Why Apple Now Sucks for Creative Mac Users

[JPLC]

I never got the point why Apple dropped iWeb. I'm a webdesigner myself and know that the code is awfull bit it works. So is the drag and drop interface for building a website. All it needed was a publish wizard that helps you trough the FTP proces and it would be the perfect tool for code dummies.

Today there's a great need for easy to use webdesign applications. Not for my costumers, they are ready for the next step. But all the non professional users would be helped with this. Great product in combination with iCloud. Why not give away iCloud domains?

iWeb is no pro tool but again, a product they let people use and for no reason they kill it.

 

[Jessica Lares]

I never got the point why Apple dropped iWeb. I'm a webdesigner myself and know that the code is awfull bit it works. So is the drag and drop interface for building a website. All it needed was a publish wizard that helps you trough the FTP proces and it would be the perfect tool for code dummies.

Today there's a great need for easy to use webdesign applications. Not for my costumers, they are ready for the next step. But all the non professional users would be helped with this. Great product in combination with iCloud. Why not give away iCloud domains?

iWeb is no pro tool but again, a product they let people use and for no reason they kill it.

For no reason? What has happened since that product first launched? WordPress was at version 2 then, and is now at almost 4. Tumblr launched, social media got huge, Squarespace and Wix came along, Posterous was born and died, YouTube and Vimeo erupted in popularity, and the iPhone changed everything.

There are easy to use design programs and web builder services. If you have to have it simplified and can't understand sometime as robust as WordPress, then maybe you shouldn't be building a website. Or maybe, like I suggested to someone the other day, you should just build something in a Markdown editor, and then export it to HTML and upload those files. This isn't 2002 where you can get away with WYSIWYG for every little thing, web standards are different now, and there are little differences here and there between the five big browsers.

I would love a iCloud domain though, even just for static pages, which I would probably build in Markdown because I'm lazy, heh.

iWeb got really simple at the very end, and while they could relaunch it with HTML5 stuff, I think everyone's moved on.

 

[MowingDevil]

BS most of this...
use a Windows machine for 10 minutes and you will see what "pro" users are missing from that.

on a Mac it's the same as always...it works.

drag and drop is everywhere. batch renaming, comes with build in software to make those quick edits....windows do not.

the software...haven't everyone moved on to Creative Cloud by now ? if not, well most of the Apple software is pretty decent. give me one app one windows that surpass a piece of software that you don't have on OS X.
Yes OS X is not perfect, but as long as Windows is your alternative, there is none.

This isn't about Windows, that's irrelevant. It's about the direction Apple is headed and where they were at one point.

It's hardly BS, you just don't agree. Meh, many professionals I know do.

----------

As a graphic designer, Apple has NEVER been interested in my market. They've never made a software package like Photoshop or Illustrator, yet when I did an internship at a print house, there were iMacs and MacPros, everywhere.

I get it that you fee betrayed that Apple realized they couldn't compete with Light Room and shuttered Aperture. I have to hear it all the time from my little brother, who's a professional photographer. What was Apple to do? Keep throwing money at it while it became less and less relevant?

No, I don't even use Aperture. I only mentioned that because it was one of the first to go. I consider that plus changes to iWork, Logic & FC and imo it gives an indication of the direction Apple is headed w/ it's Pro apps. Their focus on iOS and neglect of the Mac line in general is also part of this picture. Logic & FCP are still very relevant ...for now.

 

[jayducharme]

I have to agree that Apple definitely more consumer centric.

But when have they not been consumer-centric? Wasn't that Jobs' intention all along, beginning with the Apple I, continuing with the original Mac and culminating with the iPad? His dream was to bring technology to the masses and make it accessible. It just so happened that artists took to the Mac early on. Afterwards, Apple gained a reputation as an artist's machine, as opposed to IBM/Microsoft's business machine.

And Apple has been on the cutting edge for tech. The Motorola processors and FireWire were generally faster and more efficient than equivalent PC offerings.

Personally, I really like FCPX and Logic X. They fit perfectly into my workflow. I can get projects done faster than I ever could before. The Mac Pro is a beast of a machine and has been rock-solid for me. So I'm not ready to give up on Apple just yet. And I think the company still has a few more tricks up its sleeve.

