CC extremely frustrating!

[Stephen Marsh]

In the old perpetual license model, customers could elect to reward Adobe with an update to a new version if the new version offered compelling features. Useful development of the product was rewarded by purchases.

In a subscription model in a near monopoly setting, Adobe is rewarded anyway, there is no financial incentive for them to actually develop useful new features, they can’t be held to account financially by users who see that the emperor’s new clothes are nothing special. This does not mean that new features or even useful new features will not be added, just that there is less incentive for the developer to do so.


Stephen Marsh

 

[prepressdork]

Being a print service provider, I (and I am sure there are others) often don't really get a chance to explore all the new features that an application update brings. We open the file, fix what needs fixed, and make plates. From a production standpoint, the most compelling feature that Adobe added to InDesign was the live preflight function in CS4 which is awesome. From a PSP perspective, I haven't really seen anything since that would compel me to buy a newer version (other than having to support my customers who do upgrade).

Speaking of live preflight, I made a suggestion to Adobe some time ago that they add optional automatic fixes for many of the things that live preflight can check for. I still haven't seen this (rather logical) feature implemented. Maybe if I upgrade........

 

[Slammer]

For my part I can understand both sides of the argument, the cloud has a lot of advantages and a lot of disadvanteges, for Adobe it´s nothing personal, just evolution.
For the kind of company that has the glass and steel front, eye-candy receptionist and even the apprentice gets a company car, the cloud is a godsend, however if you slide the scale towards the independent print-shack in the garage there will be a cut-off point where Adobe´s policy simply becomes nonsense.
I can see a widening gap between the two ends of the scale resulting either in lots of printshacks closing down as a final concequence or it´s back to the roots.
Remember the "there´s-gold-im-them-there-hills" attitude in the wild and naughty nineties, when you had DTP and makers of digital prepress tools were still in a free for all, can anybody remember Letraset´s Colorstudio, a program so advanced that Photoshop needed untill version 4 to catch up?
So is it back to the future?
Since Adobe first mentioned the cloud, Archemedes told us that the combined boners in the bordroom at Quark inc. are a lever long enough to move the printing world. (I may be a bit fuzzy on the details of the quote though)
And I see the future daily, since leaving the printing buiseness (so long suckers) I have found a nice little niche market teaching Photoshop and Illus and Indesign etc. that means for me the cloud is Darth Voldemort and I sure as hell won´t be going down that road, CSS finished to exist with version 5.5!
However I am getting more and more requests to include GIMP and Quark etc. so not all is lost.
What I am saying is not to worry and start experimenting again, like we always do, like we did twenty years ago, the tools are there, find them, use them, stop whining, screw Adobe.
Apart from printers cooking up a stomach ulcer to get über-perfection on microscopic details that customers can´t see, won´t see, recognize or care about, even if it bit them in the arse, we can roll the dice and start again.

 

[gordo]

Interesting that the cost for CC is listed for a variety of country currencies...but not in Canadian dollars.

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

I'm sorry I haven't been active from the beginning of this thread, and sorry if I misunderstood anything from skimming through the comments. Yes it is a problem with being dependant on full internet connectivity for some applications/licensing. What I wanted to point out is that the switch in licensing is not to disadvantage users… as I teach the software and closely follow the development I can say there are more features and fixes now than before CC. Some of these features are not for print, but for rational cross media publishing.

Since it is possible to keep using a newer version but with the old tricks of the older version, it is not always apparent what the changes are. For those that work as they always have done there is little or no difference. Now as a service provider you may be getting documents from traditionalists as well as those diving into new features. All features are need driven, but there are a number bug fixes and structural clean-ups that are able to be better taken care of with the continual development. Yes there is a continual development rather than a fits and starts prioritising high profile "killer features" for every version.

If you don't want to upgrade you can request clients give you press ready PDF-X files. There are great resources that your clients can use to learn how to do that. Or you can learn the new features, and sell courses to your clients teaching them how to better use the software. Some features are not for print… but then this means you can offer a wider range of products and services

 

[semi-tech]

It should still be possible to get stand-alone licenses of Adobe CS. You could look into that if need be.

