I'm simply making the point that what happens when Apple decide to EOL the professional versions of the software with not even an hour's notice and design the light versions so your entire archive is not usable any more; I'm not casting aspersions on the software itself.
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Autodesk Releases AutoCAD LT on Mac App Store
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I'm simply making the point that what happens when Apple decide to EOL the professional versions of the software with not even an hour's notice and design the light versions so your entire archive is not usable any more; I'm not casting aspersions on the software itself.
If you want a solid NURBS based Solid Modeling package that started on NeXTStep and is on both Windows and OS X, then check out SolidThinking. Altair Corporation bought the Italian company over a year prior.
http://solidthinking.com/pdf/en-US/sT85brochure_Letter.pdf
Details: http://solidthinking.com/default.aspx
This product has matured over the past nearly 20 years.
http://solidthinking.com/pdf/en-US/sT85brochure_Letter.pdf
Details: http://solidthinking.com/default.aspx
This product has matured over the past nearly 20 years.
most people's credit cards top out at $999 per month? I don't think so. Most people don't have a monthly limit on their credit cards, they can charge up to their credit limit. It would be kind of hard to order a new Mac Pro from apple.com if I couldn't charge more than $999 on my credit card. I charge (and pay off, never carry a balance) over $1000 on my credit card every month.
After a quick search, it seems that this $900/£660(inc. VAT) release is actually cheaper than the Windows version of LT.
Has this price in the UK been confirmed anywhere? It has not yet appeared on the Mac App Store.
Language corner:
The software has been uploaded onto Apple servers. Its data is on hard drives in North Carolina. It is on Mac App Store, because I am not INSIDE the Mac App Store, because it is physically either in front of me on the screen (it is not around me), or in North Carolina. Yet, I am buying AutoCAD while sitting in Starbucks (I just imagined, lol). Just as I cannot be in WalMart at the same time while in a car, I cannot be inside Mac App Store while on a couch in my house...
If I buy a Hot Dog on the street, I am not entering the store either.. I cannot be inside a HotDog cart (I imagined again, lol)
I am pretty much sure you can see this physically just as you do - the app is inside of a system, that allows you to buy it... But saying that it is on the Mac App Store as on an internet platform cannot be wrong either...
The software has been uploaded onto Apple servers. Its data is on hard drives in North Carolina. It is on Mac App Store, because I am not INSIDE the Mac App Store, because it is physically either in front of me on the screen (it is not around me), or in North Carolina. Yet, I am buying AutoCAD while sitting in Starbucks (I just imagined, lol). Just as I cannot be in WalMart at the same time while in a car, I cannot be inside Mac App Store while on a couch in my house...
If I buy a Hot Dog on the street, I am not entering the store either.. I cannot be inside a HotDog cart (I imagined again, lol)
I am pretty much sure you can see this physically just as you do - the app is inside of a system, that allows you to buy it... But saying that it is on the Mac App Store as on an internet platform cannot be wrong either...
Hmmmmm... interesting news!
Just keeps wondering, why Autocad is the one Autodesk product that they are porting!? AutoCad is simply a dying software... so why use the energy to port the thing..!?? The future of design and draughting lies in BIM and 3D software like Revit...
So why not port Revit and lets all move on!... please!??
The ONE and ONLY thing missing for me to throw my crappy Windows software and machines out the window, and never look back!!!
Just keeps wondering, why Autocad is the one Autodesk product that they are porting!? AutoCad is simply a dying software... so why use the energy to port the thing..!?? The future of design and draughting lies in BIM and 3D software like Revit...
So why not port Revit and lets all move on!... please!??
The ONE and ONLY thing missing for me to throw my crappy Windows software and machines out the window, and never look back!!!
It's interesting to hear those histories and prices.
I hear Geographic Information Systems are being somewhat revolutionized because of open source. In Spain, the gvSIG project is an open source, government-backed project to get them rid of commercial software which required that kind of hefty subscriptions and locked them into propietary formats.
Basically, the money that would have been poured into maintaining the commercial software and the locked formats has been / is being used instead to develop their own open software and infrastructure - and in such a way that other countries, organizations and companies are benefitting too (and collaborating back!). Last I heard they were getting a lot of interest from the rest of Europe and from South America.
Would be great if that kind of thing happened in other fields, like the CAD market. Myself, I'm wishing the same for electronics design software... it's incredible what companies have to pay and the kind of problems they have to put up anyway. Or, said in another way, it's incredible that things like gvSIG have taken so long to happen.
I know the full version of AutoCAD has always been ridiculously expensive, and LT always also seemed too high considering the extent it was crippled. So this $899 price is probably not out of line historically, unless you also consider AutoDesk's rather pitiful history (and uncertain future) of supporting the Mac platform, in which case it should probably have one less digit to be considered reasonable.
They've been giving $250+ to Best Buy, Walmart, and other retailers instead of keeping it to themselves. Why would Apple selling their software be any different to them? I don't understand your logic. Are you not familiar with retail?
I think the problem with people like you who probably have no experience in retail is that Apple openly advertises their cut for being a retailer but Walmart doesn't.
Or did you think Walmart, Best Buy and other retailers were selling other people's software without taking a cut?
I am a design professional, both owning my own company and contracting for several other large architectural firms, the standard of choice is AutoCAD. A lot of it is dictated by the .dwg file format, its what the client wants, every client has certian standards that you have to abide by if you want more work and good ratings, especially if you do government work.
