[macintologist]

We now know that Adobe may not be releasing an intel-native version of Photoshop until 2007 or later. Is this Apple's chance to release their own universal binary photoshop-killer?

[Tardbus]

I hope not. I think it's fine that we all basically have ONE photo editing program to use, so we dont have to learn more programs.

[himself]

Originally Posted by Tardbus

I hope not. I think it's fine that we all basically have ONE photo editing program to use, so we dont have to learn more programs.

True indeed, true indeed.

Apple needs to focus on improving the quality of its current crop of software anyway (OS X, especially).

[Kerrigan]

Well that answers that

(thread is finished)

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

There isn't much wrong with Photoshop that I feel Apple needs to come in and do better.

[MM-o4]

PS is great. No need. Plus I don't want Adobe to start a trend of dropping Mac support like Premier cause FCPro kill their market.

MM

[macintologist]

I understand however Adobe is being a pain in the arse. If they really wanted to, they could release universal binary versions of CS by the spring. They are being such dickwads that Apple should really put on the heat and announce a Photoshop killer.

[macintologist]

Originally Posted by MM-o4

PS is great. No need. Plus I don't want Adobe to start a trend of dropping Mac support like Premier cause FCPro kill their market.

MM

PS is NOT great. It is NOT universal binary!

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

Originally Posted by macintologist

PS is NOT great. It is NOT universal binary!

Yes photoshop IS great. It didn't turn into a bad app just because the glorious Apple has had intel macs out for 3 weeks.

[MM-o4]

meh. I think the Mactel fan boys need to relaxe a bit.
If universal binary of every app I use came out tomorrow, my dual 2.3 G5 will still be on my desk for awhile.

MM

[himself]

What I wouldn't mind... if Panic or Omni were to come out out with a Photoshop challenger. hmmmm...

[- - e r i k - -]

Look, I've been using Photoshop since pre 1.0, and yes it is the best thing since sliced bread. I'd rather have an optimised and tested version of Photoshop CS3 in November than a half-assed rushed CS2 update right now. Besides initial real world tests show that Photoshop behaves good under Rosetta right now.

Of course, if Photoshop (or a hypothetical similar product) and its performance really matters that much to you, you'd get a quad G5 right now and hold upgrading to an Intel for the next cycle.

[MindFad]

Originally Posted by macintologist

We now know that Adobe may not be releasing an intel-native version of Photoshop until 2007 or later.

When did we learn this?

Personally, I hope Apple stays away from any kind of Photoshop competition. You know, unless they buy Adobe, or something—which I'm cool with.

[Salty]

Really there's a lot that Apple could do to give Adobe a good run for their money with Photoshop. I mean right now they own both Photoshop and Fireworks. I mean there hasn't been a real competitor to Photoshop for years, but really if one thing is typical of software developers, it's that if they don't have people to compete against them they don't work near as hard. I'd love to see Apple put the pressure on Adobe enough that they did have to improve Photoshop if only on the Mac.
A CoreImage based photo manipulation program would be a great thing. The problem is that Apple probably would make it perform amazingly only on their highest end systems.

The real problem with taking on Photoshop run along the same lines of why Apple can't take on Office that well. Sure Apple might be able to get a few people who mainly use Elements or something like that with a basic raster editing program. The problem comes when Apple needs to provide all the features of a version 12 app within a version 1.0 app.
Thing is while Apple has a lot of clout with pros, they don't have enough to really get people to buy something since most people will already have photoshop. And nobody's gonna pay Apple while they develop another Final Cut Pro.
Especially since Apple would also need to develop not only a Photoshop replacement, but also an Illustrator replacement, and an InDesign replacement.

The base for Final Cut Pro was bought from Macromedia. If Apple could have bought Macromedia instead of Adobe, then things would be different, Apple would have the resources between FreeHand and Fireworks to take on a lot of aspects of the Creative Suite package with a couple years of development. Right now nobody has anything near being ready to take on Photoshop and Illustrator and InDesign.

[- - e r i k - -]

That was a well thought out post Salty. I'm impressed. I wish you would put that much thought into your posts - like say before you accuse Adobe for discrimination because they don't want to give you free software.

