Adobe wasn’t always the black sheep of the design and tech crowd. There was a time when they were the heroes, the good guys. Maybe the shift from there to here is a conscious one – maybe some executive decided profits should be higher at any and all cost. It doesn’t feel like that though; It feels like Adobe lost it’s way.
When they lost their way and started lying to their customers about it, I began looking for alternatives to the Adobe software I used most. It’s slim pickings, but there are alternatives and they get better with every new update. Currently the best alternative I can find for Adobe Illustrator is Lineform, by Freeverse. The best alternative to Photoshop is Pixelmator.
I have always been wary of making the jump, but today I found a MacUpdate promo selling the current version of Pixelmator for $29.99 down from $59.00 – what a bargain!
I’m now officially running both side by side, picking and choosing tasks to try Pixelmator out. Is it a feature-for-feature swap out? No. But it’s built by a great team who seems eager to go for gold, and it’s cheap enough that I don’t feel burning resentment every time I see the spinning beach ball.