Adobe Brings Photoshop Lightroom 4 to Mac App Store

[Keebler]

If I were a manufacturer of software of any clout I d tell apple to go eff themselves and not sell from the mac app store. 30% fixed cut? Are they joking? For what? For storing a file on their server? For the review space? There might be some rationale for a cut in ios devices but what's the rationale of a 30% cut on the mac? If apple want to offer a service to their users where they can purchase with relative safety and ease on the mac, as well as see everything together they should forego the 30%, it's simply ludicrously high, and it benefits neither the dev nor the end user who has to pay more for apple to cover the cut, but only big fat filthy rich apple.

How about for the millions of users to which you can directly sell with only doing as you suggest - providing a file to Apple to sell.

It's actually a no brainer for any app developer to not sell through the store.

Seriously, so Adobe has different avenues to sell directly, through the channel (Amazon), boxed stores etc.. so why not add what's only the largest app store around.

Oh, and that store sells directly to the end user with 2 clicks of a button and a few password key punches.

 

[Fandongo]

...
Michael: You need someone in the middle to facilitate--
Meredith's son: You're just a middleman.
Michael: I'm not just a middleman.
Stanley's daughter: Wait, why doesn't the manufacturer just sell the paper directly to people?
Michael: You are describing Office Depot. And they are kind of running us out of business.
Dwight: [from his desk] We have better service than they do!
[long pause]
...

iTunes = Dunder Mifflin.
We need an Office Depot

 

[Baklava]

You do know that they are still available elsewhere right?

Of course I do. But this reminded me a post by someone from a previous discussion:

I am glad large universal software companies like Adobe are keeping their purchases out of the Mac App store. We need big players like them to remain on the outside so Apple doesn't assume it can close the ecosystem even more. Apple are starting to act totalitarian and separatist, getting to be almost as bad as microsoft in the heyday. I want key players to resist. I'm very unsure about wanting to kowtow to Apple for the rest of my computing career.

 

[blow45]

How about for the millions of users to which you can directly sell with only doing as you suggest - providing a file to Apple to sell.

It's actually a no brainer for any app developer to not sell through the store.

Seriously, so Adobe has different avenues to sell directly, through the channel (Amazon), boxed stores etc.. so why not add what's only the largest app store around.

Oh, and that store sells directly to the end user with 2 clicks of a button and a few password key punches.

i think you meant to say it's a no brainer for any app developer to sell through the store.

The cut is way too high for what apple is offering. I am not against the store concept not at all. But $100 per year per developer should be enough to more than amply cover the running costs of the store. A 5% cut I would understand per sale. But $100 per dev and then 30% off each sale is simply too much when they are not supporting the app just the store front.

Apple is the big guy and they are filthy rich, if they are to enable an avenue of sale for their devs they should be offering at break even, because the development of these guys who are not making much to begin with most of them, is helping them sell more and more macs. This is not break even by any stretch of the imagination no matter what apple claim. They are going to have at least 10 apps in most categories competing for lowest price and giving apple 30% besides their yearly $100 premium? Give me a break.

 

[Keebler]

i think you meant to say it's a no brainer for any app developer to sell through the store.

The cut is way too high for what apple is offering. I am not against the store concept not at all. But $100 per year per developer should be enough to more than amply cover the running costs of the store. A 5% cut I would understand per sale. But $100 per dev and then 30% off each sale is simply too much when they are not supporting the app just the store front.

Apple is the big guy and they are filthy rich, if they are to enable an avenue of sale for their devs they should be offering at break even, because the development of these guys who are not making much to begin with most of them, is helping them sell more and more macs. This is not break even by any stretch of the imagination no matter what apple claim. They are going to have at least 10 apps in most categories competing for lowest price and giving apple 30% besides their yearly $100 premium? Give me a break.

I did screw up that first bit lol

I agree they're not supporting the app, but 'just the store front' is quite a bit. ie. their server farms? their delivery mechanism directly to the end user? their brand name? That all counts for something - especially with their current clout.

