Todd Dominey beats me to the punch, and says everything (and more) about software version naming schemes I was thinking of writing. Inspired by Adobe’s drop of the numerical versions in favor of a letter-based system (“CS”) for their new Creative Suite, the move seems to be a short-sighted marketing ploy in attempt to follow a trend set by Apple, Microsoft, and Macromedia.
I’ve always been a fan of Adobe’s products, as I live with them daily. While I’m curious to see the new versions of Photoshop and Illustrator, I worry Adobe is suffering from feature creep — trying to build too much into each application. From talking with a few beta testers, it sounds like Adobe may have taken some easy-to-use applications, and made them more difficult to use. Seems the applications have possibly grown too big for their britches. When I upgraded from Illustrator 9 to Illustrator 10 last year, I sat in horror at the backwards steps the application had taken. Unintuitive, horrible type rendering, uncomfortably slow, and hard-to-find functions I had grown used to. It only took a week of using 10, before uninstalling it and going back to version 9. Experiences like this make me hesitate to upgrade, even at a discounted price.
At some point, I think we’re going to need to see a little more “forking” of these mega-applications. Maybe it’s an option to buy different levels of the application with scaling feature sets. Or more flexibility during the install process to customize the features and depth of the application, with an option to go back later and install more if needed. Or, dare I say it, a pay-per-use or even a pay-per-feature system.
I give Adobe props for resisting the temptation to include the “X” in this round of version names.
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Perhaps Adobe could cash in on folks interested in obtaining a slim-line application designed for advanced-user ease-of-use in daily production work. Somewhat like the Opera browser, Opera Software charges for a version of the browser *without* something (ads), Adobe could charge for non-bloat versions of their apps that are designed to be mean, lean, down n’ dirty workhorses. Take another browser - Mozilla, seems like the general concessions is that smaller/faster/less GUI is better than feature after feature junky-ness. I know I’d pay for less, I did the same when I bought a powerbook.
It makes you wonder what happens if a software attains something close to “feature perfection” where it doesn’t necessarily need to be upgraded or changed. Similarly, when the Apple G3 came out I loved the case design so much and its “easy access” door that I immediately began thinking about how it would suck when they changed it just because they have to put something different on the market. I wouldn’t say there’s never going to be room for improvement on software/hardware features/design, but after 7-10 iterations, they should be getting close.
Anthony: … but after 7-10 iterations, they should be getting close.
Interesting perspective. Makes a lot of sense. Obviously there’s still a need to update software to keep up with the times and techniques, just like Adobe and Macromedia have done as they integrated more and more “web-based” features into their product line through the late ’90s.
Reminds me of a saying one of my design mentors in San Diego taught me: “A good designer knows when to say when.” He’d constantly harrass me if I was taking too long on a project, especially when I had overdone it, and pushed a design too far. Although software design is a different beast, I think there are parallels of going too far in software development. Innovation is one thing. Feature overkill in attempt to please everyone is another.
The whole process of software development and its marketing is a strange thing. Vendors must iterate the product enough to justify pushing out a new version and charging customers more money. Otherwise, current customers wouldn’t buy, or would feel ripped off if the changes don’t justify the price they paid to upgrade. Somewhere in there is the tail-wagging-the-dog or cart-before-the-horse theory.
How about a subscription base? Buy the product. Then pay one recurring price per year, you get any updates the company puts out. More iterative development, constant feedback loops, a more consistent revenue stream for software vendors, and ideally, the customer not feeling like they have to fork out an unwarranted load of cash every time the version number gets incremented.
I like to see them work on the functionality, or perhaps, flexibility of the interface for their products. Even with a large monitor, I find the application takes up so much valuable “canvas” space. I find myself TABBING like a mad man while I work in Photoshop.
Even discrete, subtle, changes could make huge differences to my work flow. For example, I’d love to be able to squish and then strech my swatch palette into a thin strip that ran the height of the application. It would take up less space and would still be as quick to access.
Heck, I’d even toy with the idea of being able to set a transparency level for my palettes. Set them to say 25% and then I would have a better overall view/idea of my whole design while I work on certain bits and pieces.
It would be nice for them to work on the fluidity(that a word?) of the interaction between your canvas and the tools. Not saying it isn’t very good…but perhaps it could be even better. That would be worth every penny.
I don’t think there needs to be a move to a different model of applications – rather, there needs to be better applications. I also don’t think the concept of “lite” versions of applications holds up. Everybody needs a different set of features, so everyone would need a different “lite” version. This obviously brings up pay-per-feature, but this causes too many mental transactions when buying and using the app (see Clay Shirky’s article on Mental Transactions). Joel Spolsky’s company, Fog Creek is actually moving away from the “Home” and “Pro” distinction to provide only one version, on the basis that everyone really uses the same features.
I’m not going to buy this new photoshop upgrade. What I would be willing to dish out a few hundred dollars on is a new version of photoshop with no new features. Trim the fat – optimize. Take a few seconds of the start-up time, make it use less disk space and memory, simplify menu and dialog organization, etc. That, I would pay for.
Matt Haughey’s one-line review of Homesite 5.5 was enough to sell me on it: “Macromedia Homesite 5.5 (not a lot of new stuff, just seems tighter)”.
I would love to see a Photoshop 7.5 with no new features – and that would be the primary selling point (I know, it will never happen).
