[HN Gopher] Perhaps acquiring Pixelmator is about competing with...
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Perhaps acquiring Pixelmator is about competing with Creative Cloud
Author : robenkleene
Score : 60 points
Date : 2024-11-25 20:39 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (daringfireball.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (daringfireball.net)
| TheAtomic wrote:
| Definitely follow the lead of one of the most reviled companies
| going.
| tempodox wrote:
| The mercenary mind has no receptors for that, it only registers
| $$$.
| ksec wrote:
| I think it is more acquire-Hire rather than anything else. Their
| products are so good, rather than risking losing them due to
| potentially some buy-out Apple will just bring them in-house.
| oidar wrote:
| I really hope they don't go this way. The only software that I
| can think of that Apple offers as subscription is Filemaker
| (Claris is an apple company). I believe the subscription model
| has harmed FileMaker, as more Filemaker developers are shifting
| to frameworks for building web apps due to the unreasonable per-
| user pricing.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Today I learned that:
|
| 1. FileMaker still exists, and
|
| 2. It's $43/person/month for a reasonable amount of storage. Or
| you can buy a single license for $594.
|
| I strongly suspect 2 is why I didn't know 1.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| In LOB, $43/mo. is a pittance - the only question worth
| considering is whether it boosts productivity by at least $43
| of paid time per month. A low-code app in the right spot
| could easily meet that benchmark.
|
| I suspect the bigger reason is the complete absence of
| advertising.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Wow. I never knew FileMaker made the transition from classic
| Mac OS.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| I worked for an EHR company in the mental health space that
| as recent as 2020 was still selling their FileMaker-driven
| EHR, mostly to psychiatrists.
| oidar wrote:
| It's actually really slick for making CRUD apps - the
| pricing is just horrible.
| terramex wrote:
| > The only software that I can think of that Apple offers as
| subscription
|
| iPad versions of Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro are subscription
| based and these are latest pro apps Apple released.
| oidar wrote:
| Good catch. Thankfully the full version are not subscription
| on macOS.
| newsclues wrote:
| Apple might go for subscription services for pro apps, but
| probably not the consumer versions.
| whycome wrote:
| What are the reasons Apple might stick with the one-time-fee
| model for Logic and Final Cut Pro? (What are the advantages? Even
| if those advantages might just be for goodwill with their
| existing (pro)consumer base.)
|
| (Not rhetorical here -- I'm genuinely curious)
| contagiousflow wrote:
| I think there are two possible reasons. The first is they stand
| to make a lot of money from selling high spec machines to
| creative types (look at the upgrade costs to the new Mac Mini)
| simply because the cost of a computer is a drop in the bucket
| for large media enterprises. And the second (may be a little
| optimistic from my end) they gain a lot of prestige from their
| computers and software being used to make media and art.
| lbourdages wrote:
| Probably as a "bait" to get users into the Apple ecosystem?
| They can't run Logic on PC so they have to buy an expensive
| Mac.
| whycome wrote:
| I'm wondering now if it also serves as a better way to also
| make users stick around (and ultimately buy more hardware).
| eg., with a subscription model, it might make it slightly
| easier to bail and try an alternative? (especially when those
| alternatives might offer discounts on subscriptions).
| Etheryte wrote:
| Unlike Microsoft, Apple seems to understand that sometimes it's
| okay to not milk every last cent out of every last possible
| channel -- looking at you, ads in the operating system. I would
| wager the revenue they could make on making that software a
| recurring subscription is pennies compared to the marketing
| ethos that every pro artist uses Apple, and so should you. The
| amount of hardware and iCloud subscriptions they sell to all
| aspiring artists, kids who want to be like their heroes, their
| parents, etc, should far outweigh what they could make from the
| other end.
| vanshg wrote:
| Apple has ads in their OS too. Inside Settings on iOS, they
| constantly push Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, AppleCare+, etc at
| the very top of Settings
| LexGray wrote:
| I would also call the news plus, sports, and audio tabs in
| the News app advertising as they cannot be disabled.
