Friday, October 29, 2004
What's up with all this lovey-dovey stuff between Apple and Adobe?
Once upon a time, Apple and Adobe were a cute young couple, rather deeply in love with each other. Back in the 80's the Mac was the first and (at the time) only computer that could handle any of what Adobe wanted to make happen as far as desktop publishing. You know, GUI-related stuff and so forth -- I'll spare you the details, because either you're already aware of them or you probably don't care. But 1984 was a long, long time ago. In fact, you could almost say that the companies have been slowly getting a divorce from each other for the past two decades.
So where did it all go wrong?
Well, somewhere along the line, Windows became prevalent if not legitimate, and Adobe figured it might as well also bring its products to the much larger Windows platform, even if it meant that they would become mere shadows of their former selves. It's not that Adobe stopped bringing its products to the Mac, it's just that when Adobe realized that it takes about ten times as long to move software development forward on Windows than on the Mac, the company decided to intentionally cripple the progress of the Mac versions of its products so that they wouldn't be any better than their Windows counterparts, lest Windows users begin asking too many questions. Pure arrogant, short-sighted, self-defeating stupidity, for sure -- I mean, even Microsoft itself allows the Mac version of MS Office to race way ahead of the Windows version in terms of both quality and features, because even Microsoft knows that if the Mac version of a piece of software sucks as badly as the Windows version does, Mac users will sniff it out a mile away and find something else to use instead.
It's not that Adobe was the only company who traveled down that particular path of stupidity, especially during the Mac's darkest mid-90's hours. But it was fairly clear that Apple never quite forgave Adobe for it, because now that Apple is enjoying its finest hours again, Apple hasn't hesitated to stomp all over Adobe's territory. Not only did Apple make it so Mac users don't need to download the free Adobe Acrobat Reader in order to view PDFs, Apple actually went a giant leap further and made it so that Mac users don't even need to buy the full Adobe Acrobat suite in order to create PDFs. Sure, Apple's primary reason for doing this kind of stuff is so that Mac users have such an absurdly superior computing experience that more and more people will want to use one...but on the other hand, Apple has made a point of really not caring just how badly it pissed Adobe off in the process.
And not surprisingly, Adobe has more or less responded in kind. When Apple brought out the phenomenal iPhoto just for Mac users, Adobe didn't hesitate to create an underwhelming knockoff of iPhoto called "Photoshop Album" (nothing at all to do with Photoshop, mind you) and market it solely to Windows users. You know, so Windows users could use the old "we don't have what Mac users have, but we have a knockoff product that costs a lot more and it's about half as good" excuse to put off Switching to the Mac for just a little while longer (give up now guys, it's an eventuality).
So it's clear that these two companies are no longer close to each other, don't get along too well, and keep managing to invade each other's turf without too much remorse. So what was the deal this week with Apple promoting the living daylights out of both Adobe Photoshop Album and Adobe Photoshop Elements?
In case you missed all the details, Apple's new iPod Photo product works with both Mac and Windows, and needless to say, on the Mac it syncs with iPhoto (through iTunes). But on Windows, iPod Photo actually syncs with Adobe Photoshop Album (also through iTunes), the very same product that Adobe brought out as a lame iPhoto knockoff. And what's more, although it was a little less pronounced, Apple is now promoting Adobe Photoshop Elements for MacOS X on its "Hot News" page on apple.com.
Coincidence? A sign of closer ties once again between the two companies? They say that technology is the only thing that can create even stranger bedfellows than politics, because the technology landscape can change just that fast. But did I mention that when Apple was first creating MacOS X and wanted to build all the display stuff on top of the PDF standard, Adobe refused to cooperate? And that Apple retaliated by reverse-engineering the whole PDF spec, thereby cutting Adobe out of the equation entirely? Can companies who've placed this many knives in each other's backs once again become partners and co-promoters?
I mean, it's not surprising to see Apple partner with one of its knockoffs in order to make the iPod fly on Windows; when the iPod first went cross-platform, Windows users had to settle for managing their iPod with MusicMatch, which was by all accounts crap, but no crappier than most Windows software. It wasn't until Apple figured out that it could take money from Windows users on both the hardware side (iPod sales) and the software side (online music sales) that it brought out iTunes for Windows. If the iTunes Music Store had never come into existence, I suspect that Windows-using iPod owners would still be settling for MusicMatch or some other also-ran.