Oh, and a Linux version would be nice too.
I think we’ve already seen this come to pass with Mozilla and the Firebird and Thunderbird projects. Mozilla still develops the full blown suite of applications if that’s your cup of tea, but they also produce “lite” versions. The nice thing about the lite versions are the ability for others to create plug-ins themselves and share them with the rest of the world. Then you can have as many features as you would like to dream up, but still start with a fast and simple base application.
Oh, and they have a Linux version of Photoshop, but its not released to the general public. Its only for large animation and effects studios like Pixar, Dreamworks, and ILM.
The big difference is all in the collaborative workflow. This new VersionCue thing — version tracking, file sharing, multi-user access, etc. If you are an individual freelancer there may not be much here for you (except perhaps those 3D effects in Illustrator). But if you work for a large organization or on a large project with a distributed creative team this sounds like a godsend.
I’d like to see them use MORE letters, possibly even multi-syllabic words. I think Adobe started a good thing with Photoshop Elements. That has not confused anyone I know whom has heard of Photoshop, except my parents, who bought Paint Shop Pro thinking it was Microsoft Excel. I am looking forward to further Adobe releases such as Adobe Totality, Adobe Photoshop Super-Size Lite, and Adobe Illustrator Returns: The Reckoning.
If software ever moves to a services-based model, I bet you see Adobe co-opt the plug-in based model to offer a lite version for sale with the ability to purchase and download other “applications” to plug into that lite version. Have Photoshop SX? Need to edit an Illustrator real quick? Plug-in the Illustrator Lite module for what you need. Only $49.95 and is ready immediately. No software to install — the plug-in installer does it all behind the scenes.
I recently upgraded to Illust 10, Photoshop 7 & InDesign 2 from 8/5/1 respectively. With the exception of InDesign, I was horrified at how much I had to re-learn. Kbd shortcuts and menu items had changed dramatically, there seemed to twice as many tab pallets — Illustrator epecially has gone from a fast, streamlined tool that fits like a glove, and turned into something that I barely know. I’m still trying to figure bits out.
Worse still is the fact that they market their products as having ‘the same familiar Adobe interface’ — which is absolute crap. Kbd shortcuts and the behavior of most tools is dramatically different between the three apps.
Back on topic though, I think this move reeks of “me too” syndrome. I personally can’t wait for Adobe to release the “we got it right” version of all these apps, so we can all just get back to work.
I’d sure like to see an open-source movement similar to OOO come out and slap Adobe in the face :)
I wonder if Adobe will try out product activation, to slow their software down like MM, Symantec and Intuit did?
Re Anthony’s comment on “feature perfection”:
For a long time Donald Knuth’s TeX has been in a state where no new features are added, and the only releases are bug fixes. This feature freeze happened shortly after version 3 and with each bug fix release another digit of π is added (that’s pi in case your browser/font can’t display the Greek letter). I think I read somewhere that the version number will actually become π (and so impossible to write accurately in digits) when Knuth dies. The current version is 3.141592, which was recently released but it was the first version since 3.14159 in 1995. Bugs are so rare that Knuth offers a monetary reward to anyone who finds one that doubles with each bug found. Similarly the version number of Metafont is converging on e and is currently 2.71828.
This doesn’t mean there’s no innovation in the TeX world but all the development is taking place in macro packages like LaTeX and external utilities, building on a stable base.
Russ: As Todd pointed out in the comments on his site, Adobe CS apps do include product activation.
Heck, I’d even toy with the idea of being able to set a transparency level for my palettes. Set them to say 25% and then I would have a better overall view/idea of my whole design while I work on certain bits and pieces.
That’s one of the best ideas I’ve heard! You could even have the palettes almost invisible, but still recognisable, then when you hover over them they fade in quickly to full visibility. Or they might disappear completely except for their outline so you knew where they were.
Regarding Photoshop, I can’t afford the full version, so I am delighted with Photoshop Elements. Since I don’t work for print I don’t need CMYK etc. The amazing thing is I still get all the filters! Plus version 1 had the File Browser before anyone else. So in this case, a “lite” version is more than welcome.
I also read that they have tried to keep the interface uncluttered with each new version. I heard it hasn’t changed much since the first release. I’m surprised by what I read here, which indicates this is not the case.
In regards to the use of letters as opposed to numbers for versioning, I’ve heard it makes it easier to get a trademark on the name.
You can run Photoshop on Linux using WINE.
http://lindows.prodigydigital.com/tutorials/photoshop7.html
Written for Lindows, but Lindows is a linux distro.
I do enjoy the new versions of Photoshop as they bring new ways to do thing and don’t get too complicated, InDesign is getting better as oppose to Quark who’s only getting buggier but Illustrator is the biggest mess in software history.
I wish I could still have my Illustrator 6 in OS X (not classic), it was incredibly fast, render correctly, wasn’t overly complicated and did I mention fast ? Illustrator 7 got slow and the whites got green, 8 was basically a bug fix for 7, 9 saw a way of unimportant addition (like slicing gif in Illustrator ?!? what the f*#$ !!). 10 was the slowest beast this side of Canvas, how can a pro want to work on that thing ?? Right, if he’s working in OS X, he doesn’t really have a choice.
I hope the CS version will be better, and I absolutely HATE the name.
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