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Future Versions of Adobe Creative Suite to Drop PowerPC Support
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Hopefully soon, as CS4 won't work properly on 10.6
Considering