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AutoCAD for Mac codenamed Sledgehammer  (Source: Apple Insider)

Gesture support appears baked in  (Source: Apple Insider)
A mobiel version is coming to the iPad as well

One of the biggest issues with Mac computers for many users is that the software options are not as robust as they are on Windows machines. When it comes to professional occupations like engineering, the lack of software like AutoCAD was a deal breaker for many.

AutoCAD is set to come back to the Mac platform reports the NYT. In addition to landing on Mac computers, mobile versions of AutoCAD will also come to the iPhone and iPad. The return of AutoCAD to the Mac platform will mark the first time it has been offered on Apple platforms in nearly 20 years.

This is a big deal for Apple fans that work in fields where AutoCAD is the most popular software for CAD designs and other uses.  Autodesk estimates that there are 10 million AutoCAD users around the world.

Autodesk senior VP Amar Hanspal said, "This is an endorsement from our side that design and engineering customers are taking the Macintosh seriously again."

The last version of AutoCAD for the Mac platform was offered in 1992 and by 1994 Autodesk pulled support for the software. The return of the CAD software to the Mac is in part attributed to the migration of Apple to Intel processors over the last few years along with significant gains in the computer industry for Apple within the U.S. reports the WSJ. 

As with many professional software offerings, the Mac version of AutoCAD is far from cheap. The software will cost just under $4,000, the same price as the Windows version. Autodesk points out that some Mac users have been running AutoCAD on their Mac computers by using Bootcamp and Windows.

The iPad and iPhone versions of the software, however, will be free to download. The NYT reports that the idea behind the mobile version is to allow an engineer to bring digital drawings to a job site and make notations on them from the field.

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What I want to know is...
By Motoman on 8/31/2010 12:31:33 PM , Rating: 4
...why?

At about ~4% of the total market, and probably <1% of the business market, Macs don't matter.

I don't see what the point is of making this port at all.




RE: What I want to know is...
By guffwd13 on 8/31/2010 1:06:08 PM , Rating: 5
i think the two statistics you provided are underestimated, but regardless, you're quote of <1% of the business market refers to just that - the "market of global businesses". how many businesses do you know use AutoCAD?

my friend, there are 220,000 registered architects in this country and 70% of them use AutoCAD (including the 180 person firm i work for). many of those (25-50%) are running it virtually - and many more would switch to mac because architects - whose job it ease to seemlessly integrate engineering and design, far prefer a mac. thus your <1% adds up to 100,000 mac copies easily in this country alone (and i'm ignoring all the non-registered architects and draftsmen which is easily 4 times more), yields $400 million in revenue (not necessarily new revenue, but enough to justify the port). i don't see why it took them this long.

That being said, autocad is only useful as a coordination tool with consultants, as the industry now uses REVIT - which is also made by Autodesk.

that being said, autodesk is one the most pathetic and selfish companies out there. adobe, whose software is useful to a wider audience admittedly still only charges $2500 for their master collection, which is 1500 shy of autocad, and about 5000 shy of REVIT (and thats the subscription price). and by the way, REVIT is one of the most-buggy programs out there and has few new features (and fewer useful ones) year over year. but i guess thats the perk of buying out every competitor and operating a monopoly.


RE: What I want to know is...
By Roffles on 8/31/2010 3:37:40 PM , Rating: 2
This smells like an act of desperation on the part of Autodesk. The design industry is moving away from all things CAD and choosing trade specific modeling programs and other kinds of custom coded programs. If I had any, I would probably sell my shares in Autodesk.

Additionally, no architectural design firm hoping to survive in this economy is going out to buy brand new overpriced Macs and brand new overpriced CAD seats and then ask their IT staff to merge them into the domain and administrate them. It would be a massive and pointless kick in the wallet.

And what about all the expensive windows only productivity software used on a typical design workstation for plotting, converting drawings, running routines, custom 2nd party cad aids, project management etcetera etcetera? This is what separates the professionals from the amateurs.

Autodesk must be hoping young people fresh out of college will choose this platform and help mature it into something productive. Personally, I think that ship has sailed.


