a passing thought: macpaint

[egypturnash]

iPhoto, iWeb, iMovie, iDVD, Garage Band - the Mac comes with some nice little apps for basic creation stuff. And it comes with the developer tools on a CD, too, sitting there inviting people into programming. There's one discipline missing, though.

Where's "iPaint"?

The original Macintosh shipped with a paint program that pretty much defined the way things work. It defined the 'hand' tool, and the 'hold space for the hand' behavior. A half dozen of its tool icons appear nearly unchanged in today's art tools.

Why doesn't a new Mac come with a little paint program? Something like Alias Sketchbook or ArtRage. Maybe even bonus points for net-paint, because that's fun. Something for all the people who don't need to spend $600 for Photoshop but want to play with drawing, something for your little sister to fool with and learn the fun of controlling the computer. Not something "For Children", full of "playful" buttons - just a simple, sleek paint tool, for kids and novices.

Maybe it's waiting in a source repository somewhere, for the dreamed-of tablet Mac. I dunno. The more I think about it the more it seems like a weird omission.

Comments

[orb2069.livejournal.com]

Isn't Elements mainly aimed at the PixelPaint crowd? It's one thing to steal business from Konfabulator - Taking business from Adobe would be A Bad Idea. Granted, this didn't stop them with Word/iWork, but...

[kamenkyote.livejournal.com]

Umm, there's a drawing and painting program as part of "Appleworks." I used the painting program there for years to do simple web graphics when it was "ClarisWorks." From what I can see, these programs haven't really changed at all. Check it out. I just launched it to be sure, and there were the choices; draw, paint.

Bingo!

[adequatemagic.livejournal.com]

AppleWorks is what ClarisWorks became... and Claris (for those who remember the great Hardware/Software schism of the early 90's) was the software 'arm' of the Apple Empire.

As a MacPaint Hack since 1985, I can tell you that AppleWorks "Paint" is the direct descendant of MacPaint.

And yeah, I can still wield a mean pixel-droppin' mouse.

[revar.livejournal.com]

Yeah, mostly I think Apple just doesn't want to even hint to Adobe that they want to compete with PhotoShop, for fear that Adobe will just say "Screw it. It's too small a market to hassle with, and Apple pissed us off already with he intel change."

[eyod.livejournal.com]

I love Artrage, I have a tendency to think of it as painter lite.

[normanrafferty.livejournal.com]

Apple is marketing to the digital consumer crowd, not the creator crowd. GarageBand was their last creator-based gasp. Now it's iTunes and iPods. Remember how the critics all gushed about GarageBand, yet it's iTunes that people actually wanted?

Their commercials no longer feature creative people, or even the devices themselves, but two consumers standing there talking about how and what they like to consume.

I also want a tablet Mac. Every time someone shows me a new feature on MacOS X, I often say, "that would be awesome on a tablet Mac." I'm then told the reasons why Apple won't sell me one. I thought it was about what I wanted?

[eriscontrol.livejournal.com]

I suppose Apple doesn't see a potential market in the creative crowd any longer. In the end, it's all about what sells, and what sells appears to be goods for the consumer-hipster. A tablet Mac would be a great thing probably, but I still have mixed feelings about tablets overall! Maybe. I still think Apple could do it and do it right.

I still giggle when I see PC commercials advertising the productivity of Foo NotebookPro 3100++, though. Almost a decade of Windows has lead me to believe otherwise. ;)