| Likewise it defaults to the Apple TV+ tab in the TV app on
| launch and adds Apple TV+ spam to the Home tab even with no
| subscription. The Stocks app has News+ spam starting this
| year. App Store is full of unrelated "promoted" apps.
| Accidentally hitting the "play" button on a computer
| prompts for Music subscription.
|
| If Apple had any self respect at all these would be one
| time per year at best prompts or something which could be
| disabled with a subscription. I would no longer recommend
| Apple as the go to for respecting their customers.
| thewebguyd wrote:
| > compared to the marketing ethos that every pro artist uses
| Apple, and so should you.
|
| I'd argue Apple has already achieved this, at least in my
| circle (Photography). I've ran a photography business on the
| side for going on 5 years now, and I've yet to meet a single
| (professional) photographer in my market that doesn't use or
| recommend mac's. Anytime the question of "What computer to
| get" comes up in Photography forums as well, it's always some
| variation of "M-series MBP."
|
| Of course, it helps that Lightroom Classic runs like absolute
| crap on even the beefiest Windows desktop, but Apple is still
| synonymous with creative professional, and has been for a
| while.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Zero chance Apple is getting back into professional tools, this
| team and their work will be rolled into the photo app edit view
| at least and that Freeform app they have at most.
| robenkleene wrote:
| That was my initial gut reaction too, but the more I think
| about it, the more I think it makes sense:
|
| 1. Apple is increasingly a company who's primary growth area is
| through services revenue and Adobe is one of the most
| successful services-revenue companies around.
|
| 2. Adobe's bread and butter is essentially native desktop apps,
| one of Apple's areas of expertise.
|
| 3. Adobe is vulnerable today with a specific market segment,
| who resents the high cost, quality issues, and subscription-
| only model of Creative Cloud.
|
| One thing I agree with is these wouldn't be professional tools
| the same way Adobe's tools are, they split the market between
| the high-end, which would continue to use Adobe products, and
| the low-end which would use these competitors. The low end
| would be content creators and smaller businesses.
|
| The biggest flaw here is around #3, not sure how Apple can
| capture that services revenue without creating a suite that has
| the same flaws with consumers that Creative Cloud has? I think
| they could emphasize quality, and probably come in at half the
| cost of CC or less, maybe $25 a month. Maybe that's enough?
| wyre wrote:
| Apple doesn't need to move their desktop software to a
| monthly fee to compete with Adobe, they can compete by
| stealing their users and locking them into Apple's platform.
| If Apple came out with professional alternatives for
| photoshop, lightroom, and illustrator I would bet a large
| market segment will switch away from Adobe (and Windows) to
| Mac purchasing new hardware and tying those users into
| Apple's ecosystem (Apple's bread and butter).
| robenkleene wrote:
| The problem with this viewpoint, is that's exactly what
| they've been doing with Logic and Final Cut and that's
| proved to be a failed strategy (both of those applications
| have shed users for the last decade, specifically the
| problem they've both made is prioritizing larger platform
| priorities over the needs of creators. E.g., they both
| introduced bundled file formats, bundled file formats are
| great for long-term platform goals [e.g., cross-device
| sync], but are terrible for professionals who need to
| micromanage massive individual media files, that are often
| edited with several different apps).
|
| The reason it's not working is the incentives internal to
| Apple aren't great, they aren't (significant) revenue
| generators, so they're seen as disposable, and by choosing
| the wrong priorities (platform over creators), they end up
| losing to competitors where it's a primary revenue
| generator, because those other apps are fighting tooth-and-
| nail to stay ahead.
|
| One way of solving all this is to try and make it a revenue
| generator, and I don't think a revenue generator at Apple's
| scale is possible without making it a subscription. Also
| just note that services has been Apple's most reliable
| recent growth area
| https://sixcolors.com/post/2024/05/2024-q1-apple-
| results-90-...
| flats wrote:
| What leads you to believe that Logic has been shedding
| users? What little information I can find on this
| suggests that Logic has in fact been growing slightly &
| has significant market share. I also think it's a huge
| driver of Mac sales.
