“Big news today is Adobe’s introduction of Adobe Creative Suite 5.5, an important update that adds another gazillion features to the already feature-packed collection. With a focus on the iPad, HTML5 and an IDE future for Flash, you’d almost think Adobe has begun listening to Apple, though big differences remain,” Jonny Evans reports for Computerworld.
“Visit the Mac App Store and you won’t find Adobe CS 5.5 offered for sale, though you will be able to purchase and download it from Adobe’s own online store,” Evans writes. “Is Adobe taking a risk? Definitely. Look at hit App Store App, Pixelmator. This is a huge success because it delivers enough image editing features for many. Photoshop provides a myriad of tools, but not every user needs all these tools.”
Evans writes, “Not everyone is happy. That’s because Adobe has decided the 5.5 upgrade will not be a free upgrade for existing CS 5 users. That’s fine if you’re a Photoshop or Illustrator user, as there’s not a whole heap of substance inside 5.5 for those Apps, but there’s a lot in this release for interactive and video types. An upgrade from 5 to 5.5 costs from $299.”
Much more in the full article here.
Jim Dalrymple reports for The Loop, “Adobe said the new HTML5 tools were implemented ‘to help customers meet Adobe’s commitment to content. Adobe has no bias between HTML 5 and Flash,’ Dave Burkett, Vice President and General Manager, Adobe Creative Suite Design and Web Segments.”
“Last month, Adobe released a Flash to HTML5 conversion tool, giving designers and developers a way to convert their Flash content to HTML5,” Dalrymple reports.
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Alternate headline: Adobe’s Ingrate Gazoo eats crow.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Adobe capitulates to Apple, releases Flash-HTML5 convertor – March 8, 2011
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Adobe Flash hobbles Android use of BBC iPlayer versus iPhone – August 29, 2010
Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen believes his firm doesn’t need Apple or the iPad – August 16, 2010
US-CERT: Adobe Flash and AIR vulnerabilities can allow hackers to take control of your computer – August 12, 2010
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Apple marginalizing Adobe’s proprietary Flash as companies, designers shift to open HTML5 – May 21, 2010
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Ed Bott: Sorry, Adobe, but Flash is the new Vista – May 14, 2010
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Scribd dumps Adobe’s proprietary Flash for open standard HTML5 – May 05, 2010
Resistance is futile: Why Apple’s Steve Jobs will win this war with Adobe – May 03, 2010
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Ex-Adobe engineers: We raised red flags that went unheeded; Adobe closed mobile department in ‘07 – May 02, 2010<
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Steve Jobs posts rare open letter: Thoughts on Flash – April 29, 2010
Another friggin cash cow for lame ass Adobe.. Useless.
Dude, relax, its a finger painting app. They’re not coming to your house with a gun.
+1
I mean +1 to trondude
Well, what about the fact that Apple has been so desperate to maintain its artificial dominance (entirely due to the fact they got on the market first) by having anti competitive, illegal and arrogant behaviors?
What about the fact that while Apple was desperately trying whatever it can to screw everyone (developers, businesses, publishers, advertisers and even its own customers) and destroy the web, Adobe has been laughing all the way to the bank by imposing its Flash Platform as the #1 application development platform that allows us, developers to build once and deploy everywhere?
What about the fact that the mobile market is not driven by devices or platform or carrier but by us, application developers? Whoever controls apps controls the market.
What about the fact that Steve Jobs attempted to kill Flash not because it is outdated but because it is too good and a threat to Apple’s “divide and rule” strategy and a direct threat to iTunes and AppStore?
What about the fact that the European Competition Commissioner gave Steve Jobs a reality check by constraining Apple to reverse its change of TOS aimed at blocking the port of Flash application to iOS?
What about the fact that FTC constrained Apple to approve Google Voice?
What about the fact that Steve Jobs was recently ordered to testify in an ongoing antitrust lawsuit over iTunes which might very soon blow up to his face?
What about the fact that yet another investigation is around the corner over the Apple Tax and the in-app / subscription scam?
What about the fact that Apple broke its teeth trying to twist our arms (developers) to build for Apple first and Apple only? Even pushing as far as requiring us to develop on a Mac until the EU got involved?
What about the fact that the ban of Flash in the browser is now back firing and making Apple’s devices ridiculously “has been” and isolated Apple in its corner?
What about the fact that the entire industry rallied behind Adobe?
That is what you get when you f*%ck with everyone and think you are so big that you can get away with it… Apple is big but not as big as the rest of the business and development world determined to bring it down as much for its arrogance and big mouth CEO than for its market advance or temporary dominance?
What about the fact that Apple’s PR department is so desperate to keep the face that they try to reverse the situation and make everyone believe (something they are champion at) that they won the war?
What about the fact that Flash’s mobile adoption is 2011 is going over the roof?
What about the fact that no Flash in the browser is the #1 customer complain from iPad owners?
Apple as we know it today is dying, long live the open web and multi screen apps.
This is a blog post I wrote on Apple’s war on Flash last year:
http://applesucks.squarespace.com/blog/screw-you-apple-there-will-be-a-quarter-billion-flash-enable.html
I despise Adobe.
All I ask is for Acrobat to be fast and bug free. But every new release sees more bug-ridden ‘features’ added.
As soon as someone makes a better PDF editor, I’m away from Adobe forever.
Give PDFpen a try.
I agree. I have not used Acrobat in well over a year. I really like the ability to import a graphic and then make the background transparent. I use that feature a ton for signatures and initials.
I have PDF PenPro and have found it more difficult than it should be to work with PDF documents.
Try Preview.. Its FREE and on ALL Macs.
I have used it for everything except 2 documents from my local UNiversity. (For some reason I HAD TO USE Acrobat to fill them out. Univ Tech guys said they had a contract to restrict it to Acrobat.. or some such baloney)
Hi AlaskaJohnboy, unfortunately Preview doesn’t have the tools I need (buttons etc.)
