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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 t

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 2y ago
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 2y ago
  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 2y ago
    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-90-8-billion-revenue-services-record/ https://sixcolors.com/post/2024/05/2024-q1-apple-results-90-...
    - flats 2y ago
      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 2y ago
        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 2y ago
        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.
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    Which can only work up to 10% of the world desktop market.
  - coldtea 2y ago
    >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. Apple "locking" was always overplayed, and this is even less true in 2024, where music and video are subscriptions (so you just switch to another service and still have access to all music, at worst you lose your playlists, big deal), most apps regular people use web based/cross platform, and pro graphics, video, music, business, and 3D stuff are all cross platform too. People switch to (and sometimes from) Resolve all the time, for example.
- pjmlp 2y ago
  Adobe portfolio is gigantic, they also have plenty of stuff for the server room. Also Apple owning 10% of the desktop market is hardly going to impact Adobe that much. The times when Adobe was Apple first are long gone.
robenkleene 2y ago
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 2y ago
  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 2y ago
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 2y ago
  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 2y ago
  What’s your reference for Adobe training on your photos?
  - thewebguyd 2y ago
    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.
    - coldtea 2y ago
      >Not explicitly training their models, I was wrong there Nothing in the paragraph above rules this out. "techniques such as machine learning" could easily include AI in the "such as".
willseth 2y ago
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.
- matwood 2y ago
  They also have Photomator which would fit completely in photos.
- tomjakubowski 2y ago
  > How do you create a blank document? surely they could put a button or menu action somewhere in the photos app and call it "new canvas". or in addition to upgrading Photos, integrate pixelmator features to the Notes app, which already allows creating a blank canvas to draw on. this doesn't seem like an especially difficult problem for them
pier25 2y ago
They never left. Logic and Final Cut are stronger than ever.
stephen_g 2y ago
That doesn’t really make a lot of sense. Pixelmator have a photo editing app but their main (graphics design) app fulfils a completely different function that wouldn’t make that much sense at all to even attempt to combine into Photos…

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 2y ago

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 2y ago
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 2y ago
  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-90-8-billion-revenue-services-record/ https://sixcolors.com/post/2024/05/2024-q1-apple-results-90-...
  - flats 2y ago
    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 2y ago
      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 2y ago
        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.
- pjmlp 2y ago
  Which can only work up to 10% of the world desktop market.
- coldtea 2y ago
  >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. Apple "locking" was always overplayed, and this is even less true in 2024, where music and video are subscriptions (so you just switch to another service and still have access to all music, at worst you lose your playlists, big deal), most apps regular people use web based/cross platform, and pro graphics, video, music, business, and 3D stuff are all cross platform too. People switch to (and sometimes from) Resolve all the time, for example.
pjmlp 2y ago
Adobe portfolio is gigantic, they also have plenty of stuff for the server room. Also Apple owning 10% of the desktop market is hardly going to impact Adobe that much. The times when Adobe was Apple first are long gone.

robenkleene 2y ago

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 2y ago
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 2y ago

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 2y ago
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 2y ago
What’s your reference for Adobe training on your photos?
- thewebguyd 2y ago
  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.
  - coldtea 2y ago
    >Not explicitly training their models, I was wrong there Nothing in the paragraph above rules this out. "techniques such as machine learning" could easily include AI in the "such as".

willseth 2y ago

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.

matwood 2y ago
They also have Photomator which would fit completely in photos.
tomjakubowski 2y ago
> How do you create a blank document? surely they could put a button or menu action somewhere in the photos app and call it "new canvas". or in addition to upgrading Photos, integrate pixelmator features to the Notes app, which already allows creating a blank canvas to draw on. this doesn't seem like an especially difficult problem for them

pier25 2y ago

They never left. Logic and Final Cut are stronger than ever.

stephen_g 2y ago

That doesn’t really make a lot of sense. Pixelmator have a photo editing app but their main (graphics design) app fulfils a completely different function that wouldn’t make that much sense at all to even attempt to combine into Photos…