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Has it really gotten to the point where we have to explain the difference between hardware and software?

PLEASE tell me that's not what you're really asking us.

I'm asking about two different companies setting a product and price structure to encourage upsell.

It's pretty common in the software world to enable features that ship with software, after an additional fee is paid.

Quicktime Pro is an obvious case. How is Windows Vista Anytime Upgrade really any different from Apple's Quicktime Pro upgrade? (Well, except for the fact that Vista doesn't keep popping up adware dialog boxes asking if you want to upgrade now.)

(At least the anytime upgrade loads new software from the DVD - the QTpro key just unlocks features that are already present, but just crippled.)
 
QT Pro is a $30 add on for those who might actually need it, and it's the poorest example of your argument. iLife is a better example where Apple bundles, for free, the goods that most people want - for free.

Vista jumps by triple digits between versions. You can hardly compare a $30 jump to a $100 jump in products.

Windows Vista Home Basic: $199
Windows Vista Home Premium: $239
Windows Vista Business: $299
Windows Vista Ultimate: $399

QuickTime: Free
QuickTime Pro: $29.99

See what I mean?
 
Because they don't really want you to buy those versions, but the more expensive versions instead. They have just run out of new and interesting things to do, so they have moved onto the squeezing as much money out of people stage.

First off, I wouldn't run it on Vista at the moment, it's about as stable as your mad Aunt Ethel who believes that tin foil wallpaper stops "them" finding her. It states it will run on XP SP2, so run it on that if you have it. If you are a Pro Windows user, you will have either stuck with XP or gone for Vista Premium/Business/Ultimate. I don't think too many 3rd world countries with Starter will be accusing Adobe of crippling the young talented photographers with little money in the lands and for Home Basic users, the word basic gives it away they don't want to run Pro apps. They'll be fine with Elements surely?

For Mac users, it states 10.4.8 as a requirement at the moment. Are we getting a flood of complaints from people with 10.4.7? No, just run software update. How about 10.3.9? No, most here are now running Tiger and certainly few Pro mac users appear to still be using Panther. Since this is a Mac message board, I would have assumed a debate on it running on older versions of OSX or lower priced machines would have been more relevant than trying to slam Microsoft/Adobe for stopping that poor Ethiopian farmer with an interest in photography from taking the full benefit from CS3 Extended.
 
QT Pro is a $30 add on for those who might actually need it, and it's the poorest example of your argument. iLife is a better example where Apple bundles, for free, the goods that most people want - for free.

Vista jumps by triple digits between versions. You can hardly compare a $30 jump to a $100 jump in products.

Windows Vista Home Basic: $199
Windows Vista Home Premium: $239
Windows Vista Business: $299
Windows Vista Ultimate: $399

QuickTime: Free
QuickTime Pro: $29.99

See what I mean?

How about Aperture up until recently not running on much beyond the latest PowerMacs/Mac Pros, PowerBooks/MacBook Pros and iMacs?

Surely that's a good example of how Apple often sets the bar extremely high on the hardware requirements front to run certain apps deemed for Pros? I know Aperture does require a good chunk of juice, (I use it myself on my MBP), but beforehand, if I got a good spec Mac Mini, (not too far off a compatible iMac then), to hook up to my TV to do some work whilst relaxing in my sitting room, I would have to break the license agreement to do so because Apple deemed all models of the Mini too low spec to run it, irrespective of what was actually inside them.
 
The first version of Aperture was just poorly written (or written with it's standards set too high?) and would only run on the fastest hardware as a fact, not as some marketing ploy to keep older hardware out. I cracked it to run on my Mirrored Door - it ran like crap without the newer video card.

The recent "mini" screw up may have just been an unintentional presumption on the part of a docs writer who had never used one of the new ones. It was my impression they had since changed it hadn't they? Still, the mini may have not been supported by the recommended system specs, but I can't imagine that it violated a license agreement to run it as you claim? You'll need to share some source for that one. Did it require a crack to run it?
 
in context?

The real question is why does Microsoft rip off their customers by severely crippling the versions that most people buy?

Let's see, Amazon is selling Photoshop CS2 for $579.

If you check Dell's or HP's websites, for example, you'll see that if you spend as much on the Vista PC as you spend for the Photoshop license you'll probably get Vista Home Premium with the package. Some deals have Home Premium and an LCD monitor for the price of the Photoshop license.

Even on the $399 PCs, upgrading to Home Premium bumps the price to $429.

More to the point, it looks like any Vista PC that you'd want to use for Photoshop (for example, one with a dual-core CPU) will have at least Home Premium as standard. Home Basic really only shows up with low end systems.

The term "rip off" isn't really that appropriate.
 
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I noticed that in the CS3 beta, it installs a folder called Matlab that allows you to interface with Matlab.
I haven't checked out the demos but I think its cool that you can use Photoshop CS3 Extended to do graphical edits of data.
 
