Everything Apple (the Mac heads thread)

Seems impossible To specify online.. annoyingly

Anyone else think that the iPhone X looks cheap and tacky?

Well, I was forced to upgrade to 8plus this morning.

I'm switching from O2 to EE as I get a 20% discount with work and the bonus of getting some mobile signal when I'm at work as they have boosters in the building.

I would like Acrobat, Photoshop, likely some more digital camera related products - but I don't want to pay Adobe £50/month for the rest of time. Is there another option?

http://www.darktable.org/

Anyone here have the Dev kit? My cobbled together version is pissing me off, might just buy the Sonnett Box...

I switched to Capture One as a LR alternative, Affinty as PS en IL alternative.

I have no need for Acrobat, so don't know any good alternative.

another +1 for affinity photo/designer

Holy shit Affinity looks good.
I see no reason to use Adobe anymore.

Anyone else think that the iPhone X looks cheap and tacky?

I think it looks a bit like a Samsung ;)

Most keyboard shortcuts are the same and it does all of the stuff I need as a PS replacement. It's fast too.

Feel much better paying for the Affinity apps, with free updates (for now) than Adobe.

I don't mind paying for stuff thats good and works, but paying £50 (to Adobe) for the rest of your working life (if you ever want to open those files again) can jog the fuck on...

I have CC via who I work for atm but if I ever lose that I'm buying Affinity for myself... cheers for the link!

Can it open Adobe files? If so I'm in...

Affinity is well worth a go at slightly under a months CC charge for the whole caboodle.

I would find an Acrobat equivalent rather useful, anyone able to recommend one that they use?

Affinity looks pretty good!

On another note, is there an alternative to the Apple Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter if I want to connect TB2 external devices to my new mac? There seems to be third party versions of most things, but not this.

Pixelmator

Affinity looks pretty good!

And me, looking at that now.

I am spoiled that we have the full Adobe kit for free from work. I wouldn't know what to do when I leave my current job, which hopefully will happen before this year is out. When the only good thing left in your job is a free Adobe license, it's time to go.

Another vote for affinity. I've recently quit my CC subscription and will move to the affinity product for my own work.

I guess it depends on the apps you use but I think cc is incredible value. The master collection used to cost over 2 grand, I pay £38 a month, which for Premiere and after effects alone is cheap. Also the whole paying Adobe for the rest of my life thing is kind of nonsense, all software has a life span and you inevitably get forced to pay to continue to use it one way or another. Apple continually kills software or make changes to the OS that requires newer hardware for example. You can also stop your subscription and if a client comes back pay for a month and bill them for it.

Maybe if you use everything its good value, but you are forced to subscribe to a lot of software you don't need. Also, reg lifetime payment, you do have to, as they take away the apps once you stop paying. There was time where I could buy CC outright and I could stick with it for as long as I wanted, now you need to keep paying to keep up to date to keep opening your files as as soon as you stop the apps vanish, unlike the Adobe CS3 CD I have in a draw somewhere... Software doesn't have a lifespan, it doesn't degrade over time, or wear out, the computer you are using now will work the same as it does today in ten years time so long as you don't change anything.

Yes apps go if you stop paying, but you can pay a one month charge if you need it. To pay for the equivalent of the old cd I'll need to subscribe for 5 years there's very little chance of not having to upgrade software or hardware in that time (in my industry at least). You've got more flexibility with the design apps as there are a lot of apps that can open Adobe files, less so with premiere and AE.

One thing they could do though is have more options with the package, like having cheaper packages that just included the design apps or video apps but I would guess it's just not viable for them to make enough money by splitting the options as clearly some of the more popular apps are subsidising the rest.

I've always figured if you're not earning enough to pay 38 quid a month from using adobe software you're probably doing it wrong. I'm with @So_Gewürzt_it_hurtz - seems great value even just to use AE/PR/PR and LR.

All that being said - that DaVinci Resolve is now FREE (studio version a one off payment of like 300$ I'm tempted to say goodbye to CC and just pay for Photoshop which I don't know if I could live without. But not sure if I have the patience to learn completely new software when I've used Premiere for example since 2001.

I definitely wouldn't use resolve for editing (not yet anyway, will probably change in the next few iterations) it is very clunky.

Also your style of editing will make a big impact on how well you get on with it, the thing I really loved about premiere when I started using it (about 3 years ago) was I could get rid of all the clutter like tools and buttons etc and set it up just like I had Avid. I could then learn all the other things premiere could do on top but still use it for paid gigs with barely a couple of hours of using it. For example, trim mode is integral to how I cut and whilst prem's version is no where near as good as Avid's its good enough and improving, resolve's is unusable but again that's an issue for me and most of the editors I know don't even use trim mode.

Decent article on how the iPhone X borrowed from Palm's WebOS:
https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/15/16300402/iphone-x-webos-palm-pre-cards-gestures-nostalgia

I really lusted after the Palm Pre... they absolutely nailed the UI and it still looks good to this day.