Apple Smells Blood in the Water

> But public perception of Adobe has dipped in recent years.

I agree with the quoted tweet (or Threads post, whatever) that Adobe is a brand many or most creative professionals spit on, even if we have no choice but to use their software. They've lost so much good will that if there was literally any other comparable tool suite out there, Adobe would be out of business faster than it takes to boot up their horrible software. I do my best to avoid them, but sometimes even I have to put a clothespin on my nose and do certain tasks in Illustrator or Photoshop.

> When Apple shuttered development of Aperture, there were rumors it did so because it entered into a gentleman’s agreement with Adobe to give Lightroom the space it needed to take over the photography software industry. That worked, and Adobe applications ran great on Apple computers.

I’d not heard this theory (though the only pro-space app I care about is Logic for audio). I’d love if Apple started smashing the funding button for their pro apps again, but they’ve already caused a lot of distrust when they killed Aperture.

Not to mention other products that don’t get ongoing updates (HomePod, Mac Pro for about a century, Xserve line that was killed, and other more recent items that aren’t top of mind atm). Justifying the risk of conversion will be an uphill battle.

It's too late for this former user of Apple's productivity software. Killing Aperture and nerfing the iWork suite destroyed any willingness I could have ever had to go back.

I like their OS, but it would be a hard sell for me to ever choose to migrate to their productivity software again.

I wonder how much would Adobe benefit from porting its suite to Linux for example. Do a Steam move and pick a fave distro, use some translation layer and bam. I vote for the unholy matrimony of Adobe+Steam to break the stronghold of MS+Apple.

That is pretty much the chicken and egg problem of Linux in regards to Apps and Games.

I've used Photoshop, Illustrator, and After Effects constantly for 15 years. There have been no significant improvements and no meaningful competitors. The AI stuff is junky. The movement to expensive subscription plans sucks for artists. Shocked no one has moved into this space.

Procreate has been an amazing and affordable alternative to drawing in photoshop/illustrator, and Figma filled a space that Adobe ignored, and Blender can do some amazing video editing things. But with PS, AI, and AE there is so much opportunity for competition.

If all of this speculation is true, I wonder what they'll do to compete with Lightroom? - either bring back Aperture, or something similar but completely new

Unless Apple is planning to release any of the said software for Windows as well then I don't see Adobe being cornered. Apple wants to sell hardware so its unlikely to port to Windows. Creatives are no longer exclusive to Apple hardware as it used to be 15 years ago.

Aperture to me was the perfect photography software and was sad to see it discontinued. It did seem a bit niche in a competitive area that may not have justified porting to Apple Silicon and supporting.

Now the play seems to be for Apple to dominate all creative professional software and make Windows+Creative/Pro software as much an oxymoron as Mac+Games.

Final Cut Pro X was an example of how a complete rewrite almost always being a mistake. Now if Apple was really committed to rearchitecting the app (which is fair), they should've done it in parallel. That is, release both versions at the same time. Yes, it's more expensive but it's simply not worth killing your audience by cutting back features because they aren't imported yet. Brand the two versions differently but have the same licnese activate both.

So I will defend the idea of software subscriptions, not Adobe's implementation thereof.

You may like software you purchase but you don't really purchase software anymore. It may rely on online services that can go offline. There is a constant need for bugfixes. Old versions may not get those fixes. Vendors will gate new features behind major versions that you have to buy and the threshold for what constitutes a major version gets lower and lower over time.

Adobe was guilty of all of this. Photoshop has a Camera Raw plugin. Back in the day, new RAW formats (which came out all the time) were added to later Camera Raw versiona and those versions required later PS versions for literally no reason, other than to force you to buy the upgrade.

Purchasing software just isn't the panacea many think it is.

Subscriptions have a better incentive model to continuously fix and develop the software without artificially creating major versions to push sales.

Jetbrains is really the gold standard for subscriptions. Adobe... isn't. Adobe uses dark patterns for renewals and subscription periods. They keep jacking up the prices. They hide these price hikes in bundles.

> When Apple shuttered development of Aperture, there were rumors it did so because it entered into a gentleman’s agreement with Adobe to give Lightroom the space it needed to take over the photography software industry. That worked, and Adobe applications ran great on Apple computers.

Wouldn't this be highly illegal?

>no one can touch Adobe when it comes to fast and wide support of camera RAW profiles

I think DXO might be on par with Adobe for camera profiles.

Was the beef here mostly around the subscription model, then cherry on top with the AI?

Catching up with that 1hr interview...

Adobe hasn’t been disrupted somehow. The format lock-in is too strong. I’m avoiding it wherever possible.

I'm going to sidetrack this a little and shit on ON1 before anyone mentions it.

I searched high and low for an Adobe competitor, even using Aperture with Reactive until it became too unstable. ON1 was the only other thing close to being usable.

For a few releases, it was nice. But it's unstable as hell these days. So unfortunate because it's powerful and has a nice interface. Unfortunately they prioritize new features over fixing things. Whoever the product manager is should be fired over the crap AI features they shoved in.

Why would someone think Apple is better for the customer than Adobe? And why would someone think Apple will reach feature parity to Adobe?