Quark 6 Alpha

[MacRumors]

A Macintouch reader claims that Quark 6 is in Alpha form:

Quark started shipping out Alpha CDs of Quark 6.0 to testers today. This is a good sign for those on the sidelines that there is progress on this greatly-anticipated OS X application.

[medea]

well finally...I'm curious to hear about what has changed and if it was worth the wait.

[michaelyoung]

holy crap! alpha? After all this time?

Am I missing something?

[dricci]

I'll believe it when I see it

[iJon]

cough cough.. indesign3 soon....cough cough

iJon

[faustofernos]

So Quark 6 Alpha is out... this means a release will be coming soon, in about 3-5 years. (hysterical laughter) Oh what a pathetic company. So I guess the development sweatshops have been working extra hard in getting that Alpha out.

Remember Quark 5? It only took 4 years!

Makes you wonder what the F--- these quark people are doing. Sitting around eating bon-bons while they occasionally diss the Mac Plattform, which of course is their base in print production world.

Wake up Quark! Your program better sing, dance, and make gold out of lead in order to comptete with InDesign3.

I mean, come on!

[nickmcghie]

*sigh* too little, too late

rest in peace, quark

ID is the future

[faustofernos]

The one thing that nobody talks about, or discusses, is WHY such a wealthy company can't come up with OSX version of its ONLY software application. (Avenue is just an extension of Quark to make websites, god knows why anyone would want to do that! How do you spell UGLY WEBSITE?)

WHY does QUARK take such a long time? Am I missing something here? Are they going out of business? Are they abandoning the MAC plattform, but reluctantly are developing for it anyways because a GUN is pointed to thier misshapen heads?

WHY??

WHY IS QUARK so slow?

[e-coli]

yawn...

[ibjoshua]

Originally posted by e-coli
yawn...

scratch, sniff....

[Billy_ca]

ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[aharon]

quark who? what?

[SlowX]

...so maybe suicide is next?

heh

[Choppaface]

lol

I can't wait till everybody gets quark 6.0 and then there are riots when 10.3 is released and everything in quark breaks like in photoshop, illustrator... he he

[michaelyoung]

Originally posted by Choppaface
lol

I can't wait till everybody gets quark 6.0 and then there are riots when 10.3 is released and everything in quark breaks like in photoshop, illustrator... he he

At this rate I dont think QUark has a chance getting a release version out before 10.3

[avus]

Originally posted by michaelyoung
At this rate I dont think QUark has a chance getting a release version out before 10.3

What was the thing they demoed at MWNY 2001, pre-Alpha?

Can anyone explain to me how this company still exists today with this kind of attitude?

[shadowfax]

Originally posted by Choppaface
lol

I can't wait till everybody gets quark 6.0 and then there are riots when 10.3 is released and everything in quark breaks like in photoshop, illustrator... he he

November 24, 2004: Panicked Quark 6.0 users awoke in horror this morning as, after upgrading OS X to 10.5.2, they puzzled over Quark's request for their administrator password, only to find that, after being given the authority, quark ran a version-dependent script that removed Quark itself, the user's music, documents, home movies, and finally, all of OS X's system folder.
Said a Quark spokesman: "oh, hell, it looks like John forgot to remove those damned random malicious autorun scripts he'd been writing to pass all his free time as we all sat on our asses thinking about updating Quark for OS X. well, what can i say? let the buyer beware."
Alsoft stock is up over 20% today, as a relatively small number of what an Adobe Spokesman referred to as "complete idiots" stormed softare retailers nation-wide in an effort to acquire the award-winning software, DiskWarrior. said an Alsoft spokesman Andy Weissman: "It seems that we are one of the small groups of people actually profiting from that company's foolery. But just wait until 10.5.3, when John's next script re-zeroes the entire hard drive." Weissman snickered secretively and declined further comment.
In a last-ditch effort to save face, the future release of Quark 7.0 was announced today, for Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows.NET, Yellow Dog Linux, RedHat Linux, Debian Linux, Mandrake-Linux, and Mac OS 9.2.2. Notable among the proograms that it would not support are X11, Classic, and OS X 10.5. Quark is slated to be released in 2009. Its stock is up 24 points today.

[jccbin]

Word is that Quark only sold abut 10-15K copies of 5.x. They sold nearly 125K copies fo 4.x, for comparison.

Quark is a privately-held company so it cannot raise money the same way a company like GE, MSFT, or AAPL can, by selling stock. Quark can raise money by bringing in addition investors, going public (not), or by getting loans against future products or current assets.

Think about those sales figures:

Even if EVERY copy of Xpress 5.x they sold was at full retail price (NO UPGRADES), they would only bring in $10.5 Million (15,000 X $700).

More likely, they sold abut half for full price ($5.25 million) and half for upgrade (7,500 X $300 = $2.25million) for $7.5 million GROSS income on a two-to-four year time investment. Not a lot of dough to pay folks with if the company is paying off its debts, investors and the like.

