Adobe
[edit] I was indecisive whether to put this in Company Complaints section because it's a fairly biased rant (feel free to move if you want) - everything is true that I say here - but it's
mostly medium to minor (?) things that add up to a (s)crappy customer experience. I'm spoiled by only having had experiences with relatively 'small' (or very small) software companies/developers in the last few years. I sort of feel like I've entered the Dilbert-land of the big corporations. [/edit]
I finally invested in Illustrator CS4 - an upgrade from Freehand - I do also have a rarely used copy of Illustrator 8 from about 10 years ago installed.
I'm pissed off in the first place having to change to what seems so far like a much less user friendly programme (in terms of speed of use).
The whole experience has been full of minor headaches, biggest being it's broken my older Photoshop install - well done Adobe, that's your app
Second biggest being dealing with their website - PIA user experience. Real slow too.
They have a really weird website btw - a lot of pages load, are blank, then they reload - this bit doesnt bother me, but it looks like a workaround of something and I keep getting that feel off of Adobe. Try
this one for example
Third being trying to customise preferences and Shortcuts - PIA UI - exactly the same as the one in the ten year old version (preferences)
I havent gotten much further than that so far to be honest.
But what really got me today is - after giving up on fixing Photoshop I went to uninistall it and I see that the Illustrator 'install' consists of 36 [yes THIRTY-SIX] different installs - I just let it do the default install because I didnt know what was necessary and what not (and I wasnt told). In fact the whole download/install experience is very dumbed down with very-few-to-no options to customise or even use you own download manager for gods sake - they install one for you . . I m u s t resist s a r c a s m here - why? I guess cause I was pissed off with Adobe even before I began this whole thing and now they're fulfilling all my negative expectations - do I have the 'power' to make them this bad lol or are they simply doing their own messy thing . .
I was hoping to do a first-look mini-review of Illustrator but it's turned into this
- I also wanted to do a mini-review of Jaws PDF Creator and they completely changed the product the week after I bought it LOL
not my mini-review month