Anyway, there are healthy competition and there are standards. Photoshop is such a standard, and not being a pain in the ass standard - like Quark used to be or Microsoft Office. There's not really any reason to complain now, is there?

[Salty]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - -

That was a well thought out post Salty. I'm impressed. I wish you would put that much thought into your posts - like say before you accuse Adobe for discrimination because they don't want to give you free software.

Anyway, there are healthy competition and there are standards. Photoshop is such a standard, and not being a pain in the ass standard - like Quark used to be or Microsoft Office. There's not really any reason to complain now, is there?

You know, veiling insults as complements is not a great way to make friends. My problem with Adobe is not that they refused to give discounts to my church, I looked into it because other companies will. My problem was that Adobe said that a group that feeds the poor for example is eligible for their software for free, so long as they aren't connected with any religious group. If a group is for example Salvation Army and working to feed the poor, they have to pay Adobe full price. If the group is a secular humanist group funded by rich yuppies who want to feel good about themselves, and not doing as good work as the Salvation Army they are completely eligible.

[volcano]

Originally Posted by Salty

Really there's a lot that Apple could do to give Adobe a good run for their money with Photoshop. I mean right now they own both Photoshop and Fireworks. I mean there hasn't been a real competitor to Photoshop for years, but really if one thing is typical of software developers, it's that if they don't have people to compete against them they don't work near as hard. I'd love to see Apple put the pressure on Adobe enough that they did have to improve Photoshop if only on the Mac.

I agree. I always cringe when two major forces join together - it just reduces competition and the possibility of some great, innovative features and new content. If competition dwindles, so does innovation. Think about the car industry. Foreign competitors (Toyota and Honda, in particular) have completely devastated the US automotive industry, which has called for a complete overhaul of that industry in the United States. Toyota is expected to become the biggest car manufacturer and nameplate within 5 years.

Alas, I'm not sure if Apple could pull off starting a Photoshop clone of their own. It would be hard to convince long-time Adobe users who believe in Photoshop and have used it for years that Apple's application is better - unless they allowed users to try a free trial of the application.

[Jawbone54]

Originally Posted by Salty

You know, veiling insults as complements is not a great way to make friends. My problem with Adobe is not that they refused to give discounts to my church, I looked into it because other companies will. My problem was that Adobe said that a group that feeds the poor for example is eligible for their software for free, so long as they aren't connected with any religious group. If a group is for example Salvation Army and working to feed the poor, they have to pay Adobe full price. If the group is a secular humanist group funded by rich yuppies who want to feel good about themselves, and not doing as good work as the Salvation Army they are completely eligible.

Alarmingly, I've partially resigned to the fact that Christian programs, regardless of how loose the affiliation with actual religious practice, will be discriminated against almost universally. To align one's self with Christianity in any way, even indirectly, is a great way to garnish criticism from the left.

[Kevin]

I like Photoshop the way it is.

[Tardbus]

Originally Posted by Kevin

I like Photoshop the way it is.

Me too.

[slugslugslug]

It seems to me that right now, Apple doesn't need a Photoshop competitor to keep afloat in the market for users of that kind of app. With most of the other high-end markets in which Apple has acquired/introduced pro apps, it seemed like there was a looming threat that the major players would drop Mac compatibility, costing Apple hardware sales.

This isn't really the same things. There might be a slump in Mac tower sales in between the announcement of the Mac Pro and that of CS3. But that'll be a case of Mac users delaying Mac purchases, instead of switching to Windows, which was the real potential problem before.

Anyway, I wouldn't be surprised to see one more round of 970MPs before the Mac Pro and a pretty negligible gap between that and the next big round of Macrobe apps.

[olePigeon]

Apple already fixed what was wrong with Photoshop by releasing Aperture. I think the two together is perfect.

Although Adobe just released Light Table (or whatever it's called). I don't know how that is going to blow over.

[IceEnclosure]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - -

Look, I've been using Photoshop since pre 1.0, and yes it is the best thing since sliced bread. I'd rather have an optimised and tested version of Photoshop CS3 in November than a half-assed rushed CS2 update right now. Besides initial real world tests show that Photoshop behaves good under Rosetta right now.