I also agree with you - they are filthy rich. But they are the ones who built the success online buying ecosystems (iTunes, Mac App store, iOS app store) so more power to them. That may not make it right or 'proper' in the eyes of some, but if they're rich, they deserve it. They report to their shareholders and have an obligation to make as much money as they can for their shareholders.

I'm not saying I like the 30%, but I certainly can't begrudge them for doing it.

It's their call. Plus, if developers don't want to accept it, there's no gun to their head. There are other platforms out there (albeit, with millions of users and devices less

 

[theBB]

Well pointed out. But I think this 30% is excessive from apple to the point of being usurious, for small as well as larger companies. I wouldn't think any credit card payment system and code for the software would cut in as much as 30%, and to demand this cut from large companies with an already available distribution system...

Those with an existing distribution system are free to keep using those systems and avoid the fee. Small developers are also free to use whatever arrangements they had before App Store came out. There is no rule in business that your price has to be only so much above your costs and in any case somebody has got to pay for those multi billion dollar data centers. I don't think hosting such a store is as easy as you think. This is a competitive advantage that very few companies on earth can match.

In any case, price, cost and value don't have much to do with each other. I think Adobe Photoshop price is usurious, but there are enough people willing to pay that much. I doubt they would pay as much if they did not get enough value out of it and they cannot care how much it cost Adobe to design that software.

 

[blow45]

Most of these are fair enough points, and I concur with some, having said that apple has always relied heavily on the user and dev communities to sell their devices for them by word of mouth, and because also said communities have stuck with apple through much harder times and provided their work and feedback with a passion unmatched for in other tech companies. Apple's backflip more and more away from pro and more towards consumer as well as their very apparent weight shift from computers in favour of mobile has made a lot of people very unhappy.

Sure enough there is the Chinese market they are relying heavily on now and the Indian one, but they should start being careful over the crap they pull to the detriment of the community of mac users just to sell more ios devices. With icloud not on snow leopard, and the mess that lion is being prime examples, as well as the ludicrous time they 've spent bringing a new mac pro to the market, the effort they put in their pro apps, the effort they don't put in on mac os server, the discontinuation of xserve etc. etc.

Moreover, it's one thing if Jony Ive or Scott Forestahl get their fair share of immense wealth out of this success, but when they bring in the guy from Dixons and upon his first week he ensures 60 million for himself (when he could have done with a 3rd of that just for the prestige alone for working at apple) it's kinda insulting to the dev community that they have to be squeezed out as much as possible with the 30% cut for the little most of them are making anyway.

Lest not forget apple has an upcoming **** storm with the other crap they tried to pull what with colluding with publishers, and it's going to hit them hard both in the US as well as in the EU.

Seeing as they are also a company a lot of people love to hate, the last people they would want to be squeezing out of their monies is their dev. community at the moment. They can't say they have not been forewarned by some of them. Easy come, easy go, no one's too big to fail. Apple has one heck of a potential backlash to face and in no time fancy glass stores can become fancy empty glass stores...

 

[pdjudd]

Of course I do. But this reminded me a post by someone from a previous discussion:

But Adobe is not going all app store and nothing that adobe does is going to stop Apple from doing something that it has not said that it will ever do as imagined by some people.

Adobe has had other apps other than this in the App store. Their overall business method is not going to change any time soon. If Apple does what you fear and restrict to the app store only (which is not going to happen - Apple knows that it cannot do this) Adobe can’t stop them even if they do third party only. It’s a silly argument IMO.

 

[blow45]

Those with an existing distribution system are free to keep using those systems and avoid the fee. Small developers are also free to use whatever arrangements they had before App Store came out. There is no rule in business that your price has to be only so much above your costs and in any case somebody has got to pay for those multi billion dollar data centers. I don't think hosting such a store is as easy as you think. This is a competitive advantage that very few companies on earth can match.

In any case, price, cost and value don't have much to do with each other. I think Adobe Photoshop price is usurious, but there are enough people willing to pay that much. I doubt they would pay as much if they did not get enough value out of it and they cannot care how much it cost Adobe to design that software.

