Creating a "new" version of FreeHand under another name

[freehand4life]

It is all very well to take on Adobe and spend a lot of time and money in courtrooms but if we had Apple on board wouldn't we as an organisation have a more clout? Also if we had Apple on our side (AND they need us if we are going to continue using Macs) masses amounts of Apple money will be available to create a vector program like FreeHand under the Apple brand. Would we not convert to iArt if it was a familiar program to us FreeHanders and we got the app already installed on our new MAC?

Adobe need a wake up call and stop ripping us off. Adobe Illustrator is like working in a spider's web, it has never been anywhere and probably never will. The only really new feature was that you can work on more than one page now, like FreeHand 5 - Woopie!! Adobe Photoshop has basically been stagnant since version 7 except for a new interface and a few retouching tools. Look at the development in animation software in terms of skins and alike? Where are we now - CS5? When I see the price tag AND you are forced to buy the full package (well in South Africa anyway) I can't be bothered. I only use Illustrator to open the FreeHand doc when I want to export it as a pdf because that area of FreeHand is very dated.

Come guys lets put pressure on Apple. Let's face it we only love our MAC because of FreeHand!!

[FFH Mark]

You are preaching to the choir here re: Illustrator. I watched the recent video of the upcoming CS6 and it featured a new background pattern creator... sigh...nonplussed to say the least. And the interface now sports the charcoal panels from the Photoshop CS6 beta. I'm guessing there is little to excite FreeHand users.

The Apple idea has been brought up before but remember who owns FreeHand and they do not have a love for Apple. I'm sure Flash is still on their minds and likely haven't forgiven Apple for crushing it on iOS. I would put FH's chances at zero for Adobe giving Apple ownership.

As to Adobe, progress may come in time either in court or by agreement and I agree Illustrator holds a gem in its hands in the form of FreeHand. Ai celebrates it's 25 anniversary this year but is it much different or innovative after all these years? Lots of legacy code still there. Look how far FreeHand evolved even with its last version.

[citrus]

Nice idea but there's too much love/hate between Adobe and Apple historically as Mark says.

Is the Kickstarter idea (on a previous thread) out of the question as, reasonably, any release of FreeHand in its original state is looking less and less likely?

Surely with enough pledges it'd prove there's a viable, commercial market for a decent vector application.

[bishopdante]

Thing about Freehand, and one of the main reasons why Adobe will have knocked it on the head, is because it's been written in C++ and ported, probably automagically. Think Metrowerks. All of the development tools that go with it are bordering on extinct.

Adobe have also had this problem with all of their other apps. They've been really lazy about keeping up with the times.

Certainly, it would be a very good idea to start over with contemporary development tools, using mature object oriented and portable technologies that aren't going to go away, such as OpenGL, Python, SVG etc.