“However, 2010 is not like 1994. Apple has money, mindshare and the hottest platform to no longer having to beg,” Kontra writes. “Today, Apple is more concerned about having to re-live its recent history — getting jerked around by Microsoft or held hostage by Adobe — than what it thinks would be manageable damage by a few developers that may leave its platform.”
Kontra writes, “Some may regard that as being arrogant. For Apple it’s the price of being in charge of its own destiny. To capitulate at the height of its newly found vigor would be suicidal. Suicidal Apple is no longer.”
Full article – very highly recommended – here.
@ Dancing Apeman,
I’d bet that old Hound of Ulster would look like a wuss next to Ballmer the Berserker. He swings a mighty mean office chair.
Buy Adobe Apple please please please then gut it of all it’s executives, and invade it with members from you FCP and osx team. Make bridge a more mac osx version, do something creative with flash and make Photoshop full optimized for Mac then do a dirty convert for Pc users.
WetFX:
Precisely, now let’s talk about the cherry on the top…
Regardless of perception, any professional user who has ever had to deal with Adobe on any level knows how lazy and arrogant they are when it comes to Apple users. They go out of their way to point blaming fingers at you for using a Mac and point to Apple’ frequent system updates as the blame for all their software bugs.
Apple warned Adobe many times and had to show them how to fix things by creating Preview, Aperture and HTML 5, not to mention Pages…They thumbed their noses literally.
So David Pogue and anyone else who thinks Apple’s being arrogant is either blind or doesn’t know anything about software and code.
CourtJester:
Apple treats ball it’s developers and employees well but it sets a high bar. If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen
Let’s not forget:
Heck, Windows doesn’t perform well on a Windows platform
<
Remember Bungie and what MS did to embarrass Steve and everyone
>
Sorry friend, I don’t. If it isn’t to much trouble would you give me a reminder?
(Not flame bait, I am being sincere)
Thx
Apple no longer needs Microsoft or Adobe, as customers have alternatives. Adobe and Microsoft must now COMPETE on a level playing field, surviving on their software’s merits rather than their formal monopoly. If they can do that and remain viable on the LARGEST GROWING SECTOR OF COMPUTING, the Mac OS/X platform, then good for them and I will gladly consider their products for purchase.
Re Bungie – Halo was originally going to be a Mac only (or Mac first) title (shown off at a MacWorld event), but then Microsoft bought them out and made it the flagship game for their new Xbox. Halo eventually made it to the Mac a couple years later…
I am still pissed about Bungie and how MS stole them from us. I remember thier demo at the keynote then they disappeared.
@JV
Thx
@ deepdish: I concur. I suppose the professional users are a smaller demographic and customer base for Apple. Make no mistake about it, I love my Macs. My 2009 MacBook Pro was just stolen and I’m having withdrawals. Fortunately, I have my iMac for a desktop.
But back to the point at hand. Aperture has been an embarassment. Version 2.x did just fine, but version 3.x has impeded workflow. Brings my system to a halt.
The same may be said to the iWork apps on the iPad. Though I can understand since those are brand new.
re: bungie – i am surprised that this not became an antitrust cast
Adobe is like an ugly pimple that needs to be purged, M$ is like a cancer that has kept computer tech in the stone age for decades.
Both need to be extinguished.
@jjj
When Roz Ho was in charge of the Microsoft Mac Business Unit (circa Office V.x) those days were some of the best.
I think Roz was promoted to a higher exec level, however my memory of it is vague as I also recall there was some disagreement about how future versions of Office for Mac would develop.
Perhaps MDN has the story tucked away somewhere?
I read the article and all of the responses. I do not think I have ever seen such intelligent dialogue and any forum. And for sure not a single political word was uttered. How refreshing after all the MDN threads. Go read them, I truly enjoyed it.
As someone who has been using Macs (as well as other OS machines) and Adobe products for around two decades, I have to say that the sentiments expressed in the blog post are pretty accurate. To anyone with gray hair, it is no secret that Adobe would be more than happy to see Apple whither and die in order to not have to split resources (and therefore $) developing for two operating systems. Bottom line: It hurts their profits. In the past, they have even gone so far as to recommend Windows over Apple.
So much for Adobe supporting choice as they claim.
“Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana.
“getting jerked around by Microsoft or held hostage by Adobe”
Shouldn’t that be jerked around by Adobe or held hostage by Microsoft?
Great! Screw everyone who is not Apple.
‘CourtJester’ is right. Arrogance is never a good business trait. Ever.
Let’s see how Apple does once Micros**t cancels Office for Mac or Mr. Narayen gets sick of Jobs’ posturing and decides to nix Acrobat/Dreamweaver/Illustrator/InDesign/Photoshop for the Mac.
@ CourtJester,
“Apple needs to be careful in how Developers are treated. They are vitally important allies and not nuisance competition or second rate customers.”
Apple has to be careful in how iPod/iPad/iPhone Developers are treated. Apple doesn’t have to give a Fusk how Flash Developers are treated.
If those bastards want to press a button and turn a crappy Flash game made for WinMob or some such abomination into a crappy iPhone/iPad/iPod game and Apple says no, too fusking bad.
Monkey boy said Developers, Developers, Developers.
Steve Jobs says User Experience.
I am not a great developer. I have a daytime job that doesn’t include programming. When I found out that I had to learn C, I almost puked. I refused to write. Now that I know that the iPhone will be around for a while and that Jobs has no intention of letting anything other than “C” protocols into the iPhone domain, I am learning C.
Although I prefer Visual Basic and would love to have something ported over from VB, I totally understand the frustration that Jobs feels. Palm allowed several VB and C codes onto its platform, which translated eventually into the Palm C language. The result was a catastrophe. If VB changed its version to 3.0, but Palm was still at 2.0, programs would crash. If Palm went to 5.0, then VB 3.0 programs would crash. If you had a Palm 5.0 Os running with a VB (updated to 5.0), you were still not guaranteed of success.
Add to that NVFS and the whole Palm stratosphere became a mess. Although I hate learning C, I have succumbed. I hate Android and its continued copycat non innovation. The money is in the iPhone for developers. Hence I have bitten the bullet and will write apps in Objective – C. Additionally, Apple has tremendous support groups out there for Objective-C programmers.
Nobama:
ONLY A TRUE IDIOT CUTS THEIR NOSE TO SPITE THEIR FACE
@Nobama (no brain),
Apple is currently king of the tech universe, in large part due to devices which run neither Office, nor Photoshop, nor Flash.
Now if Apple would give iPhoto/Aperture a few more bells and whistles I could perhaps wave a fond farewell to Photoshop.
Howzaboutit Apple?
@MDN
That was a very good article, that clearly lays out the market place and strategies of Apple and it’s competitors in the mobile space.
Nice job.
@deepdish
you are right. They are mos def only consumer driven. I don’t ever see them coming up with products to replace MS Office or PS. They are hardware guys regardless of what everyone says. I too am a total apple guy but I worry when Apple becomes the dominant player (ala MS and Adobe and IBM) what will happen to them….
re: Bungie – the first FPS game worth a damn I ever played was Bungie’s “Marathon” series starting in 1994 – bought all of them – fought through every level and every series. Mac Only. Made a bunch of my own maps and released some collaborative scenarios with other devs. Marathon lives on in “Aleph One”, the open source version released just before MS bought them. Halo was the next logical extension to Marathon. Microsoft said “nice game, wrong platform” and that was the end of that.