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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

by 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.
- vunderba 2y ago
  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 2y ago
    > 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 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.
- coldtea 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 Regarding Logic that's nowhere near the case. Regarding Final Cut, it's more true (there's a tendency for industry editors to go to Resolve for many editors), but the doom when Final Cut X was introduced never panned out. Final Cut remains a huge player. The complains were more from/about the production studio niche (film, advertising, etc). But Final Cut caters to a much larger user base now - millions of people editing for social media, YouTube, and such.
  - robenkleene 2y ago
    Honestly surprised folks have been suggesting Logic hasn't been losing users, I had the perception that was common knowledge (like I've said elsewhere mainly due to the Ableton Live effect, which has cornered a subsection of the market, and my own subjective evaluation of their new features, which... give the perception of an application floundering to me). In any event, I'm going to stop saying that because I don't think those two data points are strong enough to back up my original statement. Re Final Cut, Apple has released user numbers as recent as 2018: "more than 2.5 million seats" https://www.apple.com/ca/newsroom/2018/04/final-cut-pro-x-update-introduces-prores-raw-and-advanced-closed-captioning/ https://www.apple.com/ca/newsroom/2018/04/final-cut-pro-x-up... Adobe Creative Cloud is estimated to have 33 million users by comparison https://prodesigntools.com/number-of-creative-cloud-subscribers.html https://prodesigntools.com/number-of-creative-cloud-subscrib... (not saying this means any thing for Final Cut vs Premiere, just a useful data point). Re Final Cut, I would have agreed it was mainly just losing the high-end a few years ago, but the sheer volume of YouTube videos taking about switching from Final Cut (and Premiere) to DaVinci Resolve is hard to ignore. Final Cut seems squeezed by Premiere/Avid on the high-end and Resolve on the low end.
    - coldtea 2y ago
      >Re Final Cut, I would have agreed it was mainly just losing the high-end a few years ago, but the sheer volume of YouTube videos taking about switching from Final Cut (and Premiere) to DaVinci Resolve is hard to ignore. Many of them are real, as Resolve has had some solid big feature updates with frequency and it's also very usable free, so it has drawn people in. Some of those "I'm switching" though are the usual video market influencer promotions and/or need to change things every while. For Logic this is not the case though. Haven't seen anything suggesting it's losing users, and in the pop space it has tons of high profile users. There are also lots of industry "market reports" that say that the overall market is growing in general.
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.

by wyre 2y ago

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.
vunderba 2y ago
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 2y ago
  > 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 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.
coldtea 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 Regarding Logic that's nowhere near the case. Regarding Final Cut, it's more true (there's a tendency for industry editors to go to Resolve for many editors), but the doom when Final Cut X was introduced never panned out. Final Cut remains a huge player. The complains were more from/about the production studio niche (film, advertising, etc). But Final Cut caters to a much larger user base now - millions of people editing for social media, YouTube, and such.
- robenkleene 2y ago
  Honestly surprised folks have been suggesting Logic hasn't been losing users, I had the perception that was common knowledge (like I've said elsewhere mainly due to the Ableton Live effect, which has cornered a subsection of the market, and my own subjective evaluation of their new features, which... give the perception of an application floundering to me). In any event, I'm going to stop saying that because I don't think those two data points are strong enough to back up my original statement. Re Final Cut, Apple has released user numbers as recent as 2018: "more than 2.5 million seats" https://www.apple.com/ca/newsroom/2018/04/final-cut-pro-x-update-introduces-prores-raw-and-advanced-closed-captioning/ https://www.apple.com/ca/newsroom/2018/04/final-cut-pro-x-up... Adobe Creative Cloud is estimated to have 33 million users by comparison https://prodesigntools.com/number-of-creative-cloud-subscribers.html https://prodesigntools.com/number-of-creative-cloud-subscrib... (not saying this means any thing for Final Cut vs Premiere, just a useful data point). Re Final Cut, I would have agreed it was mainly just losing the high-end a few years ago, but the sheer volume of YouTube videos taking about switching from Final Cut (and Premiere) to DaVinci Resolve is hard to ignore. Final Cut seems squeezed by Premiere/Avid on the high-end and Resolve on the low end.
  - coldtea 2y ago
    >Re Final Cut, I would have agreed it was mainly just losing the high-end a few years ago, but the sheer volume of YouTube videos taking about switching from Final Cut (and Premiere) to DaVinci Resolve is hard to ignore. Many of them are real, as Resolve has had some solid big feature updates with frequency and it's also very usable free, so it has drawn people in. Some of those "I'm switching" though are the usual video market influencer promotions and/or need to change things every while. For Logic this is not the case though. Haven't seen anything suggesting it's losing users, and in the pop space it has tons of high profile users. There are also lots of industry "market reports" that say that the overall market is growing in general.

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.