No "What's Inside? AutoCAD 2015" this year, and here's why

A reader asks,

Will you be doing a new What's New in 2015 book this year?

 

No, I am sorry to say.

I call 2014 "the year Autodesk gave up on AutoCAD." While beta testing the software, I was so disgusted at the lack of new features that I also gave up on AutoCAD -- after writing about it for 29 years.

This release has so little in it that it's not worth my time writing about it: there are unwelcome changes to the UI, sparse tweaks to a very few existing commands, and some changes to external applications. Other than a lasso selection tool, there is nothing brand-new to a release for which Autodesk charges $4,200 in upgrade fees.

 

Why is this release so feature-poor? Because now that 1.7 million customers are on subscription, Autodesk no longer needs to compete to earn their upgrade dollars.

 

My reader responds:

Well it is sure good to hear someone else say it as it is. My first looks just showed that they seem to be using it as a cash cow to fund everything else. Thanks for all the help in the past.

 

(Last year's What's Inside? AutoCAD 2014 is still available through http://www.upfrontezine.com/wia14.)

 

Comments

[kentium3k]

You wrote not too long ago that you were stopping this because people were not paying for it. Now you say it is because Autodesk abandoned AutoCAD (which I agree with). So which reason is it, the original one or the newer one?

[Ralph Grabowski]

Several reasons came together to arrive at the decision:

- Some/many people do not pay for my work, so it is of no point to me updating ebooks. This was the primary reason.
- AutoCAD 2015 does not contain sufficient changes; this is a secondary reason
- I am sufficiently busy with other work; this is a tertiary reason