I use AutoCAD LT 2011 and have been on a every two year upgrade cycle, about $600 a year when you break it down. I could use other programs but from a productivity standpoint its not worth it, even if they are FREE programs, which most do not do the same functionality that AutoCAD will do, they may look the same but there is a lot about AutoCAD that you will never get into in school.
A lot of clients are now switching to Revit, which is a BIM product. I personally don't think its faster, we have done several projects in Revit, only to find out we could have done them with less hassle, less hard drive space and twice as fast in AutoCAD, but that is what the client requested. Autodesk is "selling" Revit to the clients, in theory it sounds perfect, but down to actuality its not all the way there yet.
Anyways $899 is a wonderful price for AutoCAD, professional software is expensive, I have close to $10,000 tied up in software just to hopefully make money, its a large investment but pays for it self, plus I can write it off 😉
I use AutoCAD LT 2011 and have been on a every two year upgrade cycle, about $600 a year when you break it down. I could use other programs but from a productivity standpoint its not worth it, even if they are FREE programs, which most do not do the same functionality that AutoCAD will do, they may look the same but there is a lot about AutoCAD that you will never get into in school.
A lot of clients are now switching to Revit, which is a BIM product. I personally don't think its faster, we have done several projects in Revit, only to find out we could have done them with less hassle, less hard drive space and twice as fast in AutoCAD, but that is what the client requested. Autodesk is "selling" Revit to the clients, in theory it sounds perfect, but down to actuality its not all the way there yet.
Anyways $899 is a wonderful price for AutoCAD, professional software is expensive, I have close to $10,000 tied up in software just to hopefully make money, its a large investment but pays for it self, plus I can write it off 😉
"support for LISP and ObjectARX and ObjectDBX applications;"
Does this mean you can somehow port the Windows LISP or ARX subroutines you already own to AutoCAD for the Mac? Autodesk bought DCA, which became Softdesk, and incorporated these subroutines into various suites (Civil, Mech, etc.) If I could easily extract the LISP routines from my Windows platform for use on my Mac (without violating a license agreement), I would buy AutoCAD for Mac immediately.
When you get a job, there very little chance youll end up using AutoCAD as a mechanical engineer. Youll most likely end up using Pro-E, Inventor, or Solidworks. But the point is making 2D drawings manually is a thing of the past, what you will probably be doing it creating 3D parts, and your 2D is generated from and linked to the 3D. I had 2 years of AutoCAD and i never use it 🙁.
And those prices are crazy, but i dont think they are ever intending a single person buys AutoCAD for personal use. If you are a student you can get the student edition for education
Thanks for the post. I can't believe how many people are on here being unreasonable complainers. Makes me stay away from the forums.
This is a good price for a solid piece of software in my estimation. I work as a project manager for a 10 man apple-based architecture crew and am in charge of IT management and purchasing on the side. We use Archicad (the mac version of Revit), but I've never been happy with how convoluted and glitchy the program is, the second rate Lightworks rendering (I'm not buying Artlantis), the lack of desirable support, and the sparseness of the community. For our production work, LT might just be the thing we could use instead because most of our work consists of simple 2D plans, elevations and details. I'll miss parametric objects and the 2D/3D workspace relationship, but one must adapt.
BIM is expensive and largely unnecessary in my experience for residential, multi-family and small commercial projects. It requires a huge budget and a lot of babysitting to work well.
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Regarding MEs never using AutoCAD:
If you found a manufacturing engineering job right after college then you are living the dream.
The rest of us spent too much time dreaming about jobs like yours then chose to apply for work in an industry where more jobs are available.
Almost every commercial construction project has a licensed mechanical engineer sealing 2D plans based on codes and ASHRAE handbooks (both of which are in turn based on fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, statics, etc.).
Those plans will be made in AutoCAD, often by a young engineer.
iMaci7 said:
Regarding MEs never using AutoCAD:
If you found a manufacturing engineering job right after college then you are living the dream.
The rest of us spent too much time dreaming about jobs like yours then chose to apply for work in an industry where more jobs are available.
Almost every commercial construction project has a licensed mechanical engineer sealing 2D plans based on codes and ASHRAE handbooks (both of which are in turn based on fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, statics, etc.).
Those plans will be made in AutoCAD, often by a young engineer.
Because???
Why would you buy this?
I've always had Macs and had to draw stuff for construction by other means as there was no AutoCAD.
I've occasionally been given a PC with AutoCAD on it for construction drawings and it's slow, unwieldy and ferociously expensive. Way out of my means as a freelance and way too slow to use on a job and with the learning curve from hell.
OK for architects and engineers who make loads of money to take weeks to draw stuff but useless for anyone else and a lot of people have had to do things on other programs or by hand because of the unavailability of AutoCAD. Why are they going to spend all this money now for limited functionality with it being so grim to learn and very very expensive training?
Why would you buy this?
I've always had Macs and had to draw stuff for construction by other means as there was no AutoCAD.
I've occasionally been given a PC with AutoCAD on it for construction drawings and it's slow, unwieldy and ferociously expensive. Way out of my means as a freelance and way too slow to use on a job and with the learning curve from hell.
OK for architects and engineers who make loads of money to take weeks to draw stuff but useless for anyone else and a lot of people have had to do things on other programs or by hand because of the unavailability of AutoCAD. Why are they going to spend all this money now for limited functionality with it being so grim to learn and very very expensive training?
Any rumours about this being realised outside the US and Canada? I am in the UK and I am desperate for this to be released here. It's been a month with no further news. Come on Autodesk....