Adobe's prices are this high because of the rampant copyright theft. I too think their price is usurious and they could potentially lower it and make up for some of the copyright theft, the app store certainly isn't going to ensure them this isn't going to happen, and it's ludicrous that apple would demand a 30% cut off what adobe charge for their more expensive software.

Devs might be free to user alternative means of distribution but since apple is pushing the app store as the de facto place to buy apps on the mac, those other means of distribution are something most users will be less and less inclined to use. I agree it's not that simple to run an app store, but it's not that complex either, they do not have to actively manage price settings per app - they just take a cut - which takes away a lot of the complexity of running a store and they don't support the apps themselves.

I don't think whole server farms are warranted for about 10,000 apps they are currently hosting, and anyway they have a shared infrastructure with ios app store and itunes that they benefit greatly from.

 

[Boisv]

Wouldn't it just be easier for you to put forth the effort and go to the Adobe Lightroom website and find out by reading about it?

No need to be so rude. Try to act like a big boy.


I did go to Adobe's site, and their description is extremely vague...

"Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom® 4 software provides a comprehensive set of digital photography tools, from powerfully simple one-click adjustments to cutting-edge advanced controls. Create images that inspire, inform, and delight."

So I'm still wondering what the real difference is between this, Photoshop, and Photoshop Elements. The site is touting things like "Highlight and shadow recovery", which is something I'm pretty sure Photoshop could do. It also handles video and can publish photo books, sort of like iPhoto. It seems like there is a lot of overlap in terms of what Adobe programs do what.

Is Lightroom comparable to Aperture?

 

[r.j.s]

Is Lightroom comparable to Aperture?

Lightroom is like Aperture, but with more features and more of Photoshop built in.

For a photographer, LR will import and manage the library, do about 90% of edits/corrections and export in any format. If you take a lot of photos, especially in raw, but don't NEED to edit every single one in Photoshop, or only make normal corrections to exposure, tone, WB, color, saturation, etc (not fancy, multi-layered edits that make the end result look nothing like the original photo), then LR is all you need.

It is way more powerful than PS Elements, and does different functions than full blown PS.

 

[Boisv]

Lightroom is like Aperture, but with more features and more of Photoshop built in.

For a photographer, LR will import and manage the library, do about 90% of edits/corrections and export in any format. If you take a lot of photos, especially in raw, but don't NEED to edit every single one in Photoshop, or only make normal corrections to exposure, tone, WB, color, saturation, etc (not fancy, multi-layered edits that make the end result look nothing like the original photo), then LR is all you need.

It is way more powerful than PS Elements, and does different functions than full blown PS.

Thanks!

I'm a video editor, so my world consists of things like Final Cut and Avid. I'm not as familiar with the graphic design end of things. I'm really surprised that I've never heard of Lightroom though.

 

[rhett7660]

No need to be so rude. Try to act like a big boy.


I did go to Adobe's site, and their description is extremely vague...

"Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom® 4 software provides a comprehensive set of digital photography tools, from powerfully simple one-click adjustments to cutting-edge advanced controls. Create images that inspire, inform, and delight."

So I'm still wondering what the real difference is between this, Photoshop, and Photoshop Elements. The site is touting things like "Highlight and shadow recovery", which is something I'm pretty sure Photoshop could do. It also handles video and can publish photo books, sort of like iPhoto. It seems like there is a lot of overlap in terms of what Adobe programs do what.

Is Lightroom comparable to Aperture?

Um, I don't think he/she was being rude at all. There a plenty of sites that talk about what Lightroom is. But it sounds like you may have already gotten your answer.

 

[pdjudd]

I did go to Adobe's site, and their description is extremely vague...

That's marketing to you - you are much better off getting a description from Wikipedia for more details without the marketing.

So I'm still wondering what the real difference is between this, Photoshop, and Photoshop Elements. The site is touting things like "Highlight and shadow recovery", which is something I'm pretty sure Photoshop could do. It also handles video and can publish photo books, sort of like iPhoto. It seems like there is a lot of overlap in terms of what Adobe programs do what.