Of course, if Photoshop (or a hypothetical similar product) and its performance really matters that much to you, you'd get a quad G5 right now and hold upgrading to an Intel for the next cycle.

[Salty]

Originally Posted by Jawbone54

Alarmingly, I've partially resigned to the fact that Christian programs, regardless of how loose the affiliation with actual religious practice, will be discriminated against almost universally. To align one's self with Christianity in any way, even indirectly, is a great way to garnish criticism from the left.

If Adobe had a form to actually contact them (which unless you're planning on buying something they don't) I'd tell them that frankly my Christian values are the only thing that has kept me from pirating their software... that said those are values I've come to realize Adobe has no respect for... sooo...

[slugslugslug]

Can we stay on topic, though, Salty? I mean, I might have an opinion on the whole Adobe-church issue, but I thought it was inappropriate for Erik to bring up an ancient thread in service of delivering you a backhanded compliment. But you're taking the bait by rehashing your side of it. Lets just stick to armchair analysis of Photoshop's market and conjecture about Adobe's (in my mind not-at-all hidden) agendas..

[Maflynn]

Originally Posted by macintologist

PS is NOT great. It is NOT universal binary!

I think your in the minorty with that thought. Photoshop is an amazing application that a person can do amazing things with. I myself am only scratching the surface on its abilities..

Have you thought that with development underway on CS3 and the legacy code that exists in CS2 prevents an easy transition to Universal Binaries. I don't think their delay of UB is to bust all mac user's chops or tweak Steve. While I was disapointed in hearing that there will not be a UB version of PS until CS3, I don't think going to UB was going to be easy for an application that probably still has code dating back to the system 7 days.

Mike

[Eug Wanker]

Originally Posted by olePigeon

Apple already fixed what was wrong with Photoshop by releasing Aperture. I think the two together is perfect.

Perfect?

Photoshop is a mature program. Aperture is not. I like Aperture, but it still needs a lot of work, and the fact that it can't work with existing file structures is very limiting. Even iPhoto can work with a user's original file structure.

Originally Posted by Salty

You know, veiling insults as complements is not a great way to make friends. My problem with Adobe is not that they refused to give discounts to my church, I looked into it because other companies will. My problem was that Adobe said that a group that feeds the poor for example is eligible for their software for free, so long as they aren't connected with any religious group. If a group is for example Salvation Army and working to feed the poor, they have to pay Adobe full price. If the group is a secular humanist group funded by rich yuppies who want to feel good about themselves, and not doing as good work as the Salvation Army they are completely eligible.

Originally Posted by Salty

If Adobe had a form to actually contact them (which unless you're planning on buying something they don't) I'd tell them that frankly my Christian values are the only thing that has kept me from pirating their software... that said those are values I've come to realize Adobe has no respect for... sooo...

[Maflynn]

Originally Posted by MindFad

When did we learn this?

Basically with this FAQ

Doing the math on an 18 to 24 month product cycle puts CS3 into 2007

Mike

[production_coordinator]

Originally Posted by macintologist

PS is NOT great. It is NOT universal binary!

Talk about being an alarmist...

It isn't JUST photoshop that we are talking about... it's Photoshop, Illustrator, GoLive, Acrobat, etc. etc. Having them all come together takes more than a recompile. Just like with OS X, early adopters of Mac Intels will have to wait a bit before having all native programs... But I hear of more every day!

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

Originally Posted by Salty

If Adobe had a form to actually contact them (which unless you're planning on buying something they don't) I'd tell them that frankly my Christian values are the only thing that has kept me from pirating their software...

Oh barf.

[Salty]

With the knowledge that it's going to take Adobe so long to release their products for the Macintels, it just makes sense for Apple to release anything they have in the imaging arena, if they plan on taking any market share this is the best time to do it. As well since Steve seems convinced that he needs to secure Apple's place in the industry, I imagine he might be willing to throw a punch at Adobe. This is a pretty smart move because quite frankly Adobe's support of Apple has been pretty weak as of late. And I wouldn't be surprised if Lightroom might not have ended up a Mac app if Apple hadn't released Aperture.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by Jawbone54

Alarmingly, I've partially resigned to the fact that Christian programs, regardless of how loose the affiliation with actual religious practice, will be discriminated against almost universally. To align one's self with Christianity in any way, even indirectly, is a great way to garnish criticism from the left.

