Adobe To Drop PowerPC Support For After Effects CS4

[MacRumors]

Adobe has announced its intention to drop PowerPC support from After Effects CS4.

By focusing on Intel Macs, we save a huge amount of engineering and testing time. This means that we will be able to complete more features for a larger group of customers and deliver the best release possible. Plus, some CS4 technology is so new that it never existed on PowerPC Macs.

Adobe believes that by removing support for the PowerPC architecture they will be able to deliver more features in CS4. For users requiring PowerPC compatibility, Adobe recommends buying After Effects CS3 while it is available.

While other Adobe applications are also Intel only such as Premiere Pro, Encore, and Soundbooth, the decision shouldn't reflect on other Adobe applications such as Photoshop (which has seen its share of CS4 controversy).

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[Harpo]

Not complaining, personally. PPC seems so old already.

[Mac OS X Ocelot]

And so it begins...

Oh well, I don't use it.

[tk421]

There are a fair amount of people still using After Effects 6.5 or 7. Those that are completely up to date with software tend to be those that also buy new computers regularly. I can't imagine this will hinder too many.

[timothyjay2004]

I'm glad to read that people aren't complaining about this. The Intel processor only support will allow them to build better tasking, tools, and performance into the program. I see this as a good move. I mean, the company has to move forward at some point like the rest of the companies. I also see this as especially important with the upcoming Mac OS X 10.6. Doing this will allow this program to operate better.

[monke]

I've said it before, and this only emphasizes my point, I'm waiting for CS5.

Adobe has basically ruled out video production on Power PC Mac's now, which doesn't bother me so much (as I rarely use them).

One thing I would like to see Adobe do though is bundle the old apps that did work with PowerPC so that people that are still on PowerPC can still use them, albeit not the new ones. For people that aren't "upgrading" their software, it would be great.

[ppc_michael]

They're dropping me?

[longofest]

Originally Posted by timothyjay2004

I'm glad to read that people aren't complaining about this. The Intel processor only support will allow them to build better tasking, tools, and performance into the program. I see this as a good move. I mean, the company has to move forward at some point like the rest of the companies. I also see this as especially important with the upcoming Mac OS X 10.6. Doing this will allow this program to operate better.

It's a matter of timing. As time goes on, the argument for developing for PowerPC gets less and less persuasive, and therefore the complaining is only so justified. This year is the 3 year mark for the last PowerPC macs, so it's going to be the turning point for a lot of applications.

That being said, there are some that should remain compatible with PowerPC for at least one more revision, IMO. Photoshop CS4, for instance, should be PowerPC compatible since they already announced that it will stay 32bit. The Intel-only leap for Photoshop would make most sense with CS5.

[Full of Win]

Sucks to be on the wrong side of a trend I suppose. By the time this drops, the PowerMac would have been out of service for 2.5 years, which is on the cusp of the effective life of most computers.

[f1sh3r]

as much as i love my old 12" g4 powerbook, i'm more in favor of adobe producing solid and feature filled software by focusing on the intel platform at this point in time. and i've upgrade, so it doesn't really make a difference to me anyway.

[reallynotnick]

*yawn* am I the only one who loves adobe products but never uses them to their full potential so I never care about updates I went from PS 7 to PS CS3 and I can't tell the difference between a little of the appearance like the tool bar.

[donga]

has it really been three years since the last ppc?

[opeter]

Originally Posted by donga

has it really been three years since the last ppc?

Yes. The last (and fastest) PowerMac G5 Quad was released in 2005:

http://everymac.com/systems/by_year/...d-in-2005.html

[djellison]

Originally Posted by reallynotnick

I went from PS 7 to PS CS3 and I can't tell the difference between a little of the appearance like the tool bar.

I must admit - CS - CS2 - CS3. Absolute F-all difference. Premiere CS3 is more awkward to use than 6.5 imho. They've been going backwards.

That the worlds most popular graphics editing package isn't available in 64bit is a complete farce.

[Dejavu]

If Adobe is going to use the excuse of dropping PPC support to improve CS4, they better completely overhaul the UI and performance. Adobe After Effects has been stuck with the same workflow UI since the early 1990's.

[Azurael]

I can't help but feel a bit sorry for people who bought late G5s ('specially the quads, since they weren't exactly 'cheap'), since they're still more powerful than some of the lower-end Intel kit, but alas, time marches on...