That's adobe for you - their products do overlap since they market their programs for different people depending on their needs. Photoshop is a family of programs waih of them does different things. Think of Photoshop as an generic image editing program. Photoshop Elements is similar, but trimmed down to be more consumer friend. Lightroom is photographer oriented and actually uses Photoshop's engine to so many of it's tasks. Photoshop and Lightroom are designed for different tasks depending on your goal. Photoshop is far more encompassing, but it's built around editing images. Lightroom is a dedicated program intended around a specific needs and contains a focused set of features.

Is Lightroom comparable to Aperture?

Very much so - they are a similar class of programs. Lightroom has the advantage of its basis in Photoshop

 

[nburwell]

I've never bought anything from apple's online stores.

Same here. I purchased LR4 and Photoshop CS5 directly from Adobe.

But having it in the Mac App Store is another option for us consumers, which is good.

 

[pdjudd]

Same here. I purchased LR4 and Photoshop CS5 directly from Adobe.

But having it in the Mac App Store is another option for us consumers, which is good.

That's what really surprised me about all of this - LR is more of a prosumer app that I figured that they bought because of cross platform use (they own multiple computers both Mac and PC), preference for Adobe tools, or that they use Windows only and they would typically just buy it right from Adobe since they have such a dedicated system of delivery and the demos are only viable from there. I was thinking that Prosumers wouldn't bother with the App store at all.

But of course this is another choice that Adobe has and given that it's all-in-one approach makes it work better than say Photoshop which includes Bridge and other programs.

 

[Boisv]

...you are much better off getting a description from Wikipedia for more details without the marketing.

HA! I didn't even think of trying wikipedia for this. Thanks for the tip.

 

[wikus]

Is Lightroom comparable to Aperture?

Lightroom is a lot better.

 

[benpatient]

Apple doesn't tell you which machines it can run on. You choose the machines.

What if I choose my PC?

oh.

 

[r.j.s]

What if I choose my PC?

oh.

Then order and download it direct from Adobe.

 

[flottenheimer]

There I was. Ready to pay. But wait...

NOTHING SHOWS UP IN THE DANISH MAC APP STORE.

Borders/regions makes no sense these days.
Buh.

 

[r.j.s]

There I was. Ready to pay. But wait...

NOTHING SHOWS UP IN THE DANISH MAC APP STORE.

Borders/regions makes no sense these days.
Buh.

Can't you get it direct from Adobe?

 

[pdjudd]

What if I choose my PC?

oh.

That's OS compatibility. Aperture is not claimed to be cross platform by anybody and Apple is under no obligation to make it cross platform. That does not equate things to "Apple dictating what computer I can put it on". They are doing no such things. A technical requirement is different from a licensing requirement. You might as well say that MS dictates what you can run MS Access on or whatever. They do no such thing. One of their requirements is that you run the OS it was written for.

ETA: The above applies to Aperture, not LR. To be clear. If you require cross platform usage, you need to get LR from Adobe due to their licensing of the software - Apple can't sell you windows software at all.

 

[flottenheimer]

Can't you get it direct from Adobe?

Yes. But the point is that I want it from The Mac App Store.

I simply love the convenience of MAS (dead easy installation, updates and re-installation) - coupled with the ability to install the purchased software on up to 5 macs as well - it is unbeatable. (I currently have 2 Macs at home + 1 at work).

 

[chaosbunny]

That is also EXACTLY the way Microsoft's Windows 8 and 9 are going to be like. So the only alternative would be... 10.4 Tiger!

Well, Windows 7 will be supported for at least another decade, unlike Mac OS 10.7. Just because something is new doesn't always mean it is better.

Yes. But the point is that I want it from The Mac App Store.

I simply love the convenience of MAS (dead easy installation, updates and re-installation) - coupled with the ability to install the purchased software on up to 5 macs as well - it is unbeatable. (I currently have 2 Macs at home + 1 at work).

Well, here is an online software (games) site that beats it: www.gog.com
Absolutely no DRM, you buy something and have every right to use it as you wish. That's the way digital distribution should be like.