I happen to love Creative Cloud, and think it's a great move for Adobe, but there's a few things they could do to make it better. After reading comments and thinking about the discussion, I've got two ideas that I think could make Creative Cloud much more attractive to a far wider range of users: smaller suites with a smaller price (instead of the current 1 app or everything options), and a way to keep your current version of CC apps running without a subscription if you subscribe for a minimum of several years or so. Put those together with what's already great in CC, and you'd have something few could honestly complain about.
Or that's what I think, anyhow. Check out the full open letter and leave your thoughts in the comments there. And here's to hoping someone at Adobe actually reads it ;)
Wherein I take the new NetNewsWire 4 beta for a spin and see how it holds up. And it's good, very good in fact … but it's missing anything that takes it over the edge to great or unique, and that's sad.
But still, if you don't have a favorite web-based RSS sync tool yet, you should be sure to give it a try. It's the best stand-alone Mac RSS reader right now, I'd say. But since I'm committed to Fever for RSS syncing, I'm still enjoying ReadKit 2 as my native Mac RSS reader.
Jump over to Mac.AppStorm for the full scoop on the latest version of the most storied RSS app on the Mac: NetNewsWire 4 beta.
"…we are always trying to identify is a system’s unique appeal, its underlying concepts, [and] go from there."
~Max Seelemann, The Soulmen
I just had the chance to interview The Soulmen team about their work on Ulysses III and more at Mac.AppStorm. It turned into what I think is the most interesting interview I've published yet. Add it to your Instapaper queue for the weekend!
…or so says today's xkcd. Turns out, people have been worrying that our communications are getting more shallow and meaningless for, oh, perhaps as long as mankind has been communicating. Or at least as long as we've had any form of electronic communications at all.
Adobe's finally released their new Creative Cloud suite, the subscription-based successor to Creative Suite. It's quite the controversial upgrade due to the price and licensing changes, but if you look beyond that at the apps themselves, there's a lot to be excited about. Adobe's actually done quite a bit with most of the apps, and the new Creative Cloud installer makes installing the apps you want as simple as 1 click and 1 password entry.
Over at Mac.AppStorm, I've written up a thorough walkthrough of your Creative Cloud upgrade options and how to get your upgraded apps installed on your Mac. Take a look if you're considering upgrading to Creative Cloud.
And expect more Creative Cloud coverage coming soon. There's a lot of neat stuff in there.
Wherein I try out a new article style for AppStorm, exploring the story behind an app. First up, the 2013 Apple Design Award winning Evernote 5 — the notetaking app I've been itching to write about again after the latest updates have won my heart all over again. It's really, really good, and it's no wonder at all why Apple picked it for this year's award.
Apple just released a new prose motto, one that could almost rival "Here's to the Crazy Ones". Almost.
- - - - -
This is it.
This is what matters.
The experience of a product.
How it makes someone feel.
When you start by imagining
What that might be like,
You step back.
You think.
Who will this help?
Will it make life better?
Does this deserve to exist?
If you are busy making everything,
How can you perfect anything?
We don't believe in coincidence.
Or dumb luck.
There are a thousand "no's"
For every "yes."
We spend a lot of time
On a few great things.
Until every idea we touch
Enhances each life it touches.
We're engineers and artists.
Craftsmen and inventors.
We sign our work.
You may rarely look at it.
But you'll always feel it.
This is our signature.
And it means everything.
My AppStorm teammates and I are liveblogging the WWDC keynote — from Bangkok, London, and more! Join in the conversation below or at http://scrbliv.me/115266.
Adobe and Microsoft are both switching their software suites to subscription models, moves that have rather upset a large swath of the public (at least the part of the public that posts angry comments on blogs). But in both cases — and especially Adobe's — I think much of the anger is unwarranted. If anything, the new subscriptions work out cheaper for many customers, and they definitely make the upfront cost of getting Office or Creative Suite far, far lower.
