Adobe Illustrator Now Available for Apple Silicon in Beta

[DevNull0]

Great. Now if they can just ditch the ripoff subscription model and get millions of users back.

I'm still using CS6 Design Standard which I bought right after they announced the switch to CC. I also am still on MacOS Sierra only because it was the last version that actually works with CS6. I use Photoshop almost weekly and InDesign a few times a year to print a custom book or magazine. There is no way it's worth a fraction the cost of a subscription to me, but for the price I paid 8-9 years ago, I'm very happy with my owned license. If the old purchase model still existed, I'd happily pay the $700 or so to upgrade to the latest Apple Silicon compatible versions. I also shoot in camera raw, so it's a huge nuisance that Adobe Camera Raw won't open my files anymore, that's another reason I'd be happy to upgrade if I could.

In the meantime, Apple Silicon is not an option for me for now because I'm not prepared to give up CS6. My current MBP is a 2017 so normally I'd be looking for a new one by 2022.

 

[ThunderSkunk]

Every single one of Adobe's apps needs a complete overhaul for optimization. Not a patch or update, but a complete rewrite. Simply using better CPU's doesn't fix how effing terribly adobe illustrator performs. Its hot garbage for today's standards.

Agreed. So much of creative suite feels like the bodged-together pile of old 1990s apps + 20yrs of add-ons shoehorned in that it is. But Illustrator is the extreme, so grossly outdated I don’t know how it’s anything but a point of embarrassment for Adobe and users alike. It was impressive in 1991 that illustrator could figure out a means of eyeballing out a relatively orderly drawing, with a mouse, and without having to learn CAD, but it should have been put out to pasture by 1999, and here we are 20 years later, with $5 iPad apps outperforming illustrator in every way. Every time I hear someone state they use Illustrator, it makes me think of everything that had to go wrong in this universe for them to be stuck using that software in today’s world. They finally hammered the last nails in the coffin of macromedia flash, but still illustrator sits there on the wall like humpty dumpty, and we’re still teaching it in the university as the standard way to draw. Ugh.

 

[DevNull0]

The subscription model subsidizes the work done on apps that are less popular. Without that some apps would get the bulk of the profits and there wouldn't be enough for the rest. I think they should do a model that allows you a set number of saves (not counting automatic cloud saves). My company needs to process hundreds of files a week. But a home user that just wants to dabble in it only creates a handful of projects. So charge that guy $10 a month to save 10-20 files or whatever. That way that version is impossible to use for business but allows someone who creates a couple of things a month the ability to do so at a fair price. If you take away the ability to copy and paste outside of the app, you now reduce the possibility of that being abused. For a vector app that would work well, for photoshop not as much because you can still take screenshots. But the thought of them making less money already makes it hard to ask them to do. Since they do so little to keep the app up to date as it is anytime apple updates break its functionality.

I am a very light user these days. In the past I've photographed weddings and processed thousands of photos in a weekend, and countless portrait shoots. But right now I'm still a super casual user. But even for me, I might take the camera out to a park to take pictures and come back with 100-200 pictures, so I don't think 10-20 files is helpful to anyone. Maybe people who do everything in Photos and only use photoshop for heavy editing.

In your scheme, does it count as a save each time I save a .psd, a high res jpeg, a low res jpeg, and use save for web to strip the exif data? 4 saves for each photo right there. I make extensive use of actions and automating. And as I said, I'm currently a very casual home user, so while I use the tools, it's not for a whole lot of photos per year.

 

[Freeangel1]

APPLE should have bought Adobe Years ago.
Why taking so long for the APPLE silicon additions? They know a-lot of Mac users are Creative Types.

I use Pro Audio APPS and I Know there will be LOTS of Audio plugins that will either A : Take forever to covert to ARM or B: Never ever make the transition to ARM.

MOST AUDIO PRO's will move over to Windows 10 for compatibility and endless choices in software and leave Mac.

 

[blazerunner]

APPLE should have bought Adobe Years ago.
Why taking so long for the APPLE silicon additions? They know a-lot of Mac users are Creative Types.

I use Pro Audio APPS and I Know there will be LOTS of Audio plugins that will either A : Take forever to covert to ARM or B: Never ever make the transition to ARM.

MOST AUDIO PRO's will move over to Windows 10 for compatibility and endless choices in software and leave Mac.

Just because Apple has money doesnt entitle them to own anything they like or for you to believe they should own anything you'd want them too.

Why would you even support an already greedy company becoming an even greater monopoly?

 

[rp2011]

Good news. And as others have mentioned, there are other good alternatives, the only problem is, that a lot of folks like me, just stick to what we know because its a path of less resistance.
I really need to spend more time with Vectornator, Affinity Designer and Procreate, which all seem great. Learning something new takes time and patience and sometimes we just settle for what we know. But i do love Illustrator.

