blows. i've been using it for the last ten years and have found the company slow to adapt / improve the app. and, v5, was the biggest waste of money i've ever encountered.

does anyone actually use that shitty quark web functionality?

quark is going down and i'm laughing as they do.

[art_director]

one more thing about quark v.5: i boought the app immediately when it came out. to date they have sent me four different installer cds -- not one of them works in my powerbook drive. i had to make a disk copy onto my old b&w g3 then transfer it via an external drive *and then* install it on my powerbook.

crappy cd, crappy software, crappy company.

hell, moving their programming to india earlier this year doesn't seem to have been much help either.

[suhail]

The thing I cant get over is that ONE UNDO!! Even at version 5.
I sometimes ask myself, what are the differences between Quark 3.x and 5.x.
The answer is a bunch of un-interesting features that we did, and still do, in Photoshop and Illustrator.

Hey, I laughing with you

[art_director]

That's one of my BIGGEST complaints with Q.

[DeathMan]

Quark XPress has some good things, but more people hate it than love it. Its a lot like Windows. "Everyone" uses it, but most people don't like it.

[arrested502]

I gotta admit he hit the nail on the head about Quark and OSX here:

Everyone talks about the impact InDesign is having, but in the trenches out there, QuarkXPress is still the product of choice, and I don't see that changing as long as it continues to work well and is supported by third-party integrators. Quark is vulnerable right now in the newspaper market, and needs to bring out some of the systems products they've been talking about. But I think the lack of OS X support is more emotional than real -- I don't see that many large publishing companies rushing to adopt OS X. It may seem late to the Mac faithful, but Quark will be okay if they release that product in the next six to eight months.

So-far in 5-6 yrs in the printing/publishing/pre-press industry I've only seen 2 InDesign files and nobody is "jumping" on OSX. I've yet to work anywhere that is even remotely interrested in running OSX so-far. Will people eventually be forced to move into OSX? Sure. Will Quark release an OSX version? Sure (dumb if they didn't right?). Will InDesign replace Quark as the Industry standard? I personally doubt it. I've always said it has a good chance but the fact remains that practically every service bureau worth thier salt has Quark running.

Let's just put it this way; more and more real businesses will be moving to OSX as they are forced into it over the next few years, but it'll be much longer before they completely abandon QuarkXPress for anything else (if they ever do).

MikeM

[art_director]

Originally posted by arrested502:
I ...the fact remains that practically every service bureau worth thier salt has Quark running.

can't speak for the service bureaus -- don't use 'em. but the printers and pubs i work with all accept indesign files and they've all complained about quark for years. companies are looking forward to getting rid of q or forcing them to get their **** together. whether you love or hate quark you must admit that their new "features" have been crap for the last two / three "upgrades" and their customer service is the worst in the biz.

[suhail]

Yes… And, I stopped sending my Printer / Service Bureaus application files (i.e. Quark InDesign etc) I just post PDFs(with marks, bleed, and all) on my FTP and they pick'em up! Saves me the hassel of "we need font x and y"

[::maroma::]

The water is heating up for Quark. They have a very short time before the water starts to boil, and they are cooked. They can only stand on their established user base for so long. They can only treat their established user base like crap for so long. Mark my words, there will be a coup, and Quark will fall. It might not be next year, but it will happen. The only thing that can stop this is if Quark were to be bought out and the management completely changed out. InDesign might not be quite up to par with Quark feature-wise (arguable), but it won't take long for Adobe to catch up and pass Quark. Adobe isn't blind, they know exactly what Quark is doing. The only question is, how fast can Adobe push Quark out of the top spot? I hope sooner than later.

EDIT:

And about the printers not supporting InDesign...it's the chicken and the egg thing. Designers are hesitant to adopt InDesign because of the printers. The printers are hesitent because of the Designers. But I think the demand will eventually win over. Designers will no longer be able to put up with Quarks poor service, support, and updates. They will move to InDesign, and in order to keep business, the printers will soon follow.

[godzookie2k]

Originally posted by ::maroma:::
Designers will no longer be able to put up with Quarks poor service, support, and updates.

We've been putting up with it since the dawn of time, you think something will miraculously make designers get out of this abusive relationship? I think not.

[godzookie2k]

oops