Wah wah. You're not being discriminated against. This wasn't about a "loose affiliation" — it's about a church that also feeds the poor. If my company could get free $1000 software suites by handing out a little bread, I guarantee you we'd do that too. The fact is that they required charities to be legal charities, not some organization with other motives that also feeds the poor. No other religious groups have been shown to have received the free software. It's cut and dried, and you can't claim religious discrimination here.

[Salty]

Originally Posted by Chuckit

Wah wah. You're not being discriminated against. This wasn't about a "loose affiliation" — it's about a church that also feeds the poor. If my company could get free $1000 software suites by handing out a little bread, I guarantee you we'd do that too. The fact is that they required charities to be legal charities, not some organization with other motives that also feeds the poor. No other religious groups have been shown to have received the free software. It's cut and dried, and you can't claim religious discrimination here.

Nearly every church on the planet that is in a country that has laws on non-profit/charitable organizations, is considered a charity. And nearly every charity is driven by a perspective that they should do good because it's the right thing for them to do. Why should those who have this perspective because they love Jesus have fewer resources to help other people, than those groups that do it because of other beliefs? Simply because an organization is agnostic or atheist, or humanist doesn't mean that they don't have beliefs that are of the exact same nature as Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus or anyone else.

[Weyland-Yutani]

Ah Adobe, the new Quark.

Now is the chance for XPosure.

cheers

W-Y

[PBG4 User]

Originally Posted by Salty

With the knowledge that it's going to take Adobe so long to release their products for the Macintels, it just makes sense for Apple to release anything they have in the imaging arena, if they plan on taking any market share this is the best time to do it. As well since Steve seems convinced that he needs to secure Apple's place in the industry, I imagine he might be willing to throw a punch at Adobe. This is a pretty smart move because quite frankly Adobe's support of Apple has been pretty weak as of late. And I wouldn't be surprised if Lightroom might not have ended up a Mac app if Apple hadn't released Aperture.

I think if Apple were to come out with a direct Photoshop competitor they would be sending the wrong message to 3rd party software developers. That message being, "Develop a profitable market on our platform so we can come in and take it from you."

[awarenessengine]

There's no way on this earth Apple could tople Photoshop.

Adobe's Lightroom got a great 5 star review in MacUser UK, so it's a definite challenger to Aperture. Adobe's graphics app's are the best.

[Maflynn]

Originally Posted by Salty

With the knowledge that it's going to take Adobe so long to release their products for the Macintels, it just makes sense for Apple to release anything they have in the imaging arena, if they plan on taking any market share this is the best time to do it. As well since Steve seems convinced that he needs to secure Apple's place in the industry, I imagine he might be willing to throw a punch at Adobe. This is a pretty smart move because quite frankly Adobe's support of Apple has been pretty weak as of late. And I wouldn't be surprised if Lightroom might not have ended up a Mac app if Apple hadn't released Aperture.

I think that would be disastrous for Apple.

First they need more software developers not less and the Apple/Adobe relationship is cool for the moment. Apple doesn’t need adobe to drop the platform completely and they may do that if apple tried to create a PS killer. Don’t forget that adobe now owns macromedia, so there’s a lot of applications we’re talking about.

Second Photoshop is a mature feature rich application that is quite complex. It also has a lot of legacy code that hinder the change to UB. Being so complex and feature rich do you really think Apple could bang out an Photoshop replacement tool in under 18 months? I say 18 months because Adode already committed to an 18-24 month update cycle and the clock has been running since CS2 was released. Also consider Aperture, I use that and to the RAW conversion is sub par to that of Photoshop. Do you think people would buy applications that do less or work inferior to photoshop. No of course not. As it is, apple is going to have some strong competition with Lightroom.