So I suppose the big question here is that if the iPod Photo turns out not to be a fad and shows as much staying power as the regular iPod, will Apple then bring out iPhoto for Windows in an attempt to once again take money out of Windows users' pockets with both hands at once?
And that question gets answered with another question: how the hell does Apple make money from photos?
I really don't know the answer to that. On the non-digital side of photography, people pay money for cameras, for film, and for photo developing. On the digital side, they pay for digital cameras, memory cards, and a ridiculous amount of money on printing photos (photo printers, expensive paper, metric tons of ink, etc.). Pretty standard stuff there, nothing jumps out at you like the idea of selling songs online at 99 cents a pop. The closest thing I can think of is that after my sister's wedding, the professional photographer placed all of his pictures online so that wedding guests could log on, pick which ones they liked, and order prints. Maybe, a few years from now, the way this works is that you would just purchase and download those pictures onto your iPod Photo. But what do I know? I'm not a photo person.
So although iPhoto for Windows is still a long-term question whose answer is complicated by many variables, I'm currently more interested in what happens between Apple and Adobe in the near-term. If Apple could just get Adobe to take the shackles off its Mac development, I have no doubt that the Mac versions of products such as Photoshop and InDesign could be absolutely amazing products, instead of just replicas of their Windows counterparts. And I also have no doubt that if Adobe continues to ingore the Mac's superior software development potential, Apple will continue to eat into Adobe's territory by bringing out new Mac-only professional software titles that put Adobe's stuff to shame. But that latter part just somehow doesn't seem necessary, at least not under the current set of circumstances. So I'm glad to see that this week's announcements and subtle hints would seem to point more toward the former than the latter.
Perhaps the twenty-year marriage between Apple and Adobe, which has seemingly been disintegrating for twenty years, is salvageable after all. Or at the very least, perhaps the two can at least agree to be friends.
Once upon a time, Apple and Adobe were a cute young couple, rather deeply in love with each other. Back in the 80's the Mac was the first and (at the time) only computer that could handle any of what Adobe wanted to make happen as far as desktop publishing. You know, GUI-related stuff and so forth -- I'll spare you the details, because either you're already aware of them or you probably don't care. But 1984 was a long, long time ago. In fact, you could almost say that the companies have been slowly getting a divorce from each other for the past two decades.
So where did it all go wrong?
Well, somewhere along the line, Windows became prevalent if not legitimate, and Adobe figured it might as well also bring its products to the much larger Windows platform, even if it meant that they would become mere shadows of their former selves. It's not that Adobe stopped bringing its products to the Mac, it's just that when Adobe realized that it takes about ten times as long to move software development forward on Windows than on the Mac, the company decided to intentionally cripple the progress of the Mac versions of its products so that they wouldn't be any better than their Windows counterparts, lest Windows users begin asking too many questions. Pure arrogant, short-sighted, self-defeating stupidity, for sure -- I mean, even Microsoft itself allows the Mac version of MS Office to race way ahead of the Windows version in terms of both quality and features, because even Microsoft knows that if the Mac version of a piece of software sucks as badly as the Windows version does, Mac users will sniff it out a mile away and find something else to use instead.
It's not that Adobe was the only company who traveled down that particular path of stupidity, especially during the Mac's darkest mid-90's hours. But it was fairly clear that Apple never quite forgave Adobe for it, because now that Apple is enjoying its finest hours again, Apple hasn't hesitated to stomp all over Adobe's territory. Not only did Apple make it so Mac users don't need to download the free Adobe Acrobat Reader in order to view PDFs, Apple actually went a giant leap further and made it so that Mac users don't even need to buy the full Adobe Acrobat suite in order to create PDFs. Sure, Apple's primary reason for doing this kind of stuff is so that Mac users have such an absurdly superior computing experience that more and more people will want to use one...but on the other hand, Apple has made a point of really not caring just how badly it pissed Adobe off in the process.