QT Pro is a $30 add on for those who might actually need it, and it's the poorest example of your argument. iLife is a better example where Apple bundles, for free, the goods that most people want - for free.

Vista jumps by triple digits between versions. You can hardly compare a $30 jump to a $100 jump in products.

Windows Vista Home Basic: $199
Windows Vista Home Premium: $239
Windows Vista Business: $299
Windows Vista Ultimate: $399

QuickTime: Free
QuickTime Pro: $29.99

See what I mean?
Silly Mac person, quoting list prices for PC hardware and software. ;)

http://www.centralcomputers.com/com...category_id=1259&start=26&czuid=1173367627348

Windows Vista Home Basic: $89
Windows Vista Home Premium: $115
Windows Vista Business: $145
Windows Vista Ultimate: $195


"You can hardly compare a $30 jump to a $100 jump in products"

Actually, $30 is exactly the upgrade price to go from Home Basic to Home Premium when you buy an HP system...

Also note that your own list prices show a $40 jump between Home Basic and Home Premium - it's a little disingenuous to say "$100 jump" when your own data shows that it is $40.
 
Ive thought the same bad stuff about Vista since i read their price charts. Crippleware OS is a hell of a lot different to a cheap optional add-on, or hardware differences between separate lines. it irks me! Also the 32bit/64bit completely separate Vista versions.

Totally off topic anyway though. :D

CS3 is getting more and more interesting.. I'm still using PS7, Illustrator 10 and DreamweaverMX heh, so i'm not sure if i should get the whole suite or just buy the things I'll use separately. :/ Dilemma.

ed: also, OEM and retail are always v different, considering Apple only seem to do retail(?) copies of osX it seems fair to post about the retail prices of Vista, as 90% of people will be buying those if they're upgrading. (most people with computers don't actually know about this stuff..)
 
do you call OSX "crippleware" too?

Crippleware OS is a hell of a lot different to a cheap optional add-on

Is OS X crippleware in your mind then, since it doesn't contain all the features of OS X Server? :eek:

If not, then when is it OK to charge more for additional features, and when is it "rip off crippleware"? ¹

Apple and Microsoft are following very similar practices here, but the "Apple good, Microsoft bad" mentality is really causing some posts with tortured logic...

¹ Answer: "OK when Apple does it, rip-off when Microsoft does it"
 
I'm asking about two different companies setting a product and price structure to encourage upsell.

It's pretty common in the software world to enable features that ship with software, after an additional fee is paid.

Which is why it would be more appropriate to compare software to software. I'm not gonna get too into that argument, though, 'cause it looks like you've already moved on to talking about Quicktime. Ok, that's a much better comparison.

But you seem to be opperating under the misconception that we are complainnig that there are ANY differences in Windows versions. That's a silly thing for you to argue against since it's not what anyone is complaining about. We are all saying that Windows has too MANY versions.

So by pointing out 2 versions of Quicktime or 2 versions of OS X you aren't proving a darn thing. If there were 4 or 5 versions of Quicktime, you'd have a point. But there aren't.

I never heard anyone complain about XP Home vs. XP Pro. That's because 2 choices is perfectly reasonable. (Photoshop and Photoshop LE...Final Cut or Final Cut Express...iPhoto or Aperture...and hey, like you said, Macbook and Macbook Pro) The list of split product lines is very, very long. No one here is arguing against that. But somehow you feel the need to defend it.

That's not the issue. The issue is the much larger number of Vista versions out there. I continue to think it's stupid and I've seen nothing yet that has convinced me otherwise. You've spent a lot of posts arguing against things that we aren't really saying.
 
Which is why it would be more appropriate to compare software to software. I'm not gonna get too into that argument, though, 'cause it looks like you've already moved on to talking about Quicktime. Ok, that's a much better comparison.

But you seem to be opperating under the misconception that we are complainnig that there are ANY differences in Windows versions. That's a silly thing for you to argue against since it's not what anyone is complaining about. We are all saying that Windows has too MANY versions.

So by pointing out 2 versions of Quicktime or 2 versions of OS X you aren't proving a darn thing. If there were 4 or 5 versions of Quicktime, you'd have a point. But there aren't.

I never heard anyone complain about XP Home vs. XP Pro. That's because 2 choices is perfectly reasonable. (Photoshop and Photoshop LE...Final Cut or Final Cut Express...iPhoto or Aperture...and hey, like you said, Macbook and Macbook Pro) The list of split product lines is very, very long. No one here is arguing against that. But somehow you feel the need to defend it.

That's not the issue. The issue is the much larger number of Vista versions out there. I continue to think it's stupid and I've seen nothing yet that has convinced me otherwise. You've spent a lot of posts arguing against things that we aren't really saying.

This goes to everyone: companies might make different versions of software for different people. Like w/ OS X client vs. server, most people don't need server admin software. In some cases, it's good to have different products for different groups of people. You don't need a Mac Pro if all you do is write e-mails and listen to music. No reason to pay $2000 when all you need is a $700 Mac mini.

