How Big Can Apple Get?

[pubwvj]

Hmm I wonder if apple will ever go after photo shop. It seemed to me there were some implied threats(relating core image) to adobe and some of the recent keynotes. Would abode pull off the mac if apple made a photo shop competitor?

It wouldn't matter. Adobe peaked long ago. I've been a Photoshop and Illustrator user since they came out (actually since before in Illustrator's case). But I'm still using generations old verions of Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. Why? Because the recent versions of these programs have not had anything that justifies the upgrade costs and hassle of relearning the new software. The old versions I've had for so long still do everything I need. Adobe isn't just losing market share to Apple. Adobe is losing market share to lack of innovation.

 

[masterthespian]

FCP no problem for me...it will let me be me so let me see...

Well thank god they picked it up. Most Macromedia products, in my opinion at least, aren't very user-friendly. Of cours FCP isn't that friendly either. You expect that of a video editor most professionals are using though.

Well I dont know about others but I have found FCP very easy to use. I brought in an "expert" to show me the ropes for 3 hours and then viola i was off to the races...been using it for 3 years now, 8-10 hours a day, 7 days a week...and thank god it's a great program, on a great OS, on a not so fast powermac (anymore)because it puts food on my table (figuratively). I am currently writing a program that will have my next powermac cook me bacon and eggs right on the tower. Must get rid of the liquid cooling first.

mT

 

[cgc]

comparing motion to after effects is like comparing a calculator to a g5.
Motion acomplishes a few select things in fewer steps but overall in its current form it is nothing but something for amatures to jump on and feel that they can now create "origional" motion graphics without having to put their own work or creativity into it.

Let the cookie cutting begin.

Bitter? How can you assume amateurs have no creativity? That has nothing to do will skills over a software application.

 

[ifjake]

i'm not at all interested in apple rising to dominate all. maybe everybody's so used to Microsoft's iron grip on such a huge margin or how the iPod is now a big deal that they think that that's the way it should be. the reason why apple is the way it is today (super cool) is because they've been "niche." like the transition from OS 9 to OS X. from what i gather that was a particularly messy transition (i jumped on board during jaguar) and that OS X didn't really come into it's own until Panther, 10.3. and even if you think Jaguar was perfectly capable, there was still 10.0 and 10.1 before that. now as Microsoft takes back a few things they've planned, Longhorn is going to look like little more than a UI change. the whole avalon thing. and i bet they're going to be hammered for it. maybe there are a few things i don't understand, but that wasn't the case with OS X. Unix is a big deal. "niche" (yeah good design too but really it was "niche") also resulted in the low virus and other malware occurences that is now a selling point for possible switchers. personally i think if apple could have a 15% market share of um... something... not just personal computing but a little corporate stuff as well.. maybe i'll call general computing?... that would be great. but 25% at the max. it's easier to innovate when you don't have to push around so much weight.

 

[prewwii]

Raising the bar....

After seeing those products, I'm glad that Adobe said no. I guess that Apple works best alone.

Seems that just raising the bar is not enough. Knowing in which direction to raise the bar is also important.

There are lots of craftmen in every field waiting for marching orders, figuring out what to have them do is something most folks rarely discover.

Why is that so many of the poeple who think they know the direction to go and often prove it are so cranky?

 

[ASP272]

Sucks for Adobe! So glad Apple did it on their own, but it would be nice to have even more integration between the iApps and Adobe apps (since I'm a graphic designer and use all that is Adobe). Macromedia has been doing a good job with their apps as well, though (Freehand, Dreamweaver, Flash, and Fireworks). Apple had once pursued Adobe, now Adobe and others are pursuing Apple!

 

[pubwvj]

Apple needs a full core application set

Apple has a bunch of core applications: OS, browser, email, programming system, tunes, movie, presentation, image cataloging, etc. They need to round these core applications out with other key applications like:

word processing - beyond TextEdit
spreadsheet - Keep It Simple - no bloatware
image processing - buy GraphicConverter and build on it
drawing - vector & bitmap (take on Photoshop and Illustrator)
layout - replace Quark which is a pain
database - simple and with basic progammability (Cocoa, REALbasic?)
flight simulator - a key application on any computer! X-Plane/A10
What else are core applications Apple should bring out?

Each of these need to be able to share files with the existing programs like Photoshop, Illustrator, Word, Excel, Quark, etc. Preferably they would move toward open file formats. But I must be able to read in all my existing Word and Excel documents if I'm going to make the switch. I've got 20 years of old documents that I still use and I can't just scrap them. Change of application would be fine, but the data is the important thing.

