Macenstein

Posted by Dr. Macenstein

Mac users familiar with the Bill Murray movie “Groundhog Dayâ€? may be feeling a bit of déjà vu themselves this morning. Adobe yesterday offered more specific details of its planned transition to “universal binary versions” of its more popular software, and the news was not what many graphics professionals were hoping to hear.

While Adobe reiterated it is “committed to supporting the new Intel-based Mac computers�, it went on to say that it had no plans to re-release any of its current software titles, and native Intel support would be available in the NEXT versions of such popular software as CS Studio (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat, and GoLive) as well as the recently acquired Macromedia applications such as Dreamweaver and Flash Professional. This is almost the exact same statement Adobe released when Apple first announced its transition to OS X from OS 9 back in 2001.

Adobe pointed to its track record of releasing new versions of its software about every 18-24 months as a good indicator of when to expect the updates. Both CS Studio and the Macromedia Studio products have received relatively recent updates (within the last 9 months or so) so it could theoretically be almost a year and a half until CS 3 and Studio 9 are released with native Intel support. Adobe’s After Effects 7 was released only last month, so it could be an even longer wait before users of that software see an update.

Not all news was doom and gloom, however. Adobe’s Lightroom software (recently released as a beta on the Mac) will be the first of Adobe’s apps to gain native Intel support. Adobe cited the product’s relatively early development stages as the key reason a change to a universal binary could be facilitated so quickly.

Adobe recommends at this time that Mac users looking for “optimal performance� run their Adobe applications on PowerPC based systems, as the performance hits on Intel Macs under the Rosetta translation layer may be substantial.

There has been quite a bit of discussion recently on the topic of whether or not those looking to upgrade to a new Mac should continue to buy PowerPC based Mac systems, or to grab the new Intel Macs that are now available. It would appear that for graphics professionals who rely on Adobe’s applications, the decision may have just been made simpler.