I’ll give PDFpen a try…
You are confusing Adobe Acrobat with Adobe Reader (along with millions of other people who do the same thing). In their quintessential foolishness, Adobe poorly named their Acrobat family products from the beginning. Acrobat was always the full, commercial, authoring and editing product, while Acrobat Reader used to be the freely downloadable stand-alone viewer and browser plug-in combo. Some six years ago, they renamed Acrobat Reader to Adobe Reader, in hopes of avoiding confusion. Well, six years later, 9 out of 10 web sites that publish PDF documents will have a notice “To view PDF files, you need Adobe Acrobat” (which normally costs $100 or more, and is unnecessary to view PDF). Adobe will apparently never re-educate the masses that the free viewer is called the Reader, and Acrobat is a professional software for editing and authoring PDF documents and forms.
Not that I’m defending Adobe, but if a web site is posting a PDF, it’s up to them to provide a link to Adobe’s reader download page and call it by it’s right name. The re-education process should not entirely fall on Adobe’s shoulders. Oh yeah, CS5 Acrobat sucks.
Not really. All Macs come with Preview and it opens all PDF files just fine. I don’t need links to download apps for TXT or MOV or M4V.
Sorry Predrag, I’m fully aware of the differences between Reader and Pro. In my job I work with PDF all the time and I need a PDF editor with the ability to do the things Acrobat can do, without all the bugs.
Example: I have 50 fully indexed PDFs, all about 600 pages each. I’ve created another PDF with links to the 50 (a home page if you will), and I have created a catalog index (PDX file) of all 50. Try creating a button linking to the PDX file, no luck, just a message saying the file can’t be opened (a file, I might add, created in the same App!). Tried creating a JavaScript to open the PDX file; security restrictions to do with Acrobat/JavaScript mean I can’t.
The whole App is buggy. If I open the pages pallet, scroll to the last pages, waiting ages while it continually redraws the thumbnail (despite embedding them), then the last row of pages is underneath the menu bar, so they can’t be selected.
All these bugs have been around for ages, I’ve submitted them to Adobe but there has been zero response. They are the crappest software company I’ve ever had to deal with, and I have dealt with Quark in the past, so that’s saying something.
Bend over guys, Adobe is unzipping its flies and ready to show you who is your daddy…
I’ll wait for 6…
The upgrade was free for me!! WOOHOO!! I’ve only had CS5 for 4 mos. or so. I guess that was the difference. I got it for Illustrator, but use Photoshop a lot. I have yet to tackle DreamWeaver. They’re pretty complex from my point of view, but once I get the feel for them, I expect I’ll be able to do some pretty nice stuff!
Adobe never should have been allowed to buy Macromedia. Adobe is the perfect example of why monopolies are usually bad.
I, too, miss Macromedia.
“Adobe has no bias between HTML 5 and Flash…”
Do they expect anyone to believe that? $299 for an upgrade? These people are seriously disconnected from reality.
Wait, you actually paid for Creative Suite? I register my protest on the torrentz.
Professionals will easily pay to upgrade. That you think $299 is too much for an upgrade cheapens the graphic design profession. Carpenters go through $300 of saw blades in a year and you don’t hear them moaning. Hacks who cannot afford to upgrade need to stop undercutting the prices of designers who pay for their software.
I’m still mad at Adobe, don’t get me wrong, not about the price, but the fact that they are releasing bloatware and my Photoshop, Dreamweaver and Illustrators can’t even seem to Quit gracefully without crashing.
On another note, the Touch SDK for Photoshop ties photoshop more to the iOS/MacOSX multitouch GUI than to PC and is a new competitive advantage for the Mac/iOS over the PC for Photoshop.
The price of tools does not a professional make. Professionalism is in how tools are used, not the tools being used.
There are lots of “hacks” using PS. Whether or not they paid for it isn’t relevant, therefore the cost of software isn’t relevant.
Real carpenters sharpen their saw blades.
FWIW, I’ve been a legitimate Adobe user since PS3.
Got a new Mac last weekend! As with every re-install of My licensed program they require me to call them and jump thru some hoops before they give me the secret sequence to get MY Licensed program installed and running. On the phone now for 1 Hour and 4 minutes so far. They rank with Comcast and ATT,
Sorry, Just saying.
You can avoid the hassel if you simply deactivate the license on your old computer. But if you have not figured that out, then you deserve the time wasted in calling Adobe for help.
Adobe assuming that we’re all crooks and punishing the paying consumer is the greater foolishness.
Adobe is not listening to Apple, the public is, so Adobe had no alternative.
I have but one simple request of this new update: STABILITY. CS5 is a complete train wreck. Just visit either the Mac or even Windows user boards on the Adobe website to see what I mean – users are furious with the major bugs in CS5. If you read carefully, you will see Adobe product managers blaming the users or Apple for all the problems, but never Adobe. The company oozes hubris.
And after raping their beta testers, er, um I mean, customers, they have the gall to issue this? It better damn well have this new version stable and solid.
Adobe has mercilessly picked the pockets of its customers for too long! I fervently hope someone comes along one of these days with graphics software so good that it renders Adobe and its products instantly irrelevant. Can’t happen? Don’t bet on it!
No Adobe! Soon, soon there will be a replacement to your Windows UI POS that your ramming down Mac users throats. It will be a happy day indeed!
Ha ha ha…you pay a fortune for your underpowered, poorly equipped Macs with the Kiddie OS and then bitch that the software that lets you earn your living costs too much. Ask Jobs, perhaps he will build you a nice overpriced POS software package that is simple to use and you all can call its price “perfect” and the bugs ” beautifully planned features”.