Speaking ofLightroom, LR isn’t going to be mac only. They are prepping a windows beta as we speak. Additionally adobe has been working on this since before Aperture was announced so they always had planned to develop a mac version. I think Aperture acclerated their time line and caused them to release a public beta.

There are things I really like about aperture but if apple cannot improve the RAW conversion, performance issues and improve the tools, I may seriously look at LR but that’s a topic for another thread.

Bottom line Apple needs to convince software developers that OSX is the place to be, but they steal their idea’s (take Watson and the widigets for proof) then your not going to see anygrowth. They definitely will be shooting themselves in the foot if they did that.

[awarenessengine]

The deal is that with the Intel introductions, the Mac market is in a flux. It makes perfect sense for Adobe to develop CS3, and they might even do a good job of optimising their code this time, as in my view their app's are slow for startup and general interactive use (unless you're on a decent G5).

If Apple had released Intel Mac Pro's first, things might be different.

[Salty]

If Apple were working on a Photoshop competitor, it would already have several years of development under it's belt. If I were as paranoid as Steve I'd have an underground Photoshop + Illustrator + Image ready style program in the works ever since Adobe made it clear they weren't interested in helping with the iApps. Beyond that I certainly would have had it in development since Adobe dropped the Mac for their video and audio efforts.
Apple I imagine has apps in development that they hope to never have to put on the market. I mean development may or may not be sped up or slowed down depending on how things work with the 3rd party devs. But come on now, the closest thing to imaging software Apple has introduced is iPhoto and Aperture, meanwhile Apple's made technologies like CoreImage (Granted partly for Motion), made PDF a notable part of the OS. They hired the guys from Caffine on staff, do you honestly think that Apple has nothing to offer encase Adobe jumped ship?

[Kr0nos]

Originally Posted by macintologist

We now know that Adobe may not be releasing an intel-native version of Photoshop until 2007 or later.* Is this Apple's chance to release their own universal binary photoshop-killer?

*a) How do you know this?

b) There is no way in hell Apple could even come close to programming anything as intricet (sp?) and powerful as Photoshop. I'm just about to finish up a 2 1/2 week PS workshop, and I must say I am way more than simply impressed with this app. There's really nothing that even comes close.

I've also heard that Aperture is a real dawg compared to "Lightroom".

Apple should concentrate on the "consumer line-up". There'll be a native DB version of the CS sooner or later. Until then CS/CS2 work just fine.

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

Originally Posted by Kr0nos

*a) How do you know this?

Adobe flat out said they will NOT make CS2 Intel and we have to wait for CS3. They also said based on their past 18-24 month release schedule that puts it in 2007.

And yes, Aperture is piss assed slow next to lightroom. Strange as Aperture is supposed to make heavy use of Core Graphics.

[Eug Wanker]

Originally Posted by awarenessengine

There's no way on this earth Apple could tople Photoshop.

Adobe's Lightroom got a great 5 star review in MacUser UK, so it's a definite challenger to Aperture. Adobe's graphics app's are the best.

Really? Link?

I downloaded Lightroom, and consider it completely unusable at this point (which is OK, since it's essentially an alpha, even though it's called a beta).

Yeah, Aperture is painfully slow, and it does have some issues with RAW conversions, but at least it has the basic features. Lightroom doesn't even have a crop or rotate tool. Plus, it's fugly, although I assume the UI looks will change before it gets actually released.

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

Originally Posted by Eug Wanker

Really? Link?

I downloaded Lightroom, and consider it completely unusable at this point (which is OK, since it's essentially an alpha, even though it's called a beta).

I don't know if that is fair. You called iPhoto 5 "unusable".

[Eug Wanker]

Originally Posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker

I don't know if that is fair. You called iPhoto 5 "unusable".

No. I called iPhoto 4 unusable, for me. iPhoto 5 was more usable but I still don't use it.

iPhoto 6 is usable enough that I'm doing a test run of transferring 4 GB of photos into it at work. It will be a few weeks before I will finally decide.

As for Lightroom, I don't understand how any reviewer could possibly give it 5 stars if you can't even crop or rotate a picture in it.

[slugslugslug]

Salty, I'll grant that it's not entirely implausible that Apple's been at work for a few years on something that directly competes with Photoshop. But I can only imagine they'd release it under two conditions.