Quark might be in real danger of going under for good. BTW, those sales figures came from reports at that recent Quark meeting where Quark Pres/CEO Fred Ibrahimi made those "Mac Market is shrinking" statements and told the Mac Quark users to move over to something else if they didn't like the pace Quark was moving. So, I can't say the numbers are solid, but they are probably in the ballpark.

[mangoman]

I hope they go down. HARD. Something ugly. Real pie-in-the-face stuff.

Meanwhile, I'll be sending yet another COMPLEX job to press using InDesign 2.0.1.

Bye Quark! (waving, big grin on face) Bye now! Get off the playground!

[shadowfax]

Originally posted by jccbin
Word is that Quark only sold abut 10-15K copies of 5.x. They sold nearly 125K copies fo 4.x, for comparison.

Quark is a privately-held company so it cannot raise money the same way a company like GE, MSFT, or AAPL can, by selling stock. Quark can raise money by bringing in addition investors, going public (not), or by getting loans against future products or current assets.

Think about those sales figures:

Even if EVERY copy of Xpress 5.x they sold was at full retail price (NO UPGRADES), they would only bring in $10.5 Million (15,000 X $700).

More likely, they sold abut half for full price ($5.25 million) and half for upgrade (7,500 X $300 = $2.25million) for $7.5 million GROSS income on a two-to-four year time investment. Not a lot of dough to pay folks with if the company is paying off its debts, investors and the like.

Quark might be in real danger of going under for good. BTW, those sales figures came from reports at that recent Quark meeting where Quark Pres/CEO Fred Ibrahimi made those "Mac Market is shrinking" statements and told the Mac Quark users to move over to something else if they didn't like the pace Quark was moving. So, I can't say the numbers are solid, but they are probably in the ballpark.

wow. that's not any good. that said, i've seen freeware that's better than this (not for publishing, but still). Adobe was something of a monolith, dragging it's OS X feet for too long. Quark is just freaking extinct. staying faithful to a program like that as apple drops support for OS X is like wallowing in your own excrement, excuse the imagery. nobody wants to learn a totally new application, or convert all your old crap to a new app... although a convenient workaround is to keep them archived with an old computer.... you know you have to upgrade... just keep a few old ones with OS 9 to manage that stuff. i hope Quark users will be inspired to leave their lazy, impotent lover for a younger, more adept one (inDesign has been posited) when apple flips its bird at motorola and jumps on the IBM PPC bandwagon (i'm crossing my fingers).

[beatle888]

god finally everybody is on the same page.

quark sucks....i use it everyday and have used
it for ten years.......lately, when in quark i find
myself saying god this program sucks its true
you guys.....this program doesnt even have
hot keys for every tool....you can only cycle
forwards or backwards.....oh and try to flow in
text to linked text boxes and then find that it
would, at a certain point in production, that
it would now be more effecient to work with
unlinked text boxes.....cant do it unless you
dont mind all the text being dumped back into
the FIRST and only the FIRST text box....WHY?
why cant you flow in text to linked text boxes
for speed and ease of formatting......THEN break
those links.......say your layout had to change
at the last minute because your client gave you
additional content.

i could go on but......this program isnt worth it.
tell you what......im working for one of the
TOP ad agencies in the area....los angeles area..
and their switching thank god....ive lost my
passion for quark when they went from 3.3 to 4.0 and charges us $300 bucks and ended up
costing the print industry mILLIONS because
of all the problems of quark...all the film that
needed to be re-output.....no joke....

[Bastich]

Anyone here tried the Creator demo yet?

http://www.creatorsoftware.com

[faustofernos]

http://www.creatorsoftware.com/

Waaah hah hah ahha

I'm sorry, I'm laughing my ass off because I just downloaded the Creator demo (6.5.2) for OSX and it TOTALLY BLOWS. umm where do I begin?

No ANTI ALIASING WHATSOEVER
BAD Picture PREVIEW (dithering)

Drop shadows? A TOTAL JOKE

NO TRUE INTERGRATION WITH SUITCASE
SUI ad sizes are the default page sizes! (NOBODY uses SUI except Old school publications which run their own presses)

This program is like a relic from the past. Cute, funny, but totally useless. I rather play "Space Invaders" on my ROM emulator, thank you...

If you want a good laugh, download it, and play around with it. you'll amuse yourself for a moment or two.

My prediction is that Quark 6 wont come out for another 2 years, and by then it will get bought out by Adobe, Apple or Macromedia. So if you are holding your breath for Quark to go OSX, DONT, cause its not going to happen. Belive me. I've seen this company exec's with my own two blue eyes, and they are dull normals.

Its kinda sad, cause InDesign has a ton of problems too... Hopefully InDesign3 will address them. (speed, style sheet imports, font menu previews, stability, text wrapping is isolated from object layering, RIP inconsistencies)

[Choppaface]

it would be interesting if macromedia bought quark, though I don't think they have much of a footing in the print biz

[chewbaccapits]

wouldn't it be great if a majority of apple users decided to boycott quark! I know I will...You with me men?