 

[JosephAW]

Probably will require 32 GB of RAM or higher.

 

[xecep]

I'm not using Adobe products last three years. Adobe makes garbage software last 5-6 years. And I can't believe! OMG! Still don't have a M1 builds?

 

[ncollingridge]

Affinity Designer is really good as far as it goes, but lacks a few key features that hold some people back from adopting it. In my case it is vector fills that I just can’t do without. It severely limits the use of the product for mapping and architectural uses. Whats’s more it is very weak that a vector drawing application can’t have vectors filling objects.

 

[ChrisMoBro]

I loathe Illustrator — it feels like a very old application indeed. It just never feels fast. I'm really glad there are alternatives now!

If you turn off all the “snap to” features, it is buttery smooth.

 

[Morgenland]

People use the app.

Some

 

[qoop]

If you turn off all the “snap to” features, it is buttery smooth.

Mine isn't!

 

[qoop]

APPLE should have bought Adobe Years ago.
Why taking so long for the APPLE silicon additions? They know a-lot of Mac users are Creative Types.

I use Pro Audio APPS and I Know there will be LOTS of Audio plugins that will either A : Take forever to covert to ARM or B: Never ever make the transition to ARM.

MOST AUDIO PRO's will move over to Windows 10 for compatibility and endless choices in software and leave Mac.

At this rate, perhaps Windows is worth another go. :/

 

[aleni]

Best news of 2021 for me!

 

[qoop]

Agreed. So much of creative suite feels like the bodged-together pile of old 1990s apps + 20yrs of add-ons shoehorned in that it is. But Illustrator is the extreme, so grossly outdated I don’t know how it’s anything but a point of embarrassment for Adobe and users alike. It was impressive in 1991 that illustrator could figure out a means of eyeballing out a relatively orderly drawing, with a mouse, and without having to learn CAD, but it should have been put out to pasture by 1999, and here we are 20 years later, with $5 iPad apps outperforming illustrator in every way. Every time I hear someone state they use Illustrator, it makes me think of everything that had to go wrong in this universe for them to be stuck using that software in today’s world. They finally hammered the last nails in the coffin of macromedia flash, but still illustrator sits there on the wall like humpty dumpty, and we’re still teaching it in the university as the standard way to draw. Ugh.

I totally agree.

 

[bsbeamer]

Just once it would be nice to have an Adobe software thread focusing on the actual products being discussed in the article without the dump of people complaining about the subscription model or lack of innovation.

Any company releasing AS-based software (even in beta) is good for macOS as a whole moving forward.

 

[RogerWilco]

My only major wish (beyond M1 migration) is for Adobe to embrace Mac App Store and offer App Store versions, just like Lightroom. Creative Cloud app has many background processes that sucks up resources even when the app is not running.

If you think of CC as a machine to profile and track users, those "background processes" are part and parcel of the scheme. Adobe and Facebook are more similar than people realize.

 

[AppliedVisual]

Only been playing with it for about 20 minutes, but it’s kinda snappy. ...Or at least compared to the x86 Mac/Windows versions, which are embarrassingly sluggish on modern hardware. Overall, Illustrator could really benefit from a ground-up rewrite for better optimization. Adobe is just a subscription driven cash cow these days and has shown little to no innovation or development across all their apps. For such a large company, it’s rather sad. Talk about incredible resources at your disposal to make something amazing... so many missed opportunities.

APPLE should have bought Adobe Years ago.
Why taking so long for the APPLE silicon additions? They know a-lot of Mac users are Creative Types.

I use Pro Audio APPS and I Know there will be LOTS of Audio plugins that will either A : Take forever to covert to ARM or B: Never ever make the transition to ARM.

MOST AUDIO PRO's will move over to Windows 10 for compatibility and endless choices in software and leave Mac.

I do think someone should have bought out Adobe back when they were hurting, circa 2005-ish. But not Apple. Apple has a track record of buying great companies, pillaging the few bits of IP they want and then abandoning great products. A great example is Nothing Real/ Shake. At least Apple did keep it going for a little while and Shake 4 was a great release. It could have continued on to greatness and competed right along Nuke and Fusion... Ultimately, Adobe didn’t need, or does not need, different ownership... They need better leadership. Starting with a CEO ant CTO that are better in tune with the cutting edge creatives in the market and how hardware tech is advancing.

