Adobe may not deliver native Intel Mac support until 2007
Adobe Systems on Wednesday said it has no plans to re-release its current applications as Universal binaries that can run natively on both Intel- and PowerPC-based systems, and instead will focus on delivering native support for Intel Macs along with the next major versions of its software.
"This applies to Adobe Creative Suite 2, Studio 8, as well as individual applications, such as Photoshop CS2, InDesign CS2, Acrobat 7.0 Professional, Dreamweaver 8, Flash Professional 8, and After Effects 7.0," the San Jose, Calif.-based software developer said in a statement. "Instead, we are focused on delivering the next versions of these products as Universal applications that will run natively on the new Intel-based Mac computers."
Unfortunately for consumers and professionals alike, this news, which was first reported on Macintosh news site MacNN, means Creative Suite applications, including Adobe's flagship Photoshop software, will not run natively on Intel Macs until a future release of Creative Suite.
Citing a policy of not commenting on future ship dates, the company would only point to its track-record of releasing significant upgrades to its creative professional applications every 18-24 months. Adobe Creative Suite 2.0, the current version of its professional applications suite, was released in April of 2005. This means the first version of the suite to natively support Apple's Intel Macs could be as many as 14 months away. A native version of Flash, which was last updated in August of 2005, could be even further out.
In defending its position, Adobe said that adapting its software to shifts in operating system platforms and processors requires substantial testing because compatibility issues can span across the entire functionality of an application.
"As we've refined our software development process over the years, we've generally found that the most effective way for us to support these types of changes is to incorporate this testing into our regular development cycle," the company said. "This enables us to advance our technology at the aggressive pace that our customers expect, while also adding support for significant new system configurations."
Adobe maintains that its approach towards developing Universal versions of its software is no different than when it began updating its Mac OS 9-based applications to run on Mac OS X.
"In the first 18-24 months after Mac OS X (10.0.0) shipped, we re-engineered a dozen or more applications to run natively on Mac OS X as part of the natural release cycles of those products," the company said. "This disciplined approach allowed us to ship reliable, feature-rich releases on a new platform that served our customers well."
In the meantime, Adobe said Creative Suite 2, Studio 8, the components of these suites, and After Effects 7.0 should continue to run under Apple's Rosetta emulation environment with the exception of Version Cue Workspace (Server).
The company said it will continue to support its products as usual, but may be unable to address installation or compatibility issues that arise from running under Rosetta.
"Rosetta should offer most existing applications a basic compatibility with Intel-based Mac hardware, although customers may encounter performance, compatibility, and other issues," Adobe said. "However, Adobe is not extensively testing and certifying our applications to run under Rosetta." Instead, the company is focusing on moving its software development to Apple's Xcode development environment to support Universal versions of the next major releases.
On the other hand, the company said it will be able to quickly release an Universal Binary version of its new Lightroom professional photography software because the application is currently in its beta stages and does not require as much testing as release-quality software.
"Because this is a beta and not yet a certified, shipping product, we have more freedom to release it quickly without the exhaustive testing required of production software," Adobe said. "Customers are encouraged to experiment with this beta version as a preview of the performance they can expect from future Universal releases of Adobe products."
"This applies to Adobe Creative Suite 2, Studio 8, as well as individual applications, such as Photoshop CS2, InDesign CS2, Acrobat 7.0 Professional, Dreamweaver 8, Flash Professional 8, and After Effects 7.0," the San Jose, Calif.-based software developer said in a statement. "Instead, we are focused on delivering the next versions of these products as Universal applications that will run natively on the new Intel-based Mac computers."
Unfortunately for consumers and professionals alike, this news, which was first reported on Macintosh news site MacNN, means Creative Suite applications, including Adobe's flagship Photoshop software, will not run natively on Intel Macs until a future release of Creative Suite.