Like with iMovie/FinalCutPro there should be a free or low cost (iLife) version and a pro version of each. Many users just need a very simple spreadsheet to keep tables of data and do sums, etc. A much smaller number need powerful spreadsheet programs and even fewer need powerful presentation features on the spreadsheet. Same for wordprocessing, layout, drawing, etc. It's a waste to try to sell a $500 program to a user who needs a small subset of the features. They might be willing to pay $20 or $50 or get it as part of a $100 package of applications (e.g., iLife) or part of the annual subscription to the OS.

Serial numbers are fine (e.g., iWork) but they shouldn't implement spyware like Microsoft did in Word. I stopped upgrading Word and Excel. I don't cotton to the vendor accessing my machine, the software calling home, etc. ET can get his own machine.

Third party offers just aren't good enough and tend to get bought out by PC vendors or even Microsux itself. There used to be quite a few players in the spreadsheet and wordprocessor market but the big players squashed them. Open Office doesn't cut it - maybe someday. It might be a starting point for Apple like with Safari. It would be nice if Apple supported 3rd party developers even more but the fact is their market share is small enough that it is all to tempting for developer's to switch, the wrong way. Apple has to counter this with better developer support and with bringing out certain core applications themselves.

 

[Don't panic]

Are you implying you work there?
You guys are my heros

i think he was just suggesting to Gherkin to look there, since they are hiring and he was thinking about that line of work

 

[ddbean]

how big indeed

Apple's stock is really going for a ride today:

APPLE COMPUTER (NasdaqNM:AAPL) Delayed quote data Edit
Last Trade: 81.13
Trade Time: 11:47AM ET
Change: Up 2.19 (2.77%)
Prev Close: 78.94
Open: 79.19
Bid: 81.12 x 4300
Ask: 81.14 x 200
1y Target Est: 83.25

Day's Range: 78.79 - 81.38
52wk Range: 21.89 - 79.91
Volume: 8,557,209
Avg Vol (3m): 16,687,909
Market Cap: 32.82B
P/E (ttm): 65.22
EPS (ttm): 1.24
Div & Yield: N/A (N/A)

 

[wdlove]

Not true... Apple's got a slice of the market share here in Asia too... and it's growing rather rapidly.

That is good to know, didn't think that Apple would abandon any area of the world. Doing manufacturing in Asia gives them a good platform to build from. It would seem that Apple is only limited by the amount they can spend on R&D and production capacity.

 

[pubwvj]

Interestingly, back in the last century, Flash was called Future Splash and was made by a company called FutureWave who had their roots in Apple computing. I still have a FutureSplash 1.0 disk somewhere.

Yeah, and they stole the name of my magazine. I had been publishing a magazine about desktop publishing called "Flash Magazine" long before them starting in the 1980's as part of outreach to customers of our products (iron-on sublimation heat Transfer Toners for laser printers and the like). They would never respond to my letters and being the big guys they could get away with just ignoring me. I had the domain flashmag.com before them, back when we were only allowed six letters in domain names. The REAL "Flash Magazine" published by BlackLightning Publishing, Inc. Needless to say, they don't mention this in their little history.

Walter Jeffries
President & Publisher
(The REAL) Flash Magazine
BlackLightning, Inc.
http://flashmag.com/

 

[Doctor Q]

I wonder what Adobe thinks of Apple's Preview application. Acrobat Reader is free, but having an Apple replacement come with Mac OS X keeps Adobe from getting that foot in the door that they were always used to in the past.

Not to mention that Preview opens and displays PDFs faster than Acrobat Reader does, even though Adobe invented the format.

 

[jaromski]

Apple has a bunch of core applications: OS, browser, email, programming system, tunes, movie, presentation, image cataloging, etc. They need to round these core applications out with other key applications like:

word processing - beyond TextEdit
spreadsheet - Keep It Simple - no bloatware
image processing - buy GraphicConverter and build on it
drawing - vector & bitmap (take on Photoshop and Illustrator)
layout - replace Quark which is a pain
database - simple and with basic progammability (Cocoa, REALbasic?)
flight simulator - a key application on any computer! X-Plane/A10
What else are core applications Apple should bring out?

...

You have a great point here. I think the big problem is that Windows has the developers. It has the inertia of years of old apps that still run from Win9X through WinXP. OS/X is by far superior to the Windows platform but the lack of applications has left me (and others in my family/friends) stranded on the Windows platform.

But the pace of innovation for desktop apps has slowed considerably from last decade so maybe we are just experiencing a short-term effect. I think open source can fill in some of the gaps but it doesn't work well for desktop stuff. You need a controlling, almost domineering presence (like apple) to make sure the organic growth is cultivated in the right way.

But I think apple is going after the office market. They released that Pages program now all they need to do is keep fixing it making it better and release a good spreadsheet program with 100% compatibility with Excel. The problem is that if there is less than 100% compatibility this = cost for the user. Cost to switch might be too great if there are pesky differences between apps.