 

[maflynn]

Yes, but back in the late 80s and 90s they also catered to the creative sector, so much so, they invested in Adobe at one point.

Largely when the consumers abandoned the Mac platform, it was the professionals/creative sector that kept them going.

 

[Wild-Bill]

Yes, but back in the late 80s and 90s they also catered to the creative sector, so much so, they invested in Adobe at one point.

Largely when the consumers abandoned the Mac platform, it was the professionals/creative sector that kept them going.

^ This.

Apple owe more than just a little bit to the creative pros who kept them afloat during some really dark times.

IMHO they should be bending over backwards to please the creative pro community, and they are certainly not doing that. It's not like they lack the talent or money to make Logic, Final Cut, and Aperture gold-standard industry-leading products.

Face it, everything at Apple gets swallowed up by iOS/iGadgetry.

 

[aristobrat]

To me, it seems like there is no pleasing the entire "Creative Pro" community.

Apple redesigns the Mac Pro, and half the community is enraged about the design, and the other half is screaming "take my money!!!" and pissed that Apple can't ship them fast enough.

Apple completely rewrites Logic and Final Cut and again, half of the community seems to lose their heads, while other folks are saying it's better than ever.

Personally, with as little revenue as the "Creative Pro" community seeming brings in for Apple now (in comparison with the iOS devices now, and even the iPods a decade ago), I'm surprised that Apple dedicates the staff and millions of dollars required to keep any of the "Creative Pro" apps and products alive.

If these apps and products were creations of Dell/HP/IBM, I think they would have all been shelved years ago.

 

[linuxcooldude]

I think its simply the way media industry is changing and Apple is changing with them. Its getting cheaper and easier for content creation.

A while back Chicago Sun Times lays off all its professional photographers and going to reporter shooting their own using point & shoot cameras or iPhones.

Even filming video for my own news stories...I would be along side newspaper or a TV crew consisting of a single reporter doing their own photos or video the same way I've been doing it...lol.

The media have been incorporating Skype video into newscasts as its muck easier & cheaper then sending a news truck with satellite feed.

Camcorders are capable of sending video files (FTP) wirelessly and live broadcasting builtin to them.

 

[liquid stereo]

Forget Tesla/Elon musk

It's beyond silly to make comparisons to Elon Musk or Tesla.

Here is why Apple does what they do - profits/profitability. Aperture isn't/wasn't making enough money.

I hate it as I really enjoy Aperture. It's the market as power users are fewer and fewer.

 

[samiwas]

Clearly you can't please everybody, and choices had to be made. Apple's previous pro apps (Aperture, FCP 7, Logic, even iWork) had a lot of bloat and old code and had to be rebuild from nothing. 20 years of app development had to be disposed.

It will take time, but Apple has been going in a straight line, full gas, focusing on it. Some features will make a come back (they have too), but those apps as an whole became so much better!

iWork? Bloated? And now better? Hardly. Not even close. They took Pages and Numbers, both of which were quite nice apps, and made them practically unusable. I tried to make a spreadsheet the other day on the new version of numbers (after having made really complex spreadsheets for years on it) which would have been fairly easy on the old version, and simply gave up.

Why in the living hell would you take "page layout" completely out of the application? It's damn near impossible to build one that fits on a page. Oh, and let's take the multiple inspectors out so you now have to use multiple clicks to get to any setting, where they were all available one click away before.

Apple is not going in a straight line. They're going in a zig zag, which is currently on the downward path. They're trying to make every app identical on both the iPad and Mac, which is freaking stupid. Make the iPad version match the mac version, not the other way around.

They grew so much since then! They had to focus, while starting from scratch on some areas (like cloud and data center infrastructure, services) to improve their products and compete with companies that were emperors of that space (Google, MS).

I'm likely giving up on iWork, and going back to MS Office. iWork is not usable any more. They most certainly aren't competing by removing features.

Apple completely rewrites Logic and Final Cut and again, half of the community seems to lose their heads, while other folks are saying it's better than ever.

I didn't hear anyone saying that Final Cut X was "better than ever" when it replaced Final Cut 7. Why do you think Final Cut 7 made a re-appearance?

 

[aristobrat]

I didn't hear anyone saying that Final Cut X was "better than ever" when it replaced Final Cut 7.

Right right, and let me guess -- you never saw anyone actually lose their head, either?

