MacDailyNews - Where Mac news comes first

Jun 02, 08 - 12:27 pm Comment from: Wealthy Industrialite

Thankfully I've got a PowerPC-based Mac and don't have a choice in being bothered by this or not.

Jun 02, 08 - 12:33 pm Comment from: ChrissyOne

Let the river of filth begin...

Jun 02, 08 - 12:35 pm Comment from: ChrissyOne

MacDailyNews Take: In other words, Adobe offers more options to WIndows users and less to Apple Mac users.

It's either too many options or too few. Why bother trying to make anyone happy?

ChrissyOne,

I see you can't refute the following statement:

"In other words, Adobe offers more options to Windows users and less to Apple Mac users."

But, it's not your fault. How could you?

In other words, Adobe offers more options to WIndows users and less to Apple Mac users.

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Adobe needs to improve their process management/workflow for their applications, which may mean changing their philosophy of... "designed by engineers, for engineers". They don't seem to have an overall model of how each application flows into one another.

For example, if you have Photoshop and Lightroom installed, you have to work out your process of why you have three applications on your system to contend with: The Bridge, Photoshop, and Lightroom. All three have aspects that overlap each other. Just as the file manager in Photoshop was split out to become The Bridge, then Adobe created Lightroom. Lightroom has metadata editing, but The Bridge has it too and better. Photoshop has the image editing and plugin support, but so does Lightroom in many ways.

Adobe! Your software is bloated and outrageously expensive.

Adobe: Infected with Microsoft disease.

Jun 02, 08 - 12:48 pm Comment from: ChrissyOne

@ Former Adobe Customer

I don't work for the Refuting Spurious Internet Gripes department. Sorry.

Acrobat is nothing but a bloated mess these days. It annoys me every time I sit down at a Mac, open a PDF, and have it opened in Acrobat or the equivalent browser plug-in.

Unfortunately, there are some (very infrequent) times when I might need to open a PDF in Acrobat. About as often as I need to open a Word document in NeoOffice or Pages.

I'm enjoying my bloat-free computing world.

Jun 02, 08 - 12:53 pm Comment from: ChrissyOne

@ Gone Nuts

Wow. You don't understand how to use any of those apps, do you? Bridge is a file browser. It's for people who just want to preview different kinds of media files in place. It has a Camera RAW interface and some basic editing powers, but it's really just a media browser.

So Bridge has what Lightroom has... 'but better'? Uh, yeah. Maybe you haven't used it enough to know what you're talking about. Okay.

Jun 02, 08 - 12:54 pm Comment from: Fred Mertz

So, ChrissyOne, are you saying that Adobe does not offer more options to WIndows users and less to Apple Mac users?

Or that many of Adobe's apps are not stupidly-named in an overly-confusing manner and/or are not wildly-overpriced?

This oughta be good...

Jun 02, 08 - 12:55 pm Comment from: ChrissyOne

I can tell this is going to get me nowhere. Have fun everybody!!!!

-c

Adobe sucks donkey dick.

Jun 02, 08 - 12:57 pm Comment from: ChrissyOne

@ Fred Mertz

No, Fred. I don't speak for Adobe. And I don't answer to you.

"In other words, Adobe offers more options to WIndows users and less to Apple Mac users."

that's pretty much been par for the course since Acrobat 5.

Jun 02, 08 - 01:09 pm Comment from: Fred Mertz

ChrissyOne,

As I expected. It's really not your fault. You had nothing.

You can't refute cold, hard facts.

Jun 02, 08 - 01:10 pm Comment from: makemineamac

The differences between the Mac Pro version and Extended Pro don't seem to be that great apart from embedding functionality for Powerpoint and Word. If you have Keynote, you're probably not using Powerpoint anyway unless you're collaborating with someone.

There are some pretty cool features involving CAD, but not something I need, but for people that do, it will potentially save 'teams' a lot of money. And the Lotus Notes compatibility is not something I'm worried about. And Flash? Really? Really?

