[BuonRotto]

There is a tiny -nay- large part of me that hopes both Macromedia and Adobe get what's coming to them from Stone and Caffeine. Their products are not only Os X ready now, they take full advantage of the so-called *nix "overhead," have intelligently designed UI's and features (Wonder where Adobe got the idea for Actions from?) and cost far less. They don't have the power an "Adobe" name does, but with any luck the graphics field will take these guys as seriously as their work deserves.

I really hope Adobe, et. al. get a lesson from these and others. Something of a grassroots effort.

[Kosmo]

I agree, I've started to play around with Stone to see if I could limit my exposure to Classic apps... haven't tried Caffine though, I will tonight!

I'd love to hear Adobe/Macro say in a few months "oops"..



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[Milio]

Originally posted by Kosmo:
I agree, I've started to play around with Stone to see if I could limit my exposure to Classic apps... haven't tried Caffine though, I will tonight!

I'd love to hear Adobe/Macro say in a few months "oops"..

Kosmo, speaking as a designer now (my opinion of OS X set aside), I wasn't impressed with the Stone tools compared to the standard players. They remind me somewhat of SuperPaint of old. The tools are there, but in a fairly basic sense. They feel clumsy and they just don't seem on par with Illustrator, Photoshop, QuarkExpress, inDesign, et al. The Adobe, Quark, Macromedia apps have all weathered the demands of years of professional abuse and are mature products because of it. The Stone tools feel like they would be adequate for non-professionals but lacking for "real" work. It's like Gimp. I can't understand how unix people think it compares to Photoshop. But when I figure that it's free and Photoshop costs a buttload, I guess it's good enough for what you pay. That's just my opinion, give it a shot though, we obviously disagree on OS X things, so...

[plaidpjs]

Originally posted by Milio:
Kosmo, speaking as a designer now (my opinion of OS X set aside), I wasn't impressed with the Stone tools compared to the standard players. They remind me somewhat of SuperPaint of old. The tools are there, but in a fairly basic sense. They feel clumsy and they just don't seem on par with Illustrator, Photoshop, QuarkExpress, inDesign, et al. The Adobe, Quark, Macromedia apps have all weathered the demands of years of professional abuse and are mature products because of it. The Stone tools feel like they would be adequate for non-professionals but lacking for "real" work. It's like Gimp. I can't understand how unix people think it compares to Photoshop. But when I figure that it's free and Photoshop costs a buttload, I guess it's good enough for what you pay. That's just my opinion, give it a shot though, we obviously disagree on OS X things, so...

Milio,

Speaking as a designer, I must say, while I'd be hard pressed to give up PhotoShop, Illustrator, Freehand, Fireworks, Image Ready, and a few other not so mainstream tools. I must say that they are far from mature products. And, they are far from being perfect. I agree with you, however, about the stone tools. they are rather clumsy and elementary, but, they could be promising with but a little bit of work. As for the caffeine products (which I admittedly knew nothing about until a few posts in this thread ago), they look pretty interesting. As soon as I have a chance, I think I'll give them a whirl.

The floor is open, though, for someone to step in early and sneak away a few of us somewhat loyal Adobe and Macromedia users... it may vene be time to give Corel a whirl again (I'm looking forward to seeing Bryce 5 at MWNY... hopefully).

Ciao!



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G4/500 DP, 768 MB RAM, 40GB HDD, 32MB ATI Radeon OEM, 30GB VST Firewire Drive, and an Apple Cinema Display

[vsurfer]

Chalk one up for Apple

I was hopping between a G3 Mac in one office and a Dell PC Win 2000 in another. Glad to say that's resolved:

Now with MSOffice installed I can use the Mac for all my Word/Excel type tasks, and not have to go into another room for Filemaker Quark and Photoshop. But it also illustrates the importance of MS office to everyday work users.

Entourage seems a little more disjointed compared to Outlook. I think there's still room for improvement in the integrated office app field -- and like you, think it would be great if Apple could create it, but that's a whole other ball of wax. IN the mean time, and it could well be a very long time, I think MS office is hugely important, and should be deeply discounted with any Mac purchase to encourage penetration of Apples into the corporate arena. (Although that is probably a very improbable scenario.)

Originally posted by Gilsch2:
I agree with most points, however I don't with the "Apple is dead without Office". That is not correct. I'm willing to bet that less Mac users depend on Word than you might think. The Mac's bread and butter is video editing, publishing,graphic design. The casual home user has many options besides Office. Now in a business environment, that is not the case. Whoever said that is right about the Mac being dead without Office since the other options are not quite up to par. I personally have never used Office or any MS product besides IE whose interface I totally hate(not a bad product overall though). That Apple-M$ deal should be over next year I believe, someone correct me if I'm wrong, and I really hope Apple and maybe a third party can come up with something for businesses so that they have a real and viable alternative to M$ Office.

[This message has been edited by Gilsch2 (edited 04-18-2001).]