[Dmac77]

I think my opinion on this is obvious.


(look at the tar)

Don

[KindredMAC]

Originally Posted by reallynotnick

*yawn* am I the only one who loves adobe products but never uses them to their full potential so I never care about updates I went from PS 7 to PS CS3 and I can't tell the difference between a little of the appearance like the tool bar.

Wow..... can't tell the difference between 7 and 10?
I've used every version from 3.0 of Photoshop and I can tell you that the only time I didn't feel substantial difference was between 6.0 and 7.0.

CS3 has been a great update with the advent of Smart Objects' interaction with Smart Filters.

I would still love to see Adobe combine Photoshop and Illustrator to make one über design application that has all the raster benefits of PS along with the vector and spot color handling of AI.

[Dmac77]

Originally Posted by KindredMAC

Wow..... can't tell the difference between 7 and 10?
I've used every version from 3.0 of Photoshop and I can tell you that the only time I didn't feel substantial difference was between 6.0 and 7.0.

CS3 has been a great update with the advent of Smart Objects' interaction with Smart Filters.

I would still love to see Adobe combine Photoshop and Illustrator to make one über design application that has all the raster benefits of PS along with the vector and spot color handling of AI.

I second that. Whenever I'm using PS I have Illustrator open to.

Don

[mvfranz]

How is the API that they are programming to different between Intel and PPC? The only issue they should have is testing, not development. So they are only partially correct in saving testing time, engineering time should not be impacted.

[lee1210]

Originally Posted by mvfranz

How is the API that they are programming to different between Intel and PPC? The only issue they should have is testing, not development. So they are only partially correct in saving testing time, engineering time should not be impacted.

I don't know that they do, but for complex, slow tasks it's possible that they write some routines in assembly because they can optimize it better than the compiler. If this is the case, they would need to maintain PPC assembly and x86 assembly, so dropping one architecture would save them time in writing/maintaining this code.

This is speculation, but it doesn't seem unreasonable for Adobe to use ASM in some places. Also, reading/writing files is endian dependent, so there may be a lot of work going on to maintain binary compatibility of saved files. Targeting a single architecture removes this requirement.

-Lee

[Amdahl]

Originally Posted by longofest

It's a matter of timing. As time goes on, the argument for developing for PowerPC gets less and less persuasive, and therefore the complaining is only so justified. This year is the 3 year mark for the last PowerPC macs, so it's going to be the turning point for a lot of applications.

Actually, you are just now hitting the two year mark since the Mac Pro was released and replaced the Quad G5 as the top of the line system. The G5s were being sold for months afterward, since many users needed them because ADOBE didn't have any Intel code out yet.

The only constant is that Adobe is not a reliable software producer.

Originally Posted by lee1210

If this is the case, they would need to maintain PPC assembly and x86 assembly, so dropping one architecture would save them time in writing/maintaining this code.

Yes, they do lots of ASM. They have been doing PPC & x86 for 10+ years now. They had to do PPC to support Mac, and x86 to support Windows. They just don't think it is worth the trouble to produce new PPC code for new releases; they probably figure most buyers will have Intel, or will be moving there shortly. And they might be right. I'm willing to give Adobe some slack on that particular point. Meanwhile, if Apple or the developer of a non-media app did the same thing, it would be just pure 100% laziness and greed.

Don't forget, Apple didn't pick Intel for speed; they picked it for heat. The last G5s don't have much to worry about yet. A Penryn quad@2.5Ghz gets just about exactly the same time performance in Handbrake encoding as Quad G5. The Penryn has a faster memory.

[reallynotnick]

Originally Posted by KindredMAC

Wow..... can't tell the difference between 7 and 10?

Yeah, I probably should be using Elements as I said I have yet to max out PS7, I do think 10 looks a little more aqua though...

[numediaman]

Maybe it's me, but the words "Adobe" and "support" really don't belong in the same sentence.

I used to love Adobe software. But other than Word, I don't own software that crashes and is as glitchy as Adobe software. I feel Adobe is caught in some sort of late nineties time warp (Microsoft Word is caught in a late 80s time warp).

Every time I power up a Adobe product I say to myself "haven't we progressed from here yet?"

[twoodcc]

this really makes sense to me