It also looks like they've added another 3 or 4 more applications to this one program too, making it even more bloated than it was. It was already slow to begin with, I hope they sped it up.

Something that does seem odd to me though, is the fact that it appears the Adobe button-functionality of printing to Adobe from within Office appears to be listed now as only for Windows, but maybe I didn't read that correctly. I mean we have pdf functionality built into every app anyway, so maybe they decided they didn't need it?

I really do not get this company though. As far as existing and potential future user-base goes, they consistently do not go the distance on the Mac platform. It seems like they really have a problem with Apple, when Mac users have always supported Adobe in a big way.

They're reluctant to release updates in a timely fashion, and when they do, they offer "less-than" versions of their software - as in this case - to their Mac customers. I'm sure this is not something Apple is not noticing. To think Steve could walk in, buy them and restructure is more interesting now...

Oh well. As far as I'm concerned, Acrobat 8 is good enough.

Jun 02, 08 - 01:11 pm Comment from: ron

Adobe = The mud hut of apps. Apple's reign will wash it away

Jun 02, 08 - 01:14 pm Comment from: Tergenev

Embedded flash video, audio, and applications in a PDF portfolio? Sounds like a security nightmare.

Jun 02, 08 - 01:22 pm Comment from: dogfriend

I am wondering if someone here has an answer for me:

I have some PDF documents that I want to reorganize for my personal use (they are Toyota shop manuals). I can use Preview in Leopard to combine and delete pages, but I also want to add a Table of Contents for my new PDFs.

Does anyone know of an application that will allow me to create TOC for PDFs other than Adobe Acrobat?

$300 is more than I can justify for this task. Thanks for any responses.

As a graphic designer, I am glad that Adobe products are expensive, it means that some random John Doe doesn't start learning the trade and take away my business. As for the apps being overly complex: Good, they are supposed to be. who said being a design or media professional was easy?! Adobe released Photoshop Elements for the hobbyist, chances are a random person will not ever need the advanced features PS offers, so why pay hundreds of dollars for things they will never use? same goes for Illustrator, InDesign, Flash, and Dreamweaver.

The complexity and the cost ensure that the cost of entry into the design field remains high. This keeps the level of quality fairly high and designer's wages fair.

Jun 02, 08 - 01:30 pm Comment from: ericdano

Gosh, it's becoming less of a Portable Document Format now isn't it?
I don't think I'll be getting version 9. Too much crap in it that I'd never use.

Hey WOULDN'T it be GREAT if EVERYBODY uses our __(insert_company_product_here)__ platform/software/format? Riiight. Google will likely take over 80% of the common browser apps by 2011. Everybody else dream on and find another niche. All Apple or Google or MS have to do is create the plug-in to their own platform (iPhone, gWhatever, WindozeME - mobile ed. that is) that works better than PDFlush and, hopefully Samsung or Nokia still like you, Adobe.

I was once a fan of adobe, until they started playing butt monkey to M$. Now we are hostage to them until apple has time to round out Aperture/Pages (and an illustrator replacement). As soon as there is a reliable replacement for the adobe troika, supported by an industry heavyweight, they are toasted.

All the sh*tware they can shovel will not get them back into the good graces of the graphic designer community. They might as well change their name to Qvark.

Really, their strategy seems to be to ride the windows wave down to the last trickle. This plan should serve their executives well enough until they retire. In reality they are setting up the company for a spectacular flame-out in 10 years.

Again and again these bozos forget that professional commercial artists are their core audience. Most of us are college educated. We can see right through you adobe!

Aperture's new plug-in architecture is the beginning of the end for the King of them all - Photoshop. The crown jewel in adobe's kit is under serious, credible threat. As in chess, the King is in "Check" - games over.

to Matthew Rudowski:

A Professional Graphic Designer, has nothing to fear from easy to use software, as long as s/he has talent.

You can give a man a paintbrush and paint, but that does not make him VanGough!

