Adobe to announce Creative Suite 4!

Blogged on September 16, 2008 at 14:03

Okay, so Adobe is getting prepared to announce their Creative Suite 4 (CS4). Yes, you’ll have to pay for it!! No, it won’t solve all your problems!!

I have the Master Collection (CS3), bought 4-5 months ago! Except very few bug fixes released soon after installing, I haven’t seen a *single* substantial update since then… I did see CS3.3 come out (paid upgrade) and the announcement of CS4 (paid upgrade).

From the current suite, I use Premiere, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat and Fireworks heavily! I barely touch any of the other apps but getting the $2500-heavy Master Collection is still the cheapest way to get those.

From the other applications that I own from the suite, I did try/want to use Bridge/Version Cue but it’s the most unstable and useless piece of crap I’ve seen. All other apps are either good to have around but useless to me at this point (eg. After Effects) or completely and utterly junk (eg. Dreamweaver).

Being a web designer/developer that frequently works with audio/video (not Soundbooth though), I’m pissed at the fact that I’ll to keep upgrading to the new(est) Master Collection just to get bug fixes and compatibility problems solved.

I’ve been thinking: why can’t they make bundles by number of apps??? For instance, choose 5 apps from our lineup and pay $1200; choose 8 apps and pay $1800; etc… The current model is a “Microsoft-style” way of selling crappy or dieing products (read “Dreamweaver”) for people that want Fireworks or Illustrator…Plus I can’t get Lightroom 2 in any collection… Why can’t I get LR2 instead of… say… Dreamweaver??

Also, until the release of the new 3.3 suites, if you wanted InDesign *and* Fireworks you’d HAVE to either get the Master Collection or 2 different collections (more expensive). I *needed* InDesign *and* Fireworks so I was bound to the Master Collection (which is fine because I need the video apps…). This was just fixed with 3.3 but guess what: that was 2 months before CS4!!!! So if you bought that CS3.3 you will have to pay to get CS4… 3 month later! Pretty awesome huh? (CS3.3 was release 2 months after I got my CS3)

But they should definitely use a system like the one I mention above, where we choose the apps we need and pay by the number of apps we buy!

OHH… and point releases that ACTUALLY FIX things and are FREE would be greatly appreciated… Paying for new release upgrades JUST because I want  bugs fixed and don’t even care much for the new features is OUTRAGEOUS!

Alright… I’m glad I got that out of my chest!
Have a great day guys!

PS: Sorry about the rant guys… Long time no post, and what a way to come back! This is actually an expanded version of a comment I left on TUAW’s announcement of the 9/23 event… Oh well… I needed to rant! ;) After all, us bloggers, we’re all “criminals and terrorists” or just “anti-social people mad at world”… right? ;)

EDIT: I had a phrase I never ended plus I didn’t have any links to any of the products… Added those and added a reference to Lightroom 2! (which is my new *love*)