And not surprisingly, Adobe has more or less responded in kind. When Apple brought out the phenomenal iPhoto just for Mac users, Adobe didn't hesitate to create an underwhelming knockoff of iPhoto called "Photoshop Album" (nothing at all to do with Photoshop, mind you) and market it solely to Windows users. You know, so Windows users could use the old "we don't have what Mac users have, but we have a knockoff product that costs a lot more and it's about half as good" excuse to put off Switching to the Mac for just a little while longer (give up now guys, it's an eventuality).
So it's clear that these two companies are no longer close to each other, don't get along too well, and keep managing to invade each other's turf without too much remorse. So what was the deal this week with Apple promoting the living daylights out of both Adobe Photoshop Album and Adobe Photoshop Elements?
In case you missed all the details, Apple's new iPod Photo product works with both Mac and Windows, and needless to say, on the Mac it syncs with iPhoto (through iTunes). But on Windows, iPod Photo actually syncs with Adobe Photoshop Album (also through iTunes), the very same product that Adobe brought out as a lame iPhoto knockoff. And what's more, although it was a little less pronounced, Apple is now promoting Adobe Photoshop Elements for MacOS X on its "Hot News" page on apple.com.
Coincidence? A sign of closer ties once again between the two companies? They say that technology is the only thing that can create even stranger bedfellows than politics, because the technology landscape can change just that fast. But did I mention that when Apple was first creating MacOS X and wanted to build all the display stuff on top of the PDF standard, Adobe refused to cooperate? And that Apple retaliated by reverse-engineering the whole PDF spec, thereby cutting Adobe out of the equation entirely? Can companies who've placed this many knives in each other's backs once again become partners and co-promoters?
I mean, it's not surprising to see Apple partner with one of its knockoffs in order to make the iPod fly on Windows; when the iPod first went cross-platform, Windows users had to settle for managing their iPod with MusicMatch, which was by all accounts crap, but no crappier than most Windows software. It wasn't until Apple figured out that it could take money from Windows users on both the hardware side (iPod sales) and the software side (online music sales) that it brought out iTunes for Windows. If the iTunes Music Store had never come into existence, I suspect that Windows-using iPod owners would still be settling for MusicMatch or some other also-ran.
So I suppose the big question here is that if the iPod Photo turns out not to be a fad and shows as much staying power as the regular iPod, will Apple then bring out iPhoto for Windows in an attempt to once again take money out of Windows users' pockets with both hands at once?
And that question gets answered with another question: how the hell does Apple make money from photos?
I really don't know the answer to that. On the non-digital side of photography, people pay money for cameras, for film, and for photo developing. On the digital side, they pay for digital cameras, memory cards, and a ridiculous amount of money on printing photos (photo printers, expensive paper, metric tons of ink, etc.). Pretty standard stuff there, nothing jumps out at you like the idea of selling songs online at 99 cents a pop. The closest thing I can think of is that after my sister's wedding, the professional photographer placed all of his pictures online so that wedding guests could log on, pick which ones they liked, and order prints. Maybe, a few years from now, the way this works is that you would just purchase and download those pictures onto your iPod Photo. But what do I know? I'm not a photo person.
So although iPhoto for Windows is still a long-term question whose answer is complicated by many variables, I'm currently more interested in what happens between Apple and Adobe in the near-term. If Apple could just get Adobe to take the shackles off its Mac development, I have no doubt that the Mac versions of products such as Photoshop and InDesign could be absolutely amazing products, instead of just replicas of their Windows counterparts. And I also have no doubt that if Adobe continues to ingore the Mac's superior software development potential, Apple will continue to eat into Adobe's territory by bringing out new Mac-only professional software titles that put Adobe's stuff to shame. But that latter part just somehow doesn't seem necessary, at least not under the current set of circumstances. So I'm glad to see that this week's announcements and subtle hints would seem to point more toward the former than the latter.
Perhaps the twenty-year marriage between Apple and Adobe, which has seemingly been disintegrating for twenty years, is salvageable after all. Or at the very least, perhaps the two can at least agree to be friends.
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