New Acrobat? Who Cares?
Scoble asks where the bloggers are on the new Adobe Acrobat release. I say, we just don't care any more.
Acrobat Reader is a clunky piece of crap. Foxit Reader is infinitely better. Is Acrobat 8 better? I couldn't care less.
Not to mention the fact that Adobe themselves have totally screwed their public image with their childish tantrums over the "Save as PDF" in Office 2007.
Nope - this blogger doesn't give two hoots about Adobe or their dodgy software, and I suspect I'm not alone.
Comments
# Andrew Tobin
18/09/2006 8:17 PM
You know, for reporting PDF is built into Reporting Services which is one of the few programs I even care about having PDFs for.
XPS is coming out.
No one I know doesn't think Adobe Acrobat is bloated and slow, although I'd hope there would be a lot of threading in the new version, to load the components, the file and setup the presentation.
But I think the day of PDF is over.
Word files are going to xml, which means that they compress really well.
XPS will probably come out as a nice new standard, and no doubt there will be a plugin to RS.
And I have seen some really good graphics packages coming out like Paint.NET which is free and does everything I want it to - it's not a be all and end all solution like Photoshop, but it's got potential.
Whats Adobe got going for it?
# Andrew Tobin
18/09/2006 8:19 PM
Plus, just like Foxit there are plenty of free readers and a tonne of pay for or free writers coming out now that PDFs are an open standard.
Well open if you don't count Acrobat telling Microsoft "No".
# Poo
19/09/2006 1:47 PM
You guys crack me up, you act as if Microsoft have never been cunts to anyone before (the ridiculous .doc format that they can't even make work between version of their own shit word processing app yet we all still pay hundreds of dollars for the privilage of using), I like the way Adobe has taken a small shot at them.
PDF does one thing that word doesn't and that is prints exactly the same on every pc, Microsoft never got that right so Adobe got a foothold.
# mabster
19/09/2006 1:55 PM
You speak as if it's justified in being an asshole to someone just because in the past they were an asshole, even if now they're a nice guy.
I don't believe that printing the same on every printer/PC combination was *ever* a design goal for Word. Acrobat did fill that niche, and back in version 1 and 2 it was pretty good. Now it's bloated crapware and getting worse with every release.
XPS will kill PDF, and I say good riddance to bad rubbish.
# Andrew Tobin
19/09/2006 2:14 PM
I never brought up Microsoft as the good guys, but they are doing better these days.
I'm just saying that Adobe did the wrong thing.
Funny thing is attacking Microsoft for making their .doc format change between versions is kinda strange because they give a lot of backwards compatibility and rtf formats and other formats you can change the formats with.
And Microsoft try to keep all program compatibility right back to 95 apps.
So, yeah attack out of nowhere. That'd be like me saying Apple breaks their apps over versions, or transferring to the Intel processor.
Microsoft never got it right? XPS.
Microsoft have probably been cunts to everyone, but they're using proprietary software, standards and file formats.
Adobe is open source.
Now I can see them defending patents and the Open Source standard they defined, but....
Theres a difference to this arguement Poo, beyond "but Microsoft sUx0rz > Adobe".
# Poo
20/09/2006 9:12 AM
"Now it's bloated crapware and getting worse with every release."
Unlike Word and it's DOC format, it's always been super slim and rock solid ;)
# mabster
20/09/2006 9:20 AM
You've seen Word 2007 and the docx format, right?
Microsoft has evolved, man. Hating them is SO early-90s. I know - I was there. Move on.
# Andrew Tobin
20/09/2006 12:15 PM
Yeah, the DOC format... now in glorious XML... compresses nicely.