apple vs. adobe?

[silvarios]

Article Accelerator wrote:
Maybe so, but the difference is that javascript is an open development standard under the control of a standards body (the ECMAScript standard). As such, javascript execution can and, in fact, has been highly optimized by many implementers, including Apple in its WebKit framework. In the last couple of years, Apple has been able to improve javascript performance by huge amounts by the development of novel rendering techniques (e.g. SquirrelFish Extreme):

http://www.webmonkey.com/2008/09/safari_...rformance/

With Flash, on the other hand, any and all optimization depends entirely on the whims and corporate goals of a private entity--Adobe. Adobe has shown no interest in optimizing Flash performance for the Mac platform.

Yes. I agree with this assessment.


Nathan

[silvarios]

Article Accelerator wrote: Netflix is on the iPad. Do you rent Netflix movies from Apple or from Netflix? How about Kindle? Kindle is on the iPad and iPhone and iPod touch. Do you buy Kindle books from Apple or from Amazon?

There are so many other examples...

All true.

Article Accelerator wrote: I think it was because Adobe knew it got its ass handed to it on a plate. FCP simply made Premiere look like a toy.

By the way, if Adobe had bothered to actually code premiere for the Mac instead of producing a weak Windows port, Apple wouldn't have bothered...

I know a die hard Windows user who used to work with Dell and he bought a Mac solely to escape from Premier. Final Cut was so much better in his estimate.

If I am not mistaken, wasn't Adobe one of the big companies who dragged their feet with Rhapsody, forcing Apple to delay the OS X launch? Wasn't Adobe the very same company who turned down Apple's offer to develop consumer media applications for the Mac platform (which directly led to the creation of iLife)? Isn't Adobe the same company who shipped sub par Flash plug-ins for years (on every platform, especially non Windows, but even Windows Flash has been relatively bad until recently)?


Nathan

[M A V I C]

silvarios wrote:
[quote=Article Accelerator]Netflix is on the iPad. Do you rent Netflix movies from Apple or from Netflix? How about Kindle? Kindle is on the iPad and iPhone and iPod touch. Do you buy Kindle books from Apple or from Amazon?

There are so many other examples...

All true.
I don't like this example. Have you used both Netflix and the iTunes Store? They don't compete, IMHO. If anything I wouldn't be surprised if Apple allows Netflix just to show people their online movie selection sucks compared to Apple's.

What's Apple's book selection like?

Article Accelerator wrote: I think it was because Adobe knew it got its ass handed to it on a plate. FCP simply made Premiere look like a toy.

By the way, if Adobe had bothered to actually code premiere for the Mac instead of producing a weak Windows port, Apple wouldn't have bothered...

I know a die hard Windows user who used to work with Dell and he bought a Mac solely to escape from Premier. Final Cut was so much better in his estimate.

If I am not mistaken, wasn't Adobe one of the big companies who dragged their feet with Rhapsody, forcing Apple to delay the OS X launch? Wasn't Adobe the very same company who turned down Apple's offer to develop consumer media applications for the Mac platform (which directly led to the creation of iLife)? Isn't Adobe the same company who shipped sub par Flash plug-ins for years (on every platform, especially non Windows, but even Windows Flash has been relatively bad until recently)?


Nathan

Not really a fan of this example either. It was more of a numbers thing. There wasn't enough Mac users buying Premiere to warrant the development.

[Article Accelerator]

M A V I C wrote:
What's Apple's book selection like?

Currently:
Apple -- 60,000 titles
Amazon -- 400,000 titles

Not really a fan of this example [ of Adobe Premiere ] either. It was more of a numbers thing. There wasn't enough Mac users buying Premiere to warrant the development.

Chicken and egg.

[silvarios]

I've bought a total of two episodes of Wonder Pets off the iTunes store -- that's all. I watch Netflix streaming content every day. Seems like a fair comparison, at least with my own use.

People stopped buying Premiere because it was a terrible product. The person I mentioned bought a Mac solely for Final Cut. He didn't stay with Windows and continue to use Premier. Again, seems fair enough to compare, at least with my purely anecodotal example.

[deckeda]

M A V I C wrote:
[quote=silvarios]
If I am not mistaken, wasn't Adobe one of the big companies who dragged their feet with Rhapsody, forcing Apple to delay the OS X launch? Wasn't Adobe the very same company who turned down Apple's offer to develop consumer media applications for the Mac platform (which directly led to the creation of iLife)? Isn't Adobe the same company who shipped sub par Flash plug-ins for years (on every platform, especially non Windows, but even Windows Flash has been relatively bad until recently)?