 

[BumpFlash]

Kinda quarky

Kinda quarky

This morning, seven out of twenty-five "Recent Content" threads on the Adobe CC community forum were about cancelling. Maybe eight, depending what "Kündigung meines Creative Cloud" means. That much cancellation talk seems kinda quarky to me.

 

[Fatboysmart]

"Kündigung meines Creative Cloud"

It means exactly what you think it does... Canceling my CC

 

[gordo]

This morning, seven out of twenty-five "Recent Content" threads on the Adobe CC community forum were about cancelling. Maybe eight, depending what "Kündigung meines Creative Cloud" means. That much cancellation talk seems kinda quarky to me.

There are a lot of folks on the Adobe forum having all kinds of problems with the product. But there are no Adobe employees on the forums complaining about the product. So obviously the problem is the customer and not Adobe. So no action by Adobe is needed.

LOL!

The issue was covered in RErint here:

http://media.printplanet.com/images/205-Software-Support.jpg

 

[mastegman]

Stephen, I take your point but there is another way of looking at this. I don't work for Adobe but if I did I would be looking at ways to sustain my business model into the future and this is what the subscription model is trying to do - ensure a steady income on which to continue to develop their applications AND services. Anyone who looks at the 'bigger picture' will have noticed Adobe branching out into marketing, web analytics and refocussing their applications on cross media publishing and other related areas. I do not agree that they have a monopoly on these markets. Far from it. Hasn't anybody heard of Google? Adobe didn't invent the internet or the Cloud. They're in catchup mode on this one. The printing and prepress industry has to remember they have become a 'niche' in comparison to the web and Adobe, for the sake of their own survival, has to 'go with the flow'. One thing is for sure, if Adobe can't ensure there continued profitability there will be no future version of their applications. For some, this might be their preferred option. Just don't complain when your market has dried up and your old applications can't do the things more current technologies can.

 

[BumpFlash]

There are a lot of folks on the Adobe forum having all kinds of problems with the product. But there are no Adobe employees on the forums complaining about the product. So obviously the problem is the customer and not Adobe. So no action by Adobe is needed.

This new learning amazes me, Sir Gordo. Explain again how sheeps' bladders may be employed to prevent earthquakes!

 

[gordo]

This new learning amazes me, Sir Gordo. Explain again how sheeps' bladders may be employed to prevent earthquakes!

I bet you're wondering "Wooly or won't he respond?"

Well, since it's a sunny day...

People used to think that attaching sheep bladders to seagulls would stop the earth from shaking due to its fear of being pooped on by those ketchup stained beak'ed fowls (the bladders would, of course, collect any deposits the gull may desire to make.). However, modern science has ripp'ed away the feather'ed curtain of ignorance and reveal'ed that the truth lies in the fact that the sight of seagulls with sheep bladders attach'ed to their tridactyl appendages actually causes mirthquakes that resonate with a sympathetic opposing frequency to that of earthquakes thereby cancelling out the earthquakes in similar fashion to how noise cancelling headphones cancel out the noise of jackhammers.

It's all very scientific.

 

[Caffeineandpixels]

You can thank all of the people who took home the application cd's from work and loaded Adobe products on their home computers without paying for them. Adobe went to the Cloud because there was a lot of people stealing software, especially overseas and on Torrent sites. I've been using Creative Cloud for a couple years now and I've never had an issue, other than occasionally having to log back in or reset my password. $50 a month is well worth it for every Adobe product.

 

[Possumgal]

Stopping pirating wasn't the main reason Adobe went for the rental model. It's that regular stream of income that enticed them. Besides, didn't the original CC installer get hacked soon after CC was released?

 

[wonderings]

Stopping pirating wasn't the main reason Adobe went for the rental model. It's that regular stream of income that enticed them. Besides, didn't the original CC installer get hacked soon after CC was released?

I checked on a torrent site to see if there was anything out, looks like there is and from peoples reviews it seems to work for those who can figure it out. I do not use pirated programs.