I personally own both Creative Suite and Office (CS6 Design Standard for the former, Office 2010/2007/2003 Pro for PC and 2011 Home for the latter). I also, like many, got started with cheap copies from student discounts, and then bought retail-priced upgrades to the latest versions post-college. With Adobe's software, the student discounts are especially significant, letting you buy a suite for around 1/4th of the price of a full retail-value suite — about the price of a normal upgrade. Once you're started, you can then keep getting the upgrade prices each time, with the overall cost-of-ownership far lowered by the student discount.
Honestly, I would have likely never bought Creative Suite at retail price, but the college discounts and subsequent upgrade pricing were approachable enough that it made sense. That's something I'm grateful for, since I've been able to use Adobe apps professionally since then, even if I'm not a designer.
I just wrote a post on Mac.AppStorm about why I think the new subscription model makes sense; take a bit to read the post if you have the chance, as I'd really like to hear your opinion on it as well.
Here's a quick summary of my thoughts:
They're Not Web Apps: I wish both Microsoft and Adobe weren't using "cloud" branding with their subscriptions. At the end of the day, the main thing they're selling is still normal, traditionally apps you'll install on your PC or Mac. They also both have bundled cloud storage and services (Skype and Typekit, respectively), but that's it. The only reason I think they're harping on it being a "cloud" option is that people seem more understanding of paying $5/month for Evernote or $10/month for Dropbox, so they thought calling their software "cloud" services would make people more willing to purchase it as a subscription. That if anything has only confused the discussion, since so many people seem to think that Office and Creative Suite are now browser-based web apps (if only!).
The Price Isn't Bad: The subscriptions are either cheaper or realistically not much more expensive, if you would have purchased each upgrade anyhow. I think the main complaints are coming from people who purchase one version, then use it for years and years without purchasing upgrades. Microsoft and Adobe, if anything, are trying to get out of supporting older versions, and now it's the latest or nothing. Not so crazy, per se. Now, what makes it more expensive with Creative Cloud is now you have to either get just one app (for around $19/month) or get everything (for $50/month), with no in-betweens. A mid-level option that included everything in Design Standard, say, would make a lot more sense for lots of us. And hey, either way: If you don't own Creative Suite already, Creative Cloud makes it tons cheaper to get started. Really.
Adobe, Especially, is Pushing Their Apps Forward: It seems like now, Adobe and Microsoft won't be that motivated to keep improving their software, since we now have to pay monthly to use it regardless. I can't imagine that being the case. First, there's more competition than ever these days, and since Adobe's apps are just a subscription (not a multi-thousand dollar investment), jumping ship is simpler and more attractive than ever. They've got to keep us happy. Second, Adobe if anything is doing more with their apps right now than before; they've already added new features to Creative Cloud, and the new CC apps each have tons of improvements (well, other than Acrobat and Flash. They seems dead, for good reason.).
Will I upgrade to CC? I'm not decided yet, but I likely will just to try it out at least. Plus, I really want to give Muse a shot. Either way, though, it's rather hard for me to believe that Creative Cloud has people upset as much as it does. It's not like the old pricing was that approachable anyhow. All I can figure is that it's frustrating people who were already invested in it; if you're starting out today, it's hardly a bad deal.
I've been an avid Instapaper user for years now, and even though I tried out Read it Later back in the day, and even paid for a Readability subscription when it first came out, I've always come back to Instapaper. It's familiar, works great, and I always liked the fact that it had an obvious business model that didn't include selling our data to advertisers (beyond the ad from The Deck in the web app) or getting bought out and shut down.
Then Marco sold Instapaper to Betaworks, and suddenly it felt like time to look around again at the reading later app landscape. Practically everyone kept telling me I had to try Pocket, so I finally did.
tl;dr: Instapaper and Pocket both have their strengths and weaknesses. Neither are bad, and I'd be highly inclined to stick to Pocket just for its speed, app selection, and syncing read position (a major, major plus). But I ended up returning to Instapaper for the built-in network (Instapaper's most underrated feature), the iOS apps' font selection, and the full-text search.