Citing a policy of not commenting on future ship dates, the company would only point to its track-record of releasing significant upgrades to its creative professional applications every 18-24 months. Adobe Creative Suite 2.0, the current version of its professional applications suite, was released in April of 2005. This means the first version of the suite to natively support Apple's Intel Macs could be as many as 14 months away. A native version of Flash, which was last updated in August of 2005, could be even further out.
In defending its position, Adobe said that adapting its software to shifts in operating system platforms and processors requires substantial testing because compatibility issues can span across the entire functionality of an application.
"As we've refined our software development process over the years, we've generally found that the most effective way for us to support these types of changes is to incorporate this testing into our regular development cycle," the company said. "This enables us to advance our technology at the aggressive pace that our customers expect, while also adding support for significant new system configurations."
Adobe maintains that its approach towards developing Universal versions of its software is no different than when it began updating its Mac OS 9-based applications to run on Mac OS X.
"In the first 18-24 months after Mac OS X (10.0.0) shipped, we re-engineered a dozen or more applications to run natively on Mac OS X as part of the natural release cycles of those products," the company said. "This disciplined approach allowed us to ship reliable, feature-rich releases on a new platform that served our customers well."
In the meantime, Adobe said Creative Suite 2, Studio 8, the components of these suites, and After Effects 7.0 should continue to run under Apple's Rosetta emulation environment with the exception of Version Cue Workspace (Server).
The company said it will continue to support its products as usual, but may be unable to address installation or compatibility issues that arise from running under Rosetta.
"Rosetta should offer most existing applications a basic compatibility with Intel-based Mac hardware, although customers may encounter performance, compatibility, and other issues," Adobe said. "However, Adobe is not extensively testing and certifying our applications to run under Rosetta." Instead, the company is focusing on moving its software development to Apple's Xcode development environment to support Universal versions of the next major releases.
On the other hand, the company said it will be able to quickly release an Universal Binary version of its new Lightroom professional photography software because the application is currently in its beta stages and does not require as much testing as release-quality software.
"Because this is a beta and not yet a certified, shipping product, we have more freedom to release it quickly without the exhaustive testing required of production software," Adobe said. "Customers are encouraged to experiment with this beta version as a preview of the performance they can expect from future Universal releases of Adobe products."
Comments
Note that LightRoom is the only Adobe app that has a direct competitor in the marketplace (besides maybe Quark, but, well, they're Quark).
In all fairness, though, they do have a huge code base to transition.
The Intel transition is coming right in the middle of the Adobe-Macromedia integration.
That may slow things considerably.
Apple will probably unveil the new Power Mac at WWDC in June or just after the summer.
For anyone who's ever dreamed of taking on Photoshop. Here's your one (and likely only) chance to make headway.
Originally posted by AppleInsider
"As we've refined our software development process over the years, we've generally found that the most effective way for us to support these types of changes is to incorporate this testing into our regular development cycle," the company said. "This enables us to advance our technology at the aggressive pace that our customers expect, while also adding support for significant new system configurations."
In other words, "we've found that the only way we can get most people to pay for the generally unsubstantial upgrades to our incredibly expensive software is by charging for updates required to bring compatibility with user's operating systems or hardware."
Originally posted by AppleInsider
On the other hand, the company said it will be able to quickly release an Universal Binary version of its new Lightroom professional photography software because the application is currently in its beta stages and does not require as much testing as release-quality software.
Then why the fuck did Adobe just ship Adobe After Effects 7, which was most certainly in last alpha or early beta stages when Apple made their Intel Development Kits available last Spring. Oh yeah, because After Effects has no serious competitor. Lying rat bastards (Adobe, not AI, of course).
At least now, I can pursue purchasing PowerMacs knowing that the next versions of CS will be Universal Binaries that will also run on them, giving plenty of time to start acquiring Intel-based pro Macs and test the exact same application and cycle in the new hardware in a planned fashion.
Looks like Adobe did Apple a favor to keep PPC pro sales going for a while.
Then again, everyone still using Quark 4 is probably stocking up on PPC pros due to lack of Classic support for future Intels. I am still amazed at just how many houses still use Quark with Classic or even OS 9 native to this day.