RE: What I want to know is...
By guffwd13 on 8/31/2010 4:25:58 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
This smells like an act of desperation on the part of Autodesk. The design industry is moving away from all things CAD


Which design trade are you referring to? Because the entire building industry is shifting hardcore to BIM (building information modeling), with as I said REVIT being by far the dominant program. Trust me, Autodesk is in no way in danger of losing a client base - if only exemplified by their astronomical pricing.

quote:
And what about all the expensive windows only productivity software used on a typical design workstation for plotting, converting drawings, running routines, custom 2nd party cad aids, project management etcetera etcetera? This is what separates the professionals from the amateurs.


That work flow sounds incredibly convoluted. All productivity software including Adobe and Microsfot we use is on the Mac side. All management and Construction Admin. software is web-based, and thus cross-platform. The only thin we run on the PC (virtual) side is REVIT and AutoCAD. Don't get the amateur comment as all those things you listed are the bare minimums in this profession.

quote:
Autodesk must be hoping young people fresh out of college will choose this platform and help mature it into something productive. Personally, I think that ship has sailed.


Seeing as how no one can "do their own thing" until at least 4-5 years after college - when they'll have zero money to do anything anyway, I don't think that argument works. It's the established people they're after. And its working.


RE: What I want to know is...
By ZmaxDP on 8/31/2010 5:13:51 PM , Rating: 2
Ahhhhh...

So you're one of the ones running Revit via virtual machine on a mac? In that case, I'll rescind my comments about it not being buggy. Having done extensive testing of Revit on all sorts of VM configurations (including macs) it is buggy as hell in most VMs.

Then again, Autodesk doesn't support or claim to support Revit working in a virtualized environment either. They don't regression test on VMs, they don't QA/QC on VMs. So, it shouldn't be a surprise to either of us that it doesn't work well on VMs.

However, look for that to change soon. Autodesk has recognized the potential for cloud-based computing (as evidenced by the stuff they have on Autodesk labs) and getting all of their software running well in virtualized environments is high on their list now. I would speculate that it is just a matter of time (and short) before Revit on VMs is fully supported and tested.

We have had some decent luck with Windows7 running on Server2003/Server2008 machines with a lot of RAM though. Most of our Revit VMs have 16 or 32 GB of RAM allocated per virtual machine. We don't have problems with those. We don't have any MAC servers to do a comparable test on, and most of our macs are iMacs or MacBook Pros and max out at 8Gigs installed. So, the VM is going to get 6 at best, 4 is typical. In those cases, with the files we're working on, we just don't have stable operation because the app runs out of memory.

Anyway, good luck!!!


RE: What I want to know is...
By guffwd13 on 8/31/2010 6:01:22 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
So you're one of the ones running Revit via virtual machine on a mac? In that case, I'll rescind my comments about it not being buggy. Having done extensive testing of Revit on all sorts of VM configurations (including macs) it is buggy as hell in most VMs.


Well I can't disagree with you there - although I can usually tell if the bug is REVIT induced or VM-induced. I also used REVIT in a previous job natively and had the same issues there - although with less RAM.

Anyway, perhaps the issue I have isn't only with Autodesk but is taking an unfortunate guilty by association hit on my part, but nevertheless, I do believe they could deliver more with what they have. Maybe google will be the ones to save the profession. But our 10-12% fees barely cover what we have now, I can't imagine a less prestigious firm surviving on 6% in today's climate. 500k a year for 65 seats is a lot of money that would have been better spent a generation ago.


RE: What I want to know is...
By ZmaxDP on 8/31/2010 6:15:32 PM , Rating: 3
WTF>
WHOA - 500K/YEAR?

Aren't you on subscription?????? You would be the first Revit firm I know of using Autodesk products that isn't on subscription!

Our costs are a fraction of that per year. It is only the initial investment that sucks so bad. Even then we had AutoCAD licenses before and we just upgraded those to the Suite. Our entire subscription bill for Revit, AutoCAD, Max, Max Design, Maya, Navisworks, Inventor, Alias, Ecotect, etc... are around 100K/yr. Subscription costs range between 10% and 20% of the application costs. There is no way you should be paying that much each year!
WTF/>

As for buggy, there is no excuse for how poorly Revit handles memory issues. You just shouldn't have a program crash with little to no warning. But, 95% of the crashes we see were memory related. Minimum config here is 8gigs of ram on ALL computers. Most of our workstations have 16.

