Upgrade Addiction

So, Adobe released another iteration of the Creative Suite, CS5 a few months ago now and so far I have resisted the urge to upgrade.

As a designer, I am precisely the type of customer that companies like Adobe target. We like to have access to the latest tools and features to speed up our workflow and let’s face it, this is software that we have grown up with.

So, the choice of upgrading often comes down to the financial outlay. Adobe seem to have cranked their pricing up over the last couple of versions and their marketing has become more aggressive, with an on-going email campaign pushing all the bells and whistles of each component of the Suite.

My version of OS X, Leopard, also had an upgrade option, to Snow Leopard. It was widely reported that some of the CS3 software had several compatibilty issues with Snow Leopard. I have InDesign CS3 from the CS3 Design Premium, but I cross-graded to the CS4 Web Premium suite last time. So, naturally, I was concerned.
I have been going through a process of whether or not to buy the latest version of Adobe’s offering, just so I could happily upgrade my operating system and get the most out of it. This has got me wondering whether or not I need to upgrade or if I am doing it for the sake of it. I’m used to my tools and can use them to build pretty much what I need to. I’m getting more in to hand-coding, using TextMate and opening Dreamweaver less and less these days. My Photoshop work remains constant, and with years of using it I’m pretty fast doing what I need to do. Illustrator too is being used for the same kind of vector work as it was 3 years ago, some 3D but mainly logos and scalable vectors. And Flash? Can’t remember the last time I opened it! (Oh yes, that banner ad I made for a client last month…)

So, the reality is that I don’t need to upgrade my Creative Suite at a cost of £600.

Snow Leopard cost £25 to upgrade. I also use Final Cut Studio and Logic Pro alongside CS4. My only concern then was InDesign, so I bit the bullet and spent my £25 on upgrading OS X.

I can happily report that I have found very few problems so far due to my upgrade.
I’m also hoping that I have just taken a step towards a life free of Adobe upgrade addiction.