| robenkleene wrote:
| Yeah, this is mainly based on Ableton Live clearly eating
| everyone's lunch on the electronic music front, and
| myself following Logic's new features added over the last
| five to ten years (e.g., combination of copying Live-
| style looping/sampling features, and the ML session
| player stuff). Just from my observation these new
| features have been hitting very lukewarm with their
| audience. Logic (and Cubase) seem stuck between Pro Tools
| for live music recording and arranging, and Live for
| electronic music. The one area Logic still seems super
| strong to me is composing and arranging sample-based
| instruments, e.g., like you might do for a soundtrack.
| But that just seems like a small market.
|
| Curious if you have any counter information here? There's
| definitely a ton of room for me to be wrong on this.
| flats wrote:
| I think we both have a lot of room for being wrong! There
| seem to be no reliable sources for DAW market share, and
| I imagine all of these companies consider it in their
| interests to keep the number of active users of their
| software to themselves. So anything I have to say here is
| purely anecdotal.
|
| From my vantage point (Brooklyn-based creative music-
| maker regularly recording & performing), it's a growing
| market and both Ableton _and_ Logic are doing pretty
| well. Ableton has some obvious strengths--its scene-based
| workflow & M4L in particular--but it's also got a very
| opinionated UI & is a bit less intuitive/fluid for
| editing (at least from my perspective as a Logic user!).
| I know many people who use Logic to make creative music
| that involves both live recording and electronic
| instruments, and a lot of those people have switched away
| from Pro Tools because of its hideous UI, the
| subscription pricing, & the annoyance of iLok. I even
| know several professional, touring musicians who perform
| with MainStage & swear by it.
|
| In other words, I think that Logic has found a pretty
| broad audience of creative musicians who straddle the
| songwriting & electronic music worlds (which is more &
| more people every day).
|
| What makes you think that Ableton is eating everyone's
| lunch in electronic music? I mean, I don't think you're
| wrong, honestly, & I'd in particular point to their
| purchase of Cycling '74 & successful hardware products
| like Push & Move, but I'm curious to hear details from
| your perspective.
|
| Definitely hoping that Gruber is wrong here & Logic stays
| the fantastic loss-leader it's been for the last decade
| or so.
| robenkleene wrote:
| Thanks for sharing your perspective!
|
| > What makes you think that Ableton is eating everyone's
| lunch in electronic music? I mean, I don't think you're
| wrong, honestly, & I'd in particular point to their
| purchase of Cycling '74 & successful hardware products
| like Push & Move, but I'm curious to hear details from
| your perspective.
|
| This is purely just from reading opinions of folks
| online, they seem to think Live has advantages for being
| more tailored for electronic music, and Logic is more
| dated, and some of the more entry-level features (e.g.,
| ML session players) rub people the wrong way.
|
| Also awesome to hear the love for Cycling 74! Max is
| perhaps my personal favorite piece of software ever, and
| that same group I follow I mainly see actually
| complaining about it in Live! I maintain a couple of Max
| for Live plugins:
|
| https://github.com/robenkleene/sidewinder
|
| https://github.com/robenkleene/thwomp
| vunderba wrote:
| They have moved to a subscription system in the form of
| logic pro for the iPad at least - I haven't personally
| tried it, but being able to maintain reasonable parity
| between the iPad version and the more full-fledged
| desktop version seems like it would be pretty powerful.
| I've also been seeing a lot of VST's with cross
| compatibility between iOS and Mac.
|
| In the past, I've even used GarageBand for the iPad to
| mock up initial musical prototypes and then imported them
| into logic pro on my Mac and that's been pretty
| fantastic.
|
| Anecdotally, most of my friends are split pretty evenly
| between either Ableton, FL studio, or Logic Pro.
| robenkleene wrote:
| > I haven't personally tried it, but being able to
| maintain reasonable parity between the iPad version and
| the more full-fledged desktop version seems like it would
| be pretty powerful. [...]
|
| > In the past, I've even used GarageBand for the iPad to
| mock up initial musical prototypes and then imported them
| into logic pro on my Mac and that's been pretty
| fantastic.