I'm going off my recollection from having thread through most of the heated threads here on MacRumors from three years ago when Final Cut X launched.

Factual Summary:
Some Creative Pros liked the new interface and functionality, and other Creative Pros didn't.

Any "people lost their heads" or "said it was better than ever" are my own paraphrasing of the above summary.

The point is (in response to the statement that someone made about 'Apple should be bending over backwards to please the creative pro community') is that it is impossible to please 100% of a community. And just because one may be in the displeased side of a community, that's no reason to try and pretend that someone's not actually bending over backwards in front of them, trying to please.

 

[samiwas]

Right right, and let me guess -- you never saw anyone actually lose their head, either?

I know numerous people who dropped Final Cut and went to Avid, if that helps. It might have been a nice new interface, but the power of the program was cut quite a bit.

The point is (in response to the statement that someone made about 'Apple should be bending over backwards to please the creative pro community') is that it is impossible to please 100% of a community. And just because one may be in the displeased side of a community, that's no reason to try and pretend that someone's not actually bending over backwards in front of them, trying to please.

Of course you can't make everyone happy. But I still fail to see how removing vital features of a program is in any way "moving forward". Why on earth would you remove the print view feature of a spreadsheet program?? Why would they remove linkable text boxes in a page layout program?

There's "not making everyone happy" and there's completely stunting your program. Apple has done the latter in nearly everything.

 

[aristobrat]

Of course you can't make everyone happy. But I still fail to see how removing vital features of a program is in any way "moving forward".

To me, scrapping the existing code for a complete rewrite is the "moving forward" part.

Releasing the re-writes before they had feature parity with the versions they replaced wasn't a decision I would have personally made, and seems like a function of Apple's hubris.

 

[samiwas]

To me, scrapping the existing code for a complete rewrite is the "moving forward" part.

In a way, yes. Although, it's like saying "Introducing the all new Ferrari! It can only go 50mph, and doesn't have AC or a stereo, and the tires are from a Prius, but it's all new!!"

Releasing the re-writes before they had feature parity with the versions they replaced wasn't a decision I would have personally made, and seems like a function of Apple's hubris.

This is kind of what I was getting at. It seems to be Apple's MO...release software that seriously competes or even changes an industry, then once you have the user base locked in, drop a bombshell. Pages and Numbers aren't just lacking in feature parity, they are completely obliterated. There's a list on another MacRumors thread of 51 features which were removed from Pages alone. For Numbers, I have to do math now to see if what I'm doing will fit on a page, or do a print preview, which is time consuming to do repeatedly. Just dumb.

 

[TechGod]

Apple's hardware offerings have never been top of the line though. By that I mean Apple led a lot of 'desktop revolutions' (desktop publishing, desktop audio recording, desktop video editing, desktop DVD authoring, desktop color grading, etc.,) where they introduced off-the-shelf hardware & software that was good enough, and relatively inexpensive, into markets that traditionally required specialized hardware that was very expensive.

I don't think it's as much Apple leaving the pro market's behind as much as it is that sections of pro market that 'grew up' with Apple are now outgrowing Apple. Apple was never in the 'big iron' hardware businesses and I think they see traditional desktops as being the new big iron.




I think it's a semantic problem as well as knowing that there is a difference between a professional and a professional quality tool. For example, I edit for a living and I used to use iDVD to make quick DVD screeners to send off to clients for review. I wouldn't call iDVD professional grade software but it was used in a professional setting because it was good enough for the task at hand (and free).



Thunderbolt 2 is only 4x PCIe (IIRC) while GPUs are 16x. So while you can put a GPU in an enclosure and attach it via ThB 2 you will only get a fraction of the power of that GPU.

Obviously, we have gone from TB1-2, speed increased. We will get to PCI level performance soon enough. Thunderbolt has huge potential.

 

[daabido]

It has always been part of Apple's culture to build almost best of breed software and then to abandon it to a lingering death, with the exception of OSX - AppleWorks anyone?

Never expect Apple to build and then refine software over the long haul. You'll just be disappointed.

 

[maflynn]

Never expect Apple to build and then refine software over the long haul. You'll just be disappointed.

