Judging by the writeup on LL, the program is a long, long way off being usable or practical. That list of things it doesn't do, or doesn't do properly, is as long as your arm. A program that far off the eight ball on first commercial release is probably two to three years away from being a practical, quality tool - assuming, that is, that they are prepared to keep on pumping development and testing money into it for long enough.
Two other factors fill me with ... er ... whatever the opposite of "confidence" is:
(a) Apple sacked the development team, or the project leadership (I forget which) a little while ago. Is the new team any better? Or are they a relatively low-budget group charged with the less ambitious task of closing out a big loss maker and turning it into a much more modest and lower-priced product that can at least claw back some of the initial investment? Or maybe the new guys are hot-shot programmers that will turn it into an out and out winner? Who knows?
(b) Apple have an absolutely terrible track record when it comes to writing PC software; a litany of low-performance, high bug-count products going back for many years, and continuing right up to the present day. Unless you plan to buy (or already own) a high-spec (i.e., mega-expensive - 'cause no-one does expensive like Apple do) Mac, I wouldn't count on the PC version being usable anytime soon, if ever.
I'd love to see someone knock Adobe off their chair - because if ever there was a slug-slow, monolithic, resource-hungry, over-priced pile of very, very old software crying out loud for a top-to-bottom redesign (especially the User Interface From Hell), it is Photoshop. But, honestly, I can't see Apple having what it takes to produce a Photoshop rival. I keep hoping someone will do it, but realistically it isn't going to be Apple.
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19-05-06, 08:51