Not really a fan of this example either. It was more of a numbers thing. There wasn't enough Mac users buying Premiere to warrant the development.
Adobe had the print business, and with it, Macs. Video was too expensive for the desktop still, so not developing it "made sense" to Adobe, sure. An easy and safe business decision on their part. But it was shortsighted, we can now see.

According to this, http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tec...41BD1.html there were enough people within Adobe who felt Quicktime for non-linear editing had a future and so, they left. The result was eventually Macromedia's Final Cut Pro.

Midway through that article, you also see some chilling parallels regarding cross-platform development then and now. I doubt Apple's forgotten about that.

[M A V I C]

Article Accelerator wrote:
[quote=M A V I C]
What's Apple's book selection like?

Currently:
Apple -- 60,000 titles
Amazon -- 400,000 titles
Yep. Like Netflix (but in the reverse order), no competition.

Not really a fan of this example [ of Adobe Premiere ] either. It was more of a numbers thing. There wasn't enough Mac users buying Premiere to warrant the development.

Chicken and egg.

And ->

silvarios wrote: People stopped buying Premiere because it was a terrible product. The person I mentioned bought a Mac solely for Final Cut. He didn't stay with Windows and continue to use Premier. Again, seems fair enough to compare, at least with my purely anecodotal example.

Premiere was brought up in this thread and it was alleged Adobe dropped it to "retaliate" against Apple. I'm saying that's not a good example because pulling the plug on a product because people stopped buying it doesn't constitute "retaliation."

silvarios wrote:
I've bought a total of two episodes of Wonder Pets off the iTunes store -- that's all. I watch Netflix streaming content every day. Seems like a fair comparison, at least with my own use.

Netflix has a total of 17,000 videos available to "watch instantly." iTunes has over 55,000 TV shows alone. So no, not a fair comparison.

[Winston]

This has been an interesting discussion to follow.

I don't think the Netflix comparison is complete. I think Netflix provides online videos as a free addition to its DVD rental business. (I suppose one could read that the other way around too, but the DVD rental business is older and larger.) So the total package of what one can access with a Netflix account is a lot larger than the number of streaming videos available. According to Wikipedia Netflix has 100,000 titles in its library.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netflix

It's probably fair to assume that the number of Netflix videos available for streaming will increase. And because Netflix streaming is free if you already have a Netflix account I think it provides very real competition to iTunes purchases.

And then there's the issue of which videos are available. I have no info on this, but if Netflix is covering the most popular selections which are available in iTunes they could be covering a very high percentage of viewer interest even if they don't have as large a selection. The same is true for the book selections in comparing iTunes and Amazon. Isn't this how the Red Box video rental kiosks work?


- Winston

[M A V I C]

Winston wrote: I don't think the Netflix comparison is complete. I think Netflix provides online videos as a free addition to its DVD rental business. (I suppose one could read that the other way around too, but the DVD rental business is older and larger.) So the total package of what one can access with a Netflix account is a lot larger than the number of streaming videos available. According to Wikipedia Netflix has 100,000 titles in its library.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netflix

This got brought up in reference to apps available on the iPhone. So keep that in mind. The iPhone doesn't have a DVD player

It's probably fair to assume that the number of Netflix videos available for streaming will increase. And because Netflix streaming is free if you already have a Netflix account I think it provides very real competition to iTunes purchases.

Over the past couple years Netflix's instant watch selection has grown from 10,000 to 17,000. It's not even on pace to catch up to iTunes.

And then there's the issue of which videos are available. I have no info on this, but if Netflix is covering the most popular selections which are available in iTunes they could be covering a very high percentage of viewer interest even if they don't have as large a selection. The same is true for the book selections in comparing iTunes and Amazon. Isn't this how the Red Box video rental kiosks work?

I've been using Netflix's instant watch for about 10 years now. I know, what? 10 years? Yes, 10 years. Before Netflix used it another company used Starz. It's still Starz. Their selection is most certainly not based on what's popular. It's more so what they can get.

[silvarios]

Netflix isn't simply Starz. Netflix is clearly cutting deals directly with the content owners. As a long time Netflix streaming user I am surprised you weren't aware.