To a point you're right, but I think its more along the lines where apple keeps adjusting its focus. Apple keeps iTunes and its been refined and improved a number of times. Apple has largely gutted iWork and its a shell of what it used to be. Likewise with Aperture, they let it whither on the vine only now to say it will be replaced with a better solution.

 

[LethalWolfe]

Obviously, we have gone from TB1-2, speed increased. We will get to PCI level performance soon enough. Thunderbolt has huge potential.

Someday, but not today. If you need that kind of processing power a Mac, even one w/ThB, isn't not for you.

 

[TechGod]

Someday, but not today. If you need that kind of processing power a Mac, even one w/ThB, isn't not for you.

This is very true.

Can't wait till we reach Intel's promise of 100Gb/s for ThunderBolt(Or at least I believe reading they aim to reach that number)

 

[eezacque]

Someday, but not today.

Also, while TB may see higher speeds, so will GPU...

 

[TechGod]

Also, while TB may see higher speeds, so will GPU...

Do you mean PCI?

 

[eezacque]

Do you mean PCI?

Both. It is a bit naive to assume that TB is the only technology that will get faster in the near future: competing technology like PCI and technology that will use it will accelerate, too...

 

[TechGod]

Both. It is a bit naive to assume that TB is the only technology that will get faster in the near future: competing technology like PCI and technology that will use it will accelerate, too...

This is admittedly true.

 

[MowingDevil]

It's beyond silly to make comparisons to Elon Musk or Tesla.

The comparison was just to make a point...of a company that appears to listen to their clientele more than most. We've all heard the email "responses" Jobs used to send out once in a while. I'm just not sure Apple listens or cares what their most dedicated user base has to say. They're too busy raking it in w/ all the hordes of shoppers it doesn't matter to them. I'm sure they follow trends and the way the financial wind blows. I'm not so sure they're "thinking differently" anymore though, its more stay ahead of Samsung & Google than anything. A huge legal pissing match. Apple still produces good quality products, don't get me wrong, but they're certainly not at all concerned w/ the creative community like they used to. Simple brainless iGadgets for the masses = more WAY profits than Think Different. The roots of this company have long been discarded.

 

[MowingDevil]

^ This.

Apple owe more than just a little bit to the creative pros who kept them afloat during some really dark times.

IMHO they should be bending over backwards to please the creative pro community, and they are certainly not doing that. It's not like they lack the talent or money to make Logic, Final Cut, and Aperture gold-standard industry-leading products.

Face it, everything at Apple gets swallowed up by iOS/iGadgetry.

+1 I'm not suggesting Apple shouldn't go full steam ahead w/ their iOS line. However, they DO owe something to the group that stuck w/ them and it wouldn't hurt them at all to do so. In fact, it would increase the attraction to the company. What do they have in the bank, $800 billion or something like that? In cash reserves! They are so bloody loaded they could do whatever they want. All this from a company that was on the edge of bankruptcy. Keep the iToy line rocking along, but put in some serious funds into increasing the power of the pro line. The Mac Pro is a great machine. The MBpro is a skinny computer...focus more on its power than its thinness. Thats for the Air line. Who cares if the iMac is skinny? Sure, make the iOS apps streamlined & easy to use....keep the Mac ones powerful and full of features. If code needs to be rewritten, fine! Stop dumbing down the programs. Add drummer "personas" to Garageband...NOT Logic Pro! The only reason they "fixed" Final Cut is the user base went ballistic! They cut MAJOR features from it...then backpedaled and said they were "planning" on putting them back. iWork is now a joke. I hate to say it, but I'll most likely be returning to Office now...its against every fibre in my being but Pages is pathetic, so is Numbers. These weren't exactly high end programs but they did the trick for my needs. Not anymore. The new version of FC suits me fine but I'm not a pro film editor. I haven't decided what I'll do w/ Logic yet. I might stay but I'll give some others a consideration whereas I would never have before. I said it before, its not just the current state of Apple (for creative pros) that concerns me, its their recent trends that make me nervous. Apple could afford to make these products powerhouses even if it wasn't profitable immediately but more people would switch over again and I would predict it would be profitable in the long run. Big picture.

iOS devices & software (iPhone/iPad)
Macs for consumers (Mini/iMac/Air)
Mac Pro for creative users (Mac Pro/MacBook Pro)

No need to make everything the same for everyone. Keep the divisions separate and fund/staff them so they can all succeed!