You are only as good as Your book (portfolio).

to dijonaise

I understand that. But we have all seen what happens when some Joe Blow gets his hands on cheap software and then thinks himself a designer. In a perfect world, a portfolio would be the deciding factor, but in reality a client will go with the designer that quotes them the lowest price and gives them the biggest logo. clients that truly understand the dynamics of the design community are rare and so designers have to keep an eye out for the people who are willing to do a logo or a website for 50 bucks and a cheeseburger.

Jun 02, 08 - 02:28 pm Comment from: loganson

Dang. I am going to start asking for a cheeseburger. I have been undervaluing my work.

I gave up on Adobe crapware when Preview started smoking Reader like a fat cigar. Who needs to embed Flash in a PDF!? Who are they competing with here? I like photoshop and illustrator, but they are not worth the ridiculous price Adobe wants to charge.

Also, by Rudowski's argument, Home Depot should be charging a small fortune for a hammer or a pipe wrench. That would keep all those unqualified carpenters and plumbers out business, right?

Trust me, I'm in the ProAV business, and everyone thinks that they're qualified to do that because they've been to a rock concert, or they have a Bose home theater system. The truth is, sometimes the prosumers do hurt my business, but usually not for very long. My business is strictly referral based, too. The only advertisement that I have is my "portfolio". If you need me, you find me.

There is no substitute for knowing your business, and there is no excuse not to.

Jun 02, 08 - 02:54 pm Comment from: ron

"You can give a man a paintbrush and paint, but that does not make him VanGough!"

Or even a Van Gogh!

Jun 02, 08 - 03:43 pm Comment from: ChrissyOne

@ Fred Mertz

Or uninformed amateurs.

Jun 02, 08 - 06:58 pm Comment from: Logan

@Matthew Rudowski:

You probably would have kept the Bible in Latin to keep it out of those pesky peasants' hands. Can't have them understanding the deep truths of God without us priests in the loop (read: money).

But I understand what you're saying to a degree. I just wanted to make some vague religious connection.

Though, I personally believe that Adobe's software is outrageously over-priced, bloated, and complex. I long for the old days of Macromedia Fireworks when it did everything it does now, but was only 23 Megs.

Hopefully Adobe's complete abandonment of usability and price feasibility will spawn start-ups who can truly compete in this market. Especially for Mac.

Jun 02, 08 - 07:52 pm Comment from: Hm...

I'm feeling pedantic, so:

It's not "Adobe offers more options to Windows users and less to Apple Mac users." It's "Adobe offers more options to Windows users and fewer to Apple Mac users." 'Less' maybe 'more' to Unix geeks, but it's an incorrect word choice here.

So there, Fred M, - it's been 'refuted.' By the way, how's Ethel doing?

Jun 02, 08 - 07:53 pm Comment from: Ampar

I still have Illustrator 88 on floppies around here somewhere.

Jun 02, 08 - 08:20 pm Comment from: Ampar

It gets worse. Updated editions of Adobe Creative Suite 3.3

Even more pedantic:

"Adobe offers more options to Windows users than to Mac users."

Also handily illustrates that than and then are not interchangeable.

MW: against. Pedants Against Grammatical Inaccuracy

I used to like Adobe: postscript, Photoshop, Illustrator... everything else was best ignored. The company now scares me. Upgrades scare me. The price is... ughh! I've registered Pixelmator to encourage the developers to take the app forward, but what's likely to replace Illustrator?

Jun 02, 08 - 10:12 pm Comment from: toby

I hate Adobe, their stuff is needlessly difficult and way way WAY over priced.

@ dogfriend

YOu can use SKim and it is completely open source and free

Jun 03, 08 - 01:34 am Comment from: dogfriend

@ android

Thanks. I will take a look at it.

Jun 03, 08 - 08:55 am Comment from: GizmoDan

I'm so excited. Now I can convert 5 documents to PDF for free! Yipee!

Adobe is a sinking ship. Their software is more bloated than ever. I downloaded the FW beta a few days ago. It was more than 600 megs before installation. I remember when the same program, with pretty much the same functionality was around 40 MB -- just a couple of years ago under Macromedia's watch.