I do find a lot of people also think revit crashed when it didn't. We've had to work with our users here to get them to check task manager. If the processor is still cranking then the program is still running. Too many people see (Not Responding) in the windows header and kill the program. Little did they know they just did something that caused a program to re-calculate the entire curtainsystem facade on a mass and that will take 10 minutes to complete. It would help if windows wasn't retarded and reported it as not-responding when it was actually just busy. Sigh... Anyway, give it enough RAM and it runs well. It just likes eating RAM for breakfast, lunch, and dinner...


RE: What I want to know is...
By ZmaxDP on 8/31/2010 4:59:26 PM , Rating: 2
Spot on in terms of the target market. You also have to remember that AutoCAD's use by architects is dwarfed by its use by the construction subcontracting world with plugins like CADduct, CADpipe, etc... One of the distinguishing features that made AutoCAD the stand out success of the CAD world was how easy it was for third party developers to write their own interfaces and tools on top of AutoCAD. Now, these users may or may not be as inclined to use Macs as Architects and Interior Designers, but I'm sure there are some trendy product design oriented companies out there just as likely to use their macs and AutoCAD.

About Revit, I do find it interesting that with the majority of the architecture community in the US switching to Revit that Autodesk would have invested time in porting AutoCAD to Macs. Given my perception of their market sectors the market most likely to want macs still can't use them because Revit isn't ported as well.

However, as Autodesk is switching resources around and shifting developement priority to Revit maybe it does make sense to run a test case on AutoCAD which is a more stable and familiar code base with more programmers than they need. Meanwhile, Revit is still being re-written from the ground up after the acquisition by Autodesk, and it would probably be much more difficult to manage the separate OS adaptations.

Personally, I deal with about 12 different software companies on a regular basis and I'd hardly classify Autodesk as being pathetic. Frustrating, Bureaucratic, Huge, Profitable, Etc... But not pathetic. In the case of both AutoCAD and Revit these are engineering applications and faults in the software have more significant implications than faults in photoshop. Not to mention, the installed user base is much much smaller so development costs have to be spread across far fewer users. Last, if you price most professional industry design and engineering softwares Autodesks' wares are by far the least expensive. Try buying a license of digital project or catia for heavens sake. Compare that to automotive licensing and you are talking programs going for the price of 100 grand +. Everything is relative and being in a role at my company where I make purchasing decisions I find Autodesk's prices to be pretty reasonable.

I also find your comment about Revit being buggy funny. We have been using it for 5+ years in production on projects ranging in size from 3,000 sf to 750,000 square feet and find it to be less buggy than AutoCAD Architecture.

The big difference we see between the two is a) the severity of the crash (when you loose an AutoCAD file you don't loose much) and b) the hardware running the program makes a huge difference in how buggy it seems. We run cutting edge hardware to run a cutting edge software. I find that most firms with crash issues and Revit are using it on outdated machines that lack the memory and storage resources necessary for the program. Run it on the right machine and it is rock solid with the exception of a few particular areas - and those are the new feature areas.

Anyway, we can take this discussion to AUGI if you want to continue...


RE: What I want to know is...
By guffwd13 on 8/31/2010 5:51:02 PM , Rating: 2
I've never dealt with Augi before as we use a company called Case Technologies to talk to Autodesk directly.

quote:
We run cutting edge hardware to run a cutting edge software. I find that most firms with crash issues and Revit are using it on outdated machines that lack the memory and storage resources necessary for the program.


Agreed, and most people don't seem to perform routine maintenance on their files via purging, compacting, reviewing warnings, and creating new locals regularly. We run on 8-core mac pros with 10 gigs of ram @ 667-1333Mhz depending on the age of the machine. All of which are connecting to X-serves. I have found in the past with 30 licenses running, the speed of the server disk writing tends to slow things down, but usually does not cause crashing.

And it isn't so much as "bugs" (but there are a lot of them - and even with proper maintenance and fancy machines it still crashes), but rather all the little things that seem so obvious to the mediocre users - let alone the power users - that couldn't take more than a week to write, somehow don't make their way into the program. I'm talking real simple things like the newer wall join toggle buttons to more complicated things like 3D dimensioning. We are continusouly getting requests from the contractors to provide them with 3D details because they're far more useful and its something that REVIT [should] do well, and yet doesn't.

