Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple acquires Pixelmator

pixelmator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

431–440 of 597 posts

Re: Apple acquires Pixelmator

#431

Post by PittleyDunkin »

wlesieutre wrote: post #132
askafriend wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pixelmator as a product is literally what Apple would have built anyway if they made an attempt. The difference here is how aligned the original team is with their acquirer...down to the corner radius on every button. With other products like Dark Sky, the product is substantially different in philosophy or design.

The main worry is that it will be an acquihire into the Photos app and Apple doesn’t actually want to have a separate image editor (let alone two). They used to have Aperture competing with Lightroom and then decided pro photography wasn’t a space they needed to be in, has something changed where now they want their own Photoshop competitor?

> The main worry is that it will be an acquihire into the Photos app

There doesn't appear to be much overlap in terms of functionality.

Hell, if this is true I'd actively celebrate it.

Re: Apple acquires Pixelmator

#433

Post by PittleyDunkin »

zarzavat wrote: post #176
wlesieutre wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main worry is that it will be an acquihire into the Photos app and Apple doesn’t actually want to have a separate image editor (let alone two). They used to have Aperture competing with Lightroom and then decided pro photography wasn’t a space they needed to be in, has something changed where now they want their own Photoshop competitor?

This would be very short sighted as Pixelmator adds way more value to the Mac platform than a better Photos app.

> This would be very short sighted as Pixelmator adds way more value to the Mac platform than a better Photos app.

This is comparing apples to oranges. A better photos app isn't even remotely comparable to shipping a raster image editor. One is concerned with overall rendering of the products of a camera, the other is concerned with precise editing of a raster image.

Re: Apple acquires Pixelmator

#434

Post by gcanyon »

I am extremely fond of Pixelmator -- I bought the original maybe twelve years ago, and Pixelmator Pro as soon as it came out.

I had access to Photoshop for years before that, but the UI always pushed me away, with too big a hurdle just to get started. Pixelmator got me over that hump, and I never looked back.

It's a great product that I use pretty much daily. I hope Apple runs with it and does great things.

Re: Apple acquires Pixelmator

#435

Post by kccqzy »

kergonath wrote: post #320
madeofpalk wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, Testflight has a pretty good acquisition story. It got "merged into main" and is now a first class citizen of the iOS development ecosystem. Workflow being acquired and turning into Shortcuts is a pretty successful outcome IMHO. Beats still continues to make slightly cheaper headphones. FoundationDB is still there. Apart from Dark Sky, what other products with users has Apple acquired and shut down…

> Beats still continues to make slightly cheaper headphones. FoundationDB is still there. Final Cut Pro was bought from Macromedia. And Logic from Emagic. And off the top of my head Astarte (iDVD), FileMaker (FileMaker Pro and Bento, though that was originally spun out or Apple in the first place), SoundJam (iTunes), Siri (Siri). All of these were mildly- to hugely-successful products.

I didn't know iDVD also came from Astarte. But DVD Studio Pro definitely came from Astarte. And then of course it was discontinued.

Re: Apple acquires Pixelmator

#436

Post by soneil »

no_wizard wrote: post #337
thenberlin wrote: post #187

Putting concerns about future states aside, congrats to the Pixelmator team. I've been using the app for years and it's a really great piece of software, well designed and well built. It's always been incredible value for the price, especially given that it basically replaces Photoshop for a wide swath of the market without compromising on UX (which is a problem for other competitors) at a price point that's like 1-2…

I suspect this move is due to behind the scenes Adobe / Apple relations souring over the years. Adobe used to be one of their biggest supporters and helped winning over users to the Mac platform. This has diverged significantly over the years, and I think Apple is looking at Adobe and their business model and realizing that it both lucrative for them to have software that fills into this market to round out their cre…

Are there any signs of this souring?

During the PPC-Intel transition, Adobe compatibility was almost a running joke. Along the lines of the infamous "You can always count on [..] to do the right thing, after they have exhausted all the other possibilities] quote.

I was surprised at how quickly Adobe adopted aarch - it didn't feel sour.

Re: Apple acquires Pixelmator

#437

Post by philistine »

cianmm wrote: post #412
catgirlinspace wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how is canva related to affinity?

Canva owns Affinity as of March https://www.canva.com/newsroom/news/affinity/

You know, Apple buying might have more to do with Canva buying Affinity than anything Adobe related.

Re: Apple acquires Pixelmator

#438

Post by philistine »

madeofpalk wrote: post #286
awwstn wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shazam is a huge success story!

We'll put Shazam in the Filemaker category of continuing to exist, but not really benefiting from Apple.

Filemaker might as well have been bought when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. It's such an acquisition from another era that it's a fully owned-subsidiary of Apple inc. that is completely separate from the rest of the company. Do you know how many other subsidiaries Apple has?

Re: Apple acquires Pixelmator

#439

Post by dahart »

tiahura wrote: post #400
dahart wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Investors and founders to name two. Taking over a company via mass poaching would absolutely invite lawsuits. The government for another. Hiring all the employees of another company is regulated, and it could be seen as anti-competitive behavior. You’re thinking of individual poaching, not whole company poaching.

I'll admit, as an attorney, this isn't my specialty, and every jurisdiction varies, but the ye olde common law of tortuous interference requires something more than mere competition, this is America, not the EU. 2 DAN B. DOBBS, THE LAW OF TORTS §§ 448-52 (2001)("you are thus free to induce my customers, employees, or suppliers to deal with you instead of me, as long [as] they are not bound to me by contract"). Restat…

Correct, tortious interference has criteria, and making competing employment offers doesn’t necessarily or automatically meet those criteria, but it could if there are other factors involved. Again, it depends on the situation.

You’ve asked two different questions. One about legality and the other about public perception. There are lots of things that are legal and still considered unethical. And there are lots of things that might or might not be legal, that businesses avoid simply because there’s legal risk, and/or avoid because there’s risk of negative perception.

If everyone involved in a startup agreed to be individually hired, and divest interest in the startup, and there was mutual understanding on all sides, then there may be reasonable chances of success and no lawsuits. I think that probably has happened before. If not everyone agreed to it, and a company tried to acquihire all the individuals of a company forcefully without agreement by the investors and founders, there’s a high likelihood (risk) of legal conflict, and the likelihood will increase under US law if the acquiring company would start to look anything like a monopoly on the market in question after the unofficial “merger”, right?

Re: Apple acquires Pixelmator

#440

Post by philistine »

wut42 wrote: post #292
xattt wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was wild to see Linux and a Pentium III listed as a supported system on an Apple site in 2004. https://web.archive.org/web/20040613170323/http://www.apple....

Funny how they were selling the Linux version for $2000 more.

OH MY GOD !

I would bet a million bucks that Jobs put that price in because he basically said well if they buy the Linux version we're down one Mac sale from them so charge them our profit margin on a Mac Pro.

Post reply on HN