ºNobody cares about Lightroom
Originally posted by JimDreamworx
Then again, everyone still using Quark 4 is probably stocking up on PPC pros due to lack of Classic support for future Intels. I am still amazed at just how many houses still use Quark with Classic or even OS 9 native to this day.
Where I used to work, the customer was still using Oracle Forms for OS 9, but it came time to upgrade the PM's so we had to upgrade all of our software that was built for OS9 as well as upgrade the Oracle Forms.
Adobe does not want to play ball.
Screw 'em.
Originally posted by mechengit
On second thought, maybe Apple enforced Adobe to do so, so that Apple could clean up the existing inventory of PowerPC products. It's quite frustrating when you can't get rid of the old products, especially when sales for these products are declining by the mean time.
Not much of a chance of that. Apples inventory is only about 4-5 weeks. Adobe is just trying to throw it's weight around. They don't realize it's more likely for them to get burned. That's what happens when the sales guys happen to work their way up to CEO and /or CFO.
And I'm glad they've announced at least a vague timetable and explanation--but I do NOT like that Director wasn't mentioned by name!
This delay, as expected, will unfortunately create a dilemma for some people. Nothing can prevent that, and the transition is a necessary one that will bring great things this year and next. But some things will help:
* Most buyers of new Macs now are replacing an old G4 system--and so even with Rosetta they'll still see performance close to what they're used to, or better.
* Pros can still buy G5s (or G4 laptops). I expect Apple will keep selling G5 PowerMacs for as long as demand dictates--even after Mac Pros (or whatever) are out. So people who need Photoshop horsepower need not be left out in the cold.
* If the past 18-24 month record is what we have to go on then "Photoshop could be as many as 14 months away" is the worst case. 8 months is the best case, which is around when Conroe and Merom Macs are likely. The truth will probably be somewhere in between. That's really not far off the "late 2006" we were already expecting.
I want native Flash, Director, Dreamweaver and Photoshop ASAP. But realistically, I'll have to stick with what I'm using now for a year. I can deal. If I couldn't I'd get a G5 tower.
(BTW, as has been restated again and again, Apple's not "early" with the MacBook Pro and iMac. The NEVER said the transition would start in June. They said it would start BY June.)
So we will have to keep our Powermac G5 quads until some speedy dual intel core duo desktops can run photoshop faster in emulation than on the G5 quads, something I'm pessimistic about for at least a year.
Originally posted by ptnyc2006
Apple created this problem, not Adobe.
IBM and Motorola created this problem, not Apple They don't want to be in the personal computer CPU business. Intel does.
Originally posted by JohnnySmith
I have a Dual 1.8 I bought about a year and a half ago and I'm sure I will be feeling the age real bad by 2007.
I have a Dual 2.0 I bought when the G5s were first introduced and I feel its age now!
Originally posted by nagromme
IBM and Motorola created this problem, not Apple They don't want to be in the personal computer CPU business. Intel does.
Nagromme, you are right. But the responsibility for not seeking a different CPU manufacturer finally rests with Apple. It was a good long-term decision to switch to Intel, but its this interim period which may make many creative pros anxious.
I hope Apple thinks seriously about customer loyalty during this transition. If it's going to be 9-15 months before UB CS3, Apple may be better off dropping Powermac G5 prices and/or doing one more marginal speed bump to keep us satisfied. (Why not a quad dual core G5 2.5 or at least a dual dual core 2.7?) Not being able to get our work done faster than a windows creative pro will create problems.
Originally posted by ptnyc2006
Apple created this problem, not Adobe.
This is so true. Apple caught a lot of pro app suppliers off guard by now saying they will have completed the transition to Intel by the end of 2006. When the Intel transition announcement was made, it looked like the transition would end late 2007, not late 2006. This would have given the likes of Adobe the time to fit it in to their usual development cycle. If more companies do what Adobe is doing, it will make the move to Intel more of a bumpy ride, but Apple is the one causing this.