The reason why I call them pathetic is because of their business practices (buying FormZ, 3D Studio, REVIT, Maya etc. etc.) and operating a monopoly because they can. Microstation licenses are half the cost, as are Archicad, as far as I'm aware. I realize the user base is a lot smaller, but given the amount of improvements with each new release, I don't see how they could be spending anywhere near their revenue on R&D. I don't need forums or universities or file maintenance services. I need features and for the actual value of those features. We use REVIT because we have to, not because we want to. I've worked at two different firms and have friends in many others and the consensus is clear: REVIT is a devastatingly poor program.

It takes longer to produce drawing sets (and everyone expects 400-750 sheets per project now), longer to due draft details (i'm all about detail components - but its still too convoluted to be used efficiently). And really, is it so much to ask to have walls be built and structured like they would be?

But I digress. Perhaps they are worried about open-source programs like sketch-up and the future of the industry and maybe its legitimate. But raping a profession whose overhead has doubled (tripled?) in a matter of one generation should be a crime. Where's the AIA and and the antitrust suits of the 1970s now?


RE: What I want to know is...
By ZmaxDP on 8/31/2010 6:38:06 PM , Rating: 2
Well, there's your problem. Ditch the reseller for Autodesk communications and support. Get on AUGI and learn from people who are using Revit like you are, not some guys who haven't practiced architecture in 10 years and don't even know how to produce a real project in Revit to save their lives.

I'd guess a majority of your non-resource crashes are Revit bugs that have to do with VMs. The entire graphics stack in Revit was buggy as hell until the 2010 release that re-wrote most of it (behind the scenes). It is stable now, but hasn't been updated to work on virtualized graphics hardware. Most of the program crashes in versions 8, 9, and 9.1 were graphics related. That is still true on 2010 and 2011 releases running on VMs.

As for the other things, I'm one of the guys that alpha and beta tests new releases. So, I get a lot of the behind the scenes info on this stuff. You have to remember that Autodesk purchased Revit a few years back and once they got into the code they found a real cluster. They have been breaking up the program into chuncks year by year and re-writing it from scratch. That is why there aren't a lot of new features right now. v2009 was the year of mental ray to the outside world, but inside Autodesk it was a complete re-write of the entire graphics stack to support all sorts of cool stuff you're just starting to see in the analysis display in 2011. 2010 brought the massing editor, but it also brought a complete re-write of the modeling environment that has yet to make it into the full product (but hopefully will soon!) 9.1 and 2011 were complete re-writes of the API and core processes. They've got a lot done but still have some to go on this effort. Once it is done, they'll have a real platform that is much simpler to plug in to, update, improve, etc... Until then, most of their resources are tied up with fixing what they bought. Anyway, 2011 was a great release in terms of both new features and fixes to things that have long been broken or missing. I think this is the first release in a while where you're starting to see Autodesk shifting some programing resources back to features and improvements and away from re-writes. So, hang in there!

Some things I think you have wrong...

AutoDesSys still makes FormZ and Bonzai independently of Autodesk - no purchase there.
I don't see a monopoly in place, ArchiCAD has dominance oversees, which is a market Autodesk wants. Also, in the CAD realm products like SolidWorks and others have a lot of market share. It is really ONLY in Architecture with AutoCAD that they have a monopolistic position - but I don't see their product priced too high (on subscription).
ArchiCAD isn't half the TCO over several years, neither is Bently Architecture. They are less, but they are also behind so they are pricing them to look like a bargain.

As for Revit being devestatingly poor, I think it is devestatingly good. We produce better work, we produce better sets, and we produce better people. We also produce a much larger volume of work that is far better coordinated in the same amount of time on Revit than we ever could in AutoCAD. There is no doubt that Revit takes a lot more setup to be efficient than AutoCAD. But we've done the setup and let me tell you it flies when it is done right. We did a 750,000sq.ft. church complex in south korea from planning through 100% DD in 7 months with only 5 people full time and one part time project executive. It would have taken us at least 3 more people to do it in CAD, and I don't even want to think about coordination with structural on this project without it.

Anyway, I don't feel raped. It can get a lot better, but having used every other BIM platform on the market at one time or another it is by far the best one to be on.

My two cents, take it for what it is worth...