|
| I didn't mean to imply that syncing between platforms
| isn't without merit. You didn't really address the
| counterarguments that I listed in my post, e.g., that
| complex media projects require micromanaging files. E.g.,
| syncing a Logic song between platforms doesn't really
| work if you many GBs of recorded takes, and using many GB
| third-party sample libraries.
|
| There's a two part problem with Apple's strategy here:
|
| 1. They're breaking high-end workflows with these
| decisions
|
| 2. They're not acknowledging how high-end workflows drive
| lower-end workflows
|
| Here is in my opinion the best piece ever written about
| how Apple's approach to pro apps changed pre- and
| post-2010/iPhone, that covers all of these points nicely
| https://lonelysandwich.com/post/7033868135/fcp-the-new-
| class but tldr: pre-2010 Apple would have done this by
| consulting with practitioners on the high-end to build a
| system they can leverage, post-2010 just builds the new
| system without consulting anyone and tries to force it on
| everyone through software releases, this ends up
| alienating the high-end.
| robenkleene wrote:
| Side note re the photo edit view, are there any particular
| features you think this would make sense for? In my experience,
| Photomator is pretty close to Photos in functionality. And
| broadly speaking, Pixelmator features don't make sense in
| Photos (for the same reason Lightroom and Photoshop are
| separate apps, they're designed from the bottom up around
| different approaches to photo editing). Based on those two
| facts, the only way I can make sense of this acquisition is
| that they want the Pixelmator app specifically, because that's
| the only part that would be really hard for them to reproduce
| in house, and I can't think of many reasons why they'd want
| that besides creating a new pro suite like this.
| throw646577 wrote:
| Photomator is significantly more capable than Photos on the
| iPad and iPhone: it very obviously has a more robust image
| editing pipeline, supports layers, has actually useful ML
| features, proper curves, vastly better colour balance
| editing, supports LUTs, has culling support etc.
|
| Photomator on the iPad is more capable than Photos on the
| Mac.
|
| Frankly I think this is an acqui-hire. I think Photomator
| will significantly boost the capabilities of Photos, back to
| an Aperture-level app. I think some of the features may even
| end up in the camera.
|
| Pixelmator, I don't know. I think a whole bunch of Pixelmator
| features do make sense as a tab/workspace in Photos,
| actually, but either way I don't see Apple keeping it called
| "Pixelmator"; I would expect to see it called "Images" (to go
| with Pages and Numbers, and with photo-specific stuff left in
| Photos).
| thewebguyd wrote:
| This is likely the truth, but as someone that sorely misses
| Aperture, I have a bit of hopium that Apple does want to start
| competing with Adobe in the RAW processing space.
|
| I think there's a significant market of "not quite
| professional, but more than a hobby" photographers for which
| they don't want to pay an Adobe subscription, and CaptureOne is
| too much software for their needs.
|
| a RAW converter with all the standard tools, integrated with
| the Photos app, and presets curated and polished by Apple,
| could do well. Add some AI features like Lightroom, but run
| locally on device instead of allowing Adobe to train on your
| photos, and I think they'd have a winner in that space.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I would love Photos to become actually usable.
|
| I actually ran a project that produced a pretty awesome photo
| browser that would still be top-notch today, but it was
| killed.
|
| Photo browsers are really, _really_ difficult to get right,
| and they don 't make money. Most folks expect them to be
| free.
| sroussey wrote:
| What's your reference for Adobe training on your photos?
| thewebguyd wrote:
| It's opt-out, enabled by default in Lightroom (non-classic)
| or if you sync classic with CC.
|
| "Adobe may analyze your content using techniques such as
| machine learning to develop and improve our products and
| services." Not explicitly training their models, I was
| wrong there - but it wouldn't be a stretch for them update
| terms in the future.
|
| Not as egregious as training their models on your photos,
| but most certainly should be opt-in, not opt-out.
| willseth wrote:
| Have you used Pixelmator Pro? It's far too complex to shoehorn
| into the Photos app. It also doesn't make sense because like
| Photoshop Pixelmator images don't necessarily originate from a
| photo. How do you create a blank document? Both practically and
| conceptually Pixelmator features aren't a logical fit for
| Photos.