As for pro audio apps and plugins, what matters if it takes them a while to convert to Apple Silicon/ ARM??? I deal with a bit of pro audio, but I’m more a pro video guy. I’m not finding anything at this point that isn’t running just fine on the M1. And most audio plugins/ processes are pretty light in terms of CPU usage or computational load. You’re not losing any performance, but rather gaining in most situations vs. older Mac hardware, even with the translation. Waiting for native software is not a valid reason to jump platforms. Now running Windows can be a reason just due to software selection. We’re a mixed Mac/ Windows shop... Kinda have to be anyway to support all our clients needs, gain access to the largest software variety and all that. But if an audio professional is not on Windows now, lack of Apple Silicon native software is not going to make them move to Windows. Unless they just do so, thinking it wii be problematic when it’s not.

 

[qoop]

Just once it would be nice to have an Adobe software thread focusing on the actual products being discussed in the article without the dump of people complaining about the subscription model or lack of innovation.

Any company releasing AS-based software (even in beta) is good for macOS as a whole moving forward.

What would you like to focus on?

 

[AppliedVisual]

Agreed. So much of creative suite feels like the bodged-together pile of old 1990s apps + 20yrs of add-ons shoehorned in that it is. But Illustrator is the extreme, so grossly outdated I don’t know how it’s anything but a point of embarrassment for Adobe and users alike. It was impressive in 1991 that illustrator could figure out a means of eyeballing out a relatively orderly drawing, with a mouse, and without having to learn CAD, but it should have been put out to pasture by 1999, and here we are 20 years later, with $5 iPad apps outperforming illustrator in every way. Every time I hear someone state they use Illustrator, it makes me think of everything that had to go wrong in this universe for them to be stuck using that software in today’s world. They finally hammered the last nails in the coffin of macromedia flash, but still illustrator sits there on the wall like humpty dumpty, and we’re still teaching it in the university as the standard way to draw. Ugh.

100% this. And I’m someone who uses Illustrator.... Why do people use Illustrator still? Most probably do so because of corporate familiarity, it’s what they or their company has been using for the last 30 years. I still use it for just a couple reasons. First and foremost it’s because clients still use and and give me files in AI format... A file format that Adobe still has a death grip on that no other app out there can fully utilize. The other main reason is plugins/ extensions. I have an extensive set of add-one to Illustrator that I’ve cultivated over the years. Several of which I have written myself and still use To make some of my work easier. While other apps these days can use Photoshop plugins, they can’t use a lot of Illustrator extensions or any at all.

But in reality, I think I‘m doing most of my vector illustration these days in Affinity Designer and Amadine. I only have one seat of Adobe CC these days... Wish I could kick it to the curb, but have too many clients still sending us Adobe formats and project files along with a lot of past work we have to revisit. So here we are...

 

[subi257]

Great. Now if they can just ditch the ripoff subscription model and get millions of users back.

Very true, but unfortunately I think more and more are going to got that route. Avid, ProTools are going the subscription route....I read somewhere, but...don't know it it''s true that MicroSoft it talking subscription for the next OS after Win 10. Holy S*** can you imagine?

 

[ZacksWorld]

I've used Illustrator professionally for years and continue to use it as my main tool in spite of the great, newer alternatives (Affinity, some other smaller ones) because of my scripts, plugins, extensions, and overall workflow.

For everyone who complains about Illustrator, instead of complaining you can just use a different program. As these programs grow in popularity, pressure is put on Adobe to update Illustrator in a more meaningful way (you know, the huge lack of speed)...

And for the SaaS haters, I've been using Adobe programs for ~15 years and absolutely prefer the subscription model. I think if you take the time to look at it critically from both sides of the table (the business and the consumer) it makes a lot more sense to offer the Adobe software in that way.

I'd be interested to hear from people who don't like the subscription model why they think it's a "ripoff"?

 

[DevNull0]

I'd be interested to hear from people who don't like the subscription model why they think it's a "ripoff"?

Okay. I posted this earlier on the thread, but I bought CS6 Design Standard because I need Photoshop and InDesign (plus Bridge and ACR) but none of the other apps.

So $700 one time or every few years if I really need to upgrade vs $600 per year forever or I have to stop using the software. The subscription model is literally several times the price. The full suite was $2600 back in the day, but very, very few people need more than their own handful of the apps.

 

[JippaLippa]

I don't see it...

 

[thunng8]

Okay. I posted this earlier on the thread, but I bought CS6 Design Standard because I need Photoshop and InDesign (plus Bridge and ACR) but none of the other apps.

So $700 one time or every few years if I really need to upgrade vs $600 per year forever or I have to stop using the software. The subscription model is literally several times the price. The full suite was $2600 back in the day, but very, very few people need more than their own handful of the apps.

Not sure where you get $600 per year from ..

Photography plan is $10/month and Indesign is $20/month.

So it is $360 per year, not $600 per year. Photography plan also gives you Lightroom and iPad versions of Lightroom and Photoshop.