First off, the important bit: All the current versions of our plugins are updated for El Capitan and should be working, regardless of host application (After Effects, Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, Davinci Resolve, etc). So you can go to our demo page:
http://digitalanarchy.com/demos/main.html
And download the most recent version of your plugins.
If you haven’t upgraded to El Capitan, I’ll add to the chorus of people saying… Don’t. Overall we’re disappointed by Apple as continues its march towards making the Mac work like the iPhone. Making professional uses more and more obsolete. They’re trying way too hard to make the machines idiot proof and in the process dumbing down what can be done with it.
One of the latest examples is, of all things, Disk Utility. You can no longer make a RAID using it and have to use a terminal command. They’ve removed other functionality as well, but for many professional users RAIDs are essential as is Disk Utility. However, it’s now been crippled.
Of course, then there’s Final Cut Pro (which has gotten better but still doesn’t feel like a professional app to many people), Photos which replaced Apple’s pro app Aperture, and the Mac Pro trashcan. (kind of sad that when we need a ‘new’ Mac, usually we buy a 2010-12 12-core Mac Pro, they outperform our D500 trashcan)
Apple isn’t alone in this ‘dumbing down’ trend. Just look at latest releases of Acrobat (which I’ve heard referred to as the Fischer Price version) and Lightroom.
Note to Application Developers- Just because we’re doing a lot of things with our phones does not mean we want to do everything on them or have our desktop apps work like phone apps. There’s a difference between simplicity, making the user experience clear and intuitive but retaining features that make the apps powerful, and stupidity, i.e. making the apps idiot proof.
Anyways, end of rant… I spend a fair amount of time thinking about software usability, since we have to strike that balance between ease of use and power with our own video plugins, and using the host applications and OS professionally. So this ‘dumbing down’ concerns me both for my personal uses and having to help DA customers navigate new ‘features’ that affect our photo and video plugins.
Cheers,
Jim Tierney
Chief Executive Anarchist
Digital Anarchy
Spot on re:Apple pushing pros to the back of the bus. Could not agree more. I love the ecosystem for normal life, but made the sad (at the time) move to Windows for serious video work 3 years ago. Honestly, the things I don’t like are so offset by productivity and performance gains I can totally deal. Now, I’m seeing a mass exodus of former die-hard Mac video pros jump over. I have not seen ANY trash can converts in 2015. Seems those already sold…and the remainder have bifurcated to iMac…low perf “good enough” or PC for power.
Apple have made a perfectly good expensive black and white printer obsolete, with their obsession with dumbing down, I now have to have an old G4 running Tiger printer sharing to run this printer, even the wonderful Gutenberg print profiles don’t work, so my next mac will be a PC, I am sick of having to fiddle constantly just to get a days work done! I like many Pros supported Apple through the dark years only to have them treat us like a disease, well I think those Dark days are coming back, their build quality isn’t legendary anymore, it’s cheap Chinese break if you push it rubbish, my Sony Vaio has lasted longer than any recent Mac, since they went out for Chinese, I’ve had 6 Macs go belly up long before they should have! Apple have unlearnt the Golden rule that once you have fought hard for customer loyalty do not take it for granted!