My only app to add to your lineup is CAD. Windows/Autodesk has the CAD market locked down tight. There are tons of design and engineering professionals who have huge amounts of legacy data in .dwg format and if Autodesk could be persuaded to port their cad product to mac or some daring startup tried to go after that market it would rock.

But most likely not happen.

Oh well,

-jaromski

 

[Porchland]

Apple has a bunch of core applications: OS, browser, email, programming system, tunes, movie, presentation, image cataloging, etc. They need to round these core applications out with other key applications like:

word processing - beyond TextEdit
spreadsheet - Keep It Simple - no bloatware
image processing - buy GraphicConverter and build on it
drawing - vector & bitmap (take on Photoshop and Illustrator)
layout - replace Quark which is a pain
database - simple and with basic progammability (Cocoa, REALbasic?)
flight simulator - a key application on any computer! X-Plane/A10
What else are core applications Apple should bring out?

Each of these need to be able to share files with the existing programs like Photoshop, Illustrator, Word, Excel, Quark, etc. Preferably they would move toward open file formats. But I must be able to read in all my existing Word and Excel documents if I'm going to make the switch. I've got 20 years of old documents that I still use and I can't just scrap them. Change of application would be fine, but the data is the important thing.

Like with iMovie/FinalCutPro there should be a free or low cost (iLife) version and a pro version of each. Many users just need a very simple spreadsheet to keep tables of data and do sums, etc. A much smaller number need powerful spreadsheet programs and even fewer need powerful presentation features on the spreadsheet. Same for wordprocessing, layout, drawing, etc. It's a waste to try to sell a $500 program to a user who needs a small subset of the features. They might be willing to pay $20 or $50 or get it as part of a $100 package of applications (e.g., iLife) or part of the annual subscription to the OS.

Serial numbers are fine (e.g., iWork) but they shouldn't implement spyware like Microsoft did in Word. I stopped upgrading Word and Excel. I don't cotton to the vendor accessing my machine, the software calling home, etc. ET can get his own machine.

Third party offers just aren't good enough and tend to get bought out by PC vendors or even Microsux itself. There used to be quite a few players in the spreadsheet and wordprocessor market but the big players squashed them. Open Office doesn't cut it - maybe someday. It might be a starting point for Apple like with Safari. It would be nice if Apple supported 3rd party developers even more but the fact is their market share is small enough that it is all to tempting for developer's to switch, the wrong way. Apple has to counter this with better developer support and with bringing out certain core applications themselves.

Was that a copy/paste? I swear I've read that here before. Also, Apple released a word processor a few weeks ago called Pages.

 

[DrEwe]

My only app to add to your lineup is CAD.
-jaromski

I think Apple really could do with FrontPage competitor - iWeb or something. Contribute doesnt do enough and Dreamweaver does too much for the occasional small business web site creator like myself. It seems like such an obvious hole, I don't really understand why it has not been filled. The .Mac homepage option is fine for sharing a few photos, a personal site etc, but not much more IMHO

 

[MacG]

"When someone asks you if you're a god, you say YES!" Obviously, Adobe picked wrong.

Current market values:
Apple: $32 billion
Adobe: $15 billion

As Apple moves up in the market cap food chain, the acquisitions could start to get bigger. Adobe biggest assets -- Acrobat, Photoshop and Illustrator -- would make Apple as solid for graphics software as it is in music software.

I'd love to see Apple pick up Adobe. Fix the mess that their products have become - each new version only seems to add more autodownload capabilities to promote other adobe SW. I don't want marketing in my paid SW!. Apple buying photoshop and illustrator would be killer. make them kick ass core-video based apps and stop selling them on the PC market. That would be huge

 

[Blue Velvet]

Apple buying photoshop and illustrator would be killer.

What exactly would Core Image do for Illustrator?

 

[Arcady]

imagine Photoshop only for Macs?????

I don't have to imagine that. It was a reality for several years, before the Windows version came out, and there was only a Mac version.

 

[Blue Velvet]

It wouldn't matter. Adobe peaked long ago. I've been a Photoshop and Illustrator user since they came out (actually since before in Illustrator's case). But I'm still using generations old verions of Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. Why? Because the recent versions of these programs have not had anything that justifies the upgrade costs and hassle of relearning the new software. The old versions I've had for so long still do everything I need. Adobe isn't just losing market share to Apple. Adobe is losing market share to lack of innovation.

What version of Pshop are you using?

What kind of practical or useful innovation would you like to Pshop introduce? Something that it hasn't done already?

 

[zwida]

At the moment, Apple needs Quark & Adobe more than they need Apple...

Look at how annoyed Apple got when Quark dragged their heels on an OS X version...

If Pshop, Illustrator, Acrobat, Indesign & QuarkXpress suddenly became unavailable for Mac, tens of thousands of studios would dump their Macs & go with PCs (albeit reluctantly)

I agree with all of what you said EXCEPT the Quark comment.