However, if a company made a word processing app and made you pay $10 more if you want to type 500+ words and $20 for 1000+, that's a rip-off.

Another thing is, if a company makes different versions of a product (software or hardware, doesn't matter), they should make sure they differentiate the versions enough so that the average consumer can know which is best for them. Unlike most of you who read MacRumors, the average consumer is pretty stupid about computers. They don't know what the difference between a "Santa Rosa" processor and a "G4" processor. As long as it's fairly obvious what kind of people the hardware/software is good for, it's fine.
 
I know this question has already been asked somewhere else on these boards, but I can't really find it..but....

Does anyone know if this new CS3 suite will contain Dreamweaver and Flash? I haven't seen anything official on this, but it seems like it would make sense.
Also, I've read that the new illustrator is supposed to have great integration with flash, but if they aren't updating flash in this release, that wouldn't make much sense, so I'm guessing the answer is yes..but..I dont know.

I have Studio MX right now, and I am looking to upgrade to 8, but I don't want to go out and spend the money on 8 if 9 is about to come out, even if it is a month or so.
 
Ok, video frame editing in Photoshop, while tedious, makes some amount of sense. What the heck is 3D modeling doing in there? Wouldn't it make more sense as a separate app, or maybe as a part of Illustrator?

They said the feature was to be added to "CS3". They did not say it would be in Photoshop. CS3 is a suite of applications.

In professional movies, one common file format is just a directory filled with still images where the filename is the frame number. Typically still images are scanned from film at 2K or even 4K resolution (That's 2 or 4k pixels across the long edge of the frame) One common thing you do with a PS like tool is "dust busting" removing srtaches and dust from the scan. Or maybe yu "clone out" a utility pole or wire in a background. Very non-exotic "special effects". Lot's of uses for frame at a time painting
 
One question answered: the PDF makes it clear that Elements will be ready at the same time as the rest of CS3 -- that's actually the only app I'm interested in.
 
Windows Vista™ Starter and Home Basic editions are out of luck!

It seems from the Adobe PDF that Windows Vista™ Starter and Home Basic editions will not be supported running Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop CS3 Extended.
 
So glad there will only ever be 1 version of Mac OS X

No there won't. Expect Mac OS 11 to come out in several years time. Maybe 2012 or something like that. It's anyone's guess what it'll be called - OSX2 or OSX Pro - but it's coming.

A bit of history:

Apple System Software 1 came out in 1984
Apple System Software 2 came out in 1985
...
...
Apple OS 9 came out in 1999
OS X came out in 2001.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Mac_OS_X

Only a fool would say that Steve Jobs doesn't have a team working on Apple OS 11 right now.
 
No there won't. Expect Mac OS 11 to come out in several years time. Maybe 2012 or something like that. It's anyone's guess what it'll be called - OSX2 or OSX Pro - but it's coming.

A bit of history:

Apple System Software 1 came out in 1984
Apple System Software 2 came out in 1985
...
...
Apple OS 9 came out in 1999
OS X came out in 2001.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Mac_OS_X

Only a fool would say that Steve Jobs doesn't have a team working on Apple OS 11 right now.

You are right in that there are different "versions" of OS X, as in 10.0, 10.1, 10.2, etc., but that's not what he meant. By "version" he means there's just one kind of of Mac OS X available now (OK, 2 if you count server), instead of like Windows Vista which has starter, home basic, ultimate, and whatever.
 
Why hasnt adobe said what CS3 is?

Creative Suite should or sort of is a SUITE of programs, not just a version of a program.

I mean, sure CS and CS2 were Photoshop 8 and 9 respectively.

but I hate to hear CS3 all the time with no actual suite of programs.

Can you buy the Creative Suite 3 (bundle) that comes with PS, Illustrator, InDesign, Dreamweaver, Flash etc etc all at once?

It seems like the PDF is worded so that its PS CS3 thats coming out and no word on anything else!?
 
The real question is why does Microsoft rip off their customers by severely crippling the versions that most people buy?

#1 - starter isn't even available to your average customer. Starter is what gets bundled with these uber cheap PC's being sold to 3rd world countries at stupid discount prices. All in the name of trying to counter the "free" OS's that are out there.

#2 - 99.97% of systems that run Home Basic probably won't even run Photoshop. Starter is designed for the 5 year old PC that can barely run XP let alone vista. Add to that the fact that pretty much any system shipping with Vista is shipping with Premium or better. Also Basic is designed for people who use there computer for 4 or so things. Web, mail, photos, chat, etc. The target market isn't for people wanting to use Photoshop.

Someone is making a mountain out of an anthill. Yes its retarded in the fact that MS is neutering the OS simply to differentiate each version. The core code is the exact same from version to version. I've never been a fan of this type of selling strategy, be it MS or any other software manufacturer.

Back to our regularly scheduled thread on Photoshop. I can't afford Photoshop. And realistically I don't need even half the features of Photoshop. I would really like to see an updated version of Photoshop Elements for Mac.
 
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