By RedemptionAD on 9/1/2010 10:06:59 PM , Rating: 2
The cost of a project that AutoCAD/Autodesk would be used for would can easily be millions in design work alone and that justifies the price vs something like Photoshop/Master Suite where 20k or so on average. Note: programs like Maya justify their elevated costs for much the same reasons as AutoCAD or Catia (another very large engineering industry program) so a 20k/system investment in a $100M project is not much compaired to a $2.5k/system investment on a $100k project.


iCad?
By blueeyesm on 8/31/2010 10:26:47 AM , Rating: 5
Nah, too predictable...




RE: iCad?
By quiksilvr on 8/31/2010 10:37:03 AM , Rating: 1
Fortunately, they don't put "i" in front of software they didn't make.

But IMO, I would have expected SolidWorks, which is a much better CAD tool than AutoCAD.


RE: iCad?
By Kutcher on 8/31/2010 12:42:45 PM , Rating: 2
That depends what you're drafting. For Civil infrastrure work, where you function mostly in 2d, you're better off in AutoCAD. But for Mechanical work you're definately better off in SolidWorks.

I believe the purpose of bringing AutoCAD to the iPad is the prospect of having a digital version of the plan on site, which would be great.


RE: iCad?
By Kutcher on 8/31/2010 12:46:12 PM , Rating: 2
maybe next time I'll read the whole article first, then post. That way I won't look like an idiot...or maybe I'm just psychic.


RE: iCad?
By log on 8/31/2010 12:59:43 PM , Rating: 2
No, they used to put it after, like in AutoCAD2000i... ;)


That pic...
By lainofthewired on 8/31/2010 12:59:01 PM , Rating: 3
Feel free to call me an idiot, but what's with the soldier at the top?




RE: That pic...
By bespoke on 8/31/2010 1:55:43 PM , Rating: 2
That's actor Joseph Mazzello playing Corporal Eugene "Sledgehammer" Sledge in the HBO mini-series "The Pacific".

("Sledgehammer" is apparently the codename for AutoCAD on the Mac, as reference by one of the image captions.)


RE: That pic...
By Smartless on 8/31/2010 2:28:20 PM , Rating: 2
Wow that was pretty bad stretch, like Pamela Anderson's bra kind of stretch.

Anyway, I've noticed more software is becoming available nowadays. I wonder if this means that Apple is seeing more usage in the business world. Mac Pros seem like they have the power to run ACAD at full burn production though I wonder if they can handle more than 2 monitors on their vid cards.


RE: That pic...
By Smartless on 8/31/2010 2:28:27 PM , Rating: 2
Wow that was pretty bad stretch, like Pamela Anderson's bra kind of stretch.

Anyway, I've noticed more software is becoming available nowadays. I wonder if this means that Apple is seeing more usage in the business world. Mac Pros seem like they have the power to run ACAD at full burn production though I wonder if they can handle more than 2 monitors on their vid cards.


RE: That pic...
By Smartless on 8/31/2010 2:29:01 PM , Rating: 2
Damn it again. Sorry double post.


Hmm..
By brshoemak on 8/31/2010 1:03:39 PM , Rating: 4
quote:
A mobiel version is coming to the iPad as well


I'm not usually a spelling/grammer nazi but it's the first freaking line and it's also in bold.




Get ready...
By kyleb2112 on 8/31/2010 11:37:41 PM , Rating: 3
Brace yourselves Autocad users. From now nobody on a forum will be able to mention a plugin without a chorus of Mac Guys screaming for ports. It gets really old--3rd party developers tactfully explaining how they can't develop for such a small market, trying to let them down easy. Just once I wish they'd just come out and say YOU PICKED THE WRONG PLATFORM FOR YOUR PROFESSION YOU IDIOT.




No Linux/Unix?
By slashbinslashbash on 8/31/2010 10:32:32 AM , Rating: 2
Personally I was surprised to hear that there is not an AutoCAD for Linux or other Unices. Seems like a better move than Mac OS X IMO, and it ought to be pretty similar. Shoulda done a Linux version first, then port to Mac. (Note: I am a Mac user.)




Question
By diggernash on 8/31/2010 7:40:28 PM , Rating: 2
Will drawings edited in the field have text at the bottom denoting the fact that "This drawing was edited on my iPad"???




lol...
By bplewis24 on 8/31/2010 11:01:12 AM , Rating: 1
AutoCAD on the iPad. Brilliant.




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