In the end, I think Quark dragging their heels hurt Quark much more than it hurt Apple. Quark's behavior (and Adobe's well-timed update) pushed many folks into Adobe's open arms. With the pathetic performance of Quark 6 & 6.5, I think Apple will be pretty pleased to watch Quark fade away.

Unless Quark releases something of substance pretty darn soon, they're toast.

 

[cgc]

Apple has a bunch of core applications: OS, browser, email, programming system, tunes, movie, presentation, image cataloging, etc. They need to round these core applications out with other key applications like:

word processing - beyond TextEdit
spreadsheet - Keep It Simple - no bloatware
image processing - buy GraphicConverter and build on it
drawing - vector & bitmap (take on Photoshop and Illustrator)
layout - replace Quark which is a pain
database - simple and with basic progammability (Cocoa, REALbasic?)
flight simulator - a key application on any computer! X-Plane/A10
What else are core applications Apple should bring out?

I agree with you, especially on:
Word Processing
Image Processing

The others can wait but they too are important to the respectability of a platform. I would not necessarily "take on Photoshop and Illustrator," as those products are outstanding, but integrate Apple's stuff with them.

What would I add? How about an INTEGRATED Palm Desktop-like application. iCal and Address Book are good, but if they could take all the functionality of Palm Desktop with the simplicity of the iApps, MUAHAHAHA. I need memos, todo, calendar, addresses, etc. etc. all in one convenient elegant location.

 

[virus1]

"Pixar is the most technically advanced creative company; Apple is the most creatively advanced technical company."

This is possibly one of the best Steve Jobs quotes I've ever read.

meet my new sig..

 

[Blue Velvet]

I agree with all of what you said EXCEPT the Quark comment.

In the end, I think Quark dragging their heels hurt Quark much more than it hurt Apple. Quark's behavior (and Adobe's well-timed update) pushed many folks into Adobe's open arms. With the pathetic performance of Quark 6 & 6.5, I think Apple will be pretty pleased to watch Quark fade away.

Unless Quark releases something of substance pretty darn soon, they're toast.

Yes, you're right as seen from early 2005

But just before the rise of InDesign, Quark was messing with v5 and OSX was struggling to gain acceptance amongst the design community... that was the period I was referring to.

We also have struggled with 6 & 6.5... it's an ugly buggy mess. 7 better bring some stability and some useful features at a low price... otherwise they will be, as you say, toast.

 

[ennerseed]

Core Image Will FINALLY create competition for Photoshop

Adobe will probably not include Core Image in Photoshop... That would not only give the Mac version of Photoshop an advantage, but would require extra programming from Adobe, neither of which Adobe seems to have the desire for. Take a look at single application multitasking, can you Imagine heavy gaussian blurring in one window while adjusting a layer position in another!!! IT IS POSSIBLE WITH OSX, but not with adobe.

Did anyone see the demo for Core Image?!

Core Image will create the market for Photoshop competition!!!

Apple DOES NOT need to make a photoshop type application, they built Photoshop in to the OS.

 

[macktheknife]

Excerpts from the article

Courtesy of yours truly, a Fortune subscriber.

OS X on Intel again...

When you look at the brief history of OS X, and hear software experts like Bill Joy call it the best operating system in the world, you begin to realize what a remarkable accomplishment it has been for Apple—not only to build it but also to migrate millions of users to something so radically different with relatively little pain, and to improve it so dramatically and with such regularity that it has turned the endless nuisance of software support into a profit machine. The technology is so solid that Apple is beginning to sell Macs into markets that never before would even consider them, like the military and university supercomputer centers. Most tantalizing of all is scuttlebutt that three of the biggest PC makers are wooing Jobs to let them license OS X and adapt it to computers built around standard Intel chips. Why? They want to offer customers, many of whom are sick of the security problems that go with Windows and tired of waiting for Longhorn, an alternative. And besides, Apple has buzz now, and Microsoft does not.

On future plans...

Jobs is always coy about where Apple technology might pop up next, but occasionally he'll drop hints. At the recent Macworld trade show, he declared 2005 to be the year that high-definition video hits the mainstream, and touted the HD editing capabilities of a new version of iMovie. He also notes that a new generation of Wi-Fi networking gear is in the offing next year, which will offer enough bandwidth to finally make it possible to stream high-quality video from Macs to TVs. (In the short term, look for Apple to use its wireless technology to let HDTV owners display slideshows of digital photos stored on their Macs.)

Jobs also talks about alliances that will expand Apple's influence. "We're partnering with Motorola for doing things on cellphones, partnering with HP on the iPod, partnering with car companies and with the record companies. And we definitely will be partnering more and more."