We have covered the alternatives to Adobe’s expensive suite many times yet, but since the release of Hype, there’s a lot more options for a web designer, to have an almost fully functional set of apps, for a fraction of the price. Sure, Pixelmator is not yet in 2.0 version, which will bring it even closer to Photoshop, but it’s gonna happen soon, and an improved type tool plus many other additions (vectors!) will make many people to seriously consider it. At 40$ it’s a steal. Same with vector designer – sure it’s simpler, but only a small percent of users (those alleged power-users) are actually taking advantage of all that illustrator has to offer. Most of us just want to design a logo quickly and efficiently. Another 40$ and it’s yours.
Flash is nearly gone from the web altogether (even Adobe now has it’s own HTML5 authoring tool), and Hype can do a lot of the things flash did, only with better battery/processor performance on mobile devices (that includes laptops). All of those Apps combined cost less than 150$. And sure they’re underpowered sometimes, and not as feature packed as their Adobe counterparts. But almost 80% of designers use the same tools all the time, the same filters and the same elements. Pixelmator is really close to being able to successfuly replace Photoshop, and both Vector Designer and Hype are constantly being improved as well. We may see a big split in the design community in a year or two, with Adobe loosing a lot of market share towards cheaper options.
I’ve been using those three apps alongside CS5, and I’m sure that I won’t buy the CS 6 update anytime soon. Monopoly is never a good thing, and it led Adobe to the high prices they have today.