| herf wrote:
| Just running Creative Cloud's daemons seems to double my
| Macbook's power usage. (I have a startup script to kill most of
| it because of this.) Maybe the battery life tail wagging the dog
| here, but there is something smart about displacing this mess
| with an...app? Which is all I ever wanted.
| robenkleene wrote:
| Deep-down I wonder how big a deal this is at Apple. As someone
| who's sensibility aligns with Apple's approach to design and
| software architecture (e.g., I strongly believe the Magic Mouse
| charging port on the bottom is the the right decision), and I
| use Adobe products heavily: I don't mind the price, and I don't
| mind the subscription.
|
| But I despise, deeply, from the bottom of my soul, that Adobe
| Creative Cloud runs a background process on my machine, even
| when the applications aren't running. That is an affront.
|
| There are days I wonder if the entire reason for the locked-
| down iOS App Store and Mac app sandboxing is purely just to try
| and figure out some approach to software distribution that
| never lets Adobe run an invisible background process on their
| hardware ever again.
| nativeit wrote:
| If you want to dive deeper into that Adobe CC madness, run
| something like AdGuard on your network and see how Adobe's
| telemetry calls are the #1 source of network traffic, even
| for someone who runs a web dev shop, a HomeAssistant instance
| to control all of my lights/thermostats, and a Plex media
| server that's playing something nearly non-stop...Adobe CC is
| still the #1 network activity (until I blocked it).
|
| I never got a good answer for why this was the case, but I
| think it's _wildly_ out of control.
| armchairhacker wrote:
| IMO the most logical pricing for continuously-updating, offline
| software is paid updates. Or "subscription-based, but you get to
| keep the old version without renewing the subscription" which is
| the same as paid updates but modern and auto-renews. For example,
| this is what Jetbrains does.
|
| Businesses need money to keep updating the software, and won't
| get it if all their customers have already bought the product. On
| the other hand, if something is offline and paid for, it should
| never go away.
|
| Online is different, because customers need to continuously pay
| for hosting and compute. If it's an app that's almost all client
| side and the business just makes it online to force users to
| subscribe...yeah that's wrong. But obviously something like a VPS
| is going to be a subscription.
| thewebguyd wrote:
| > "subscription-based, but you get to keep the old version
| without renewing the subscription"
|
| I would be content if Adobe moved to this model, particularly
| for Lightroom Classic.
|
| There's only so much they can eventually cram into a RAW
| editor, and they've stopped adding library management features
| for a while because it's essentially finished in that aspect. I
| don't need more AI in it, and it'll be years before I have a
| new camera that I need it to support - it's at that point I'd
| love to simply cancel the subscription, but still retain access
| to the current version.
|
| I've had my Adobe subscription long enough now to have paid
| full price for Lightroom at least 5x over.
|
| Just let me buy a specific version and be done with it, and
| I'll pay for updates when I need them if the features are
| interesting enough, or I need the update to support new
| hardware. Otherwise, there's no need.
| yen223 wrote:
| The app store currently does not support the Jetbrains
| subscription model, which is mildly annoying
| wyre wrote:
| I'm sure this has been discussed in Apple's board meetings.
| People don't like change. Users would stop using Logic and Final
| Cut in protest, and continuing users will be left with a sour
| taste in their mouth. Some would stop using Apple products all
| together!
|
| Final Cut is Apple's direct competition with Adobe, but Apple
| makes their money largely from hardware, App Store fees, and
| platform lock-in. Their current pricing isn't outrageous for a
| casual or adventurous user to purchase and furthers their lock-in
| to the Apple ecosystem, meanwhile professionals will purchase
| Apple's expensive hardware upgrades, this also advances Apple
| further into the zeitgeist of professional video and music
| software and anyone looking to get into the hobby will heavily
| consider Apple against the alternatives.
| sgjohnson wrote:
| If that was the case, perhaps they should have bought Affinity
| instead?
| latexr wrote:
| They were already bought, by Canva, earlier this year.
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