• Photoshop gets discontinued on the Mac, and then Apple effectively says, "Fear not, Photoshop users! We've got something better! (please please please don't switch to Vista)
• Adobe puts out a version of Photoshop so awful that vast numbers of their most loyal customers refuse to buy it. Apple jumps in to the rescue.

The first seems unlikely unless preceded by a drastic drop in Mac marketshare (also unlikely as of now. And in the event of an uncharacteristically bad version of Photoshop, most PS jockeys would probably just skip an upgrade cycle to see what comes next rather than switch apps entirely. Apple, knowing this, probably still wouldn't bother unless some other competitors sprang up and it actually looked like anyone's market to capture.

But I still think that Apple's pro app strategy is more about selling Macs by insuring the continuation of certain high-end markets than it is about actually selling the apps (even the really pricey ones).

[awarenessengine]

This topic completely takes the biscuit. Even Apple's not foolish enough to *uck up a good relationship with a long time 'sort of' partner as Adobe with their bread-and-butter software. Aperture was a complement to PS, nothing more.

On top of all this, even if Apple came out with software to compete with Photoshop it would take another 10 years to beat it, if at all.

[awarenessengine]

Dilute that Apple 'cool' aid.

The SJ distortion field is expanding. LOL

[Salty]

People probably said that it would take FCP a long time to gain traction. Even if Apple's offering wasn't as good as Photoshop, if they did enough, at first, and priced it lower (which Apple never seems to have trouble doing when there's a competitor) they could still take market share.
Again, none of us know exactly how good or bad the relationship between Apple and Adobe is. Adobe's done some pretty jackassed things lately in where they develop, Apple might have taken a bit too many of those a bit too personal. Keep in mind Steve hasn't even been talking about going Intel and PPC, he's basically saying PPC is gona be end of life soon in all states, start developing for Intel. I think part of that is that Steve is genuinely unhappy with both Freescale and IBM.

[drmcnutt]

Originally Posted by Salty

People probably said that it would take FCP a long time to gain traction. Even if Apple's offering wasn't as good as Photoshop, if they did enough, at first, and priced it lower (which Apple never seems to have trouble doing when there's a competitor) they could still take market share.
Again, none of us know exactly how good or bad the relationship between Apple and Adobe is. Adobe's done some pretty jackassed things lately in where they develop, Apple might have taken a bit too many of those a bit too personal. Keep in mind Steve hasn't even been talking about going Intel and PPC, he's basically saying PPC is gona be end of life soon in all states, start developing for Intel. I think part of that is that Steve is genuinely unhappy with both Freescale and IBM.

So Apple's been developing something for years just in case Adobe bails the platform (according to you) yet we don't know how good the relationship between Apple and Adobe is? Wow this wild conjecturing is certainly convenient.

I presume the original poster is referencing the way InDesign gained prominence released against a slow to take the reins Quark. Still Quark and Photoshop are not in the same league, especially with the casual user. Apple if anything needs to focus it's energy on it's core products and stop trying to be everything to everybody. Photoshop is fine the way it is and for Adobe to rush a Universal Binary product out is stupid considering that Photoshop will work on the newer macs, just not as spendid as it could be. What better way to get your upgrade dollar than to have UB compatibility in CS3? Would it be reasonable for Adobe to expect the public to pay for a UB CS2 and then turn around and offer CS3 a few months later? I don't think so.

[greenamp]

Even if Apple did design something better than Photoshop, it would take years before it would actually get any serious use in the industry. Just look at how scarcely InDesign is being used right now, even though everyone agrees it's light years better than Quark.

Even though Adobe doesn't really have any outside competition, they still manage to put out really good software. The reason is, they themselves are their biggest competitor. They have to keep making money, and in order to do so they have to convince people that the latest and greatest version of Photoshop or w/e is better than the older version they already have which works just fine. For instance, if PS CS3 came out and was really buggy, word would spread fast, and everyone would keep chugging away with their older versions.

So even though Adobe has a monopoly on most of their software, they are in a different situation altogether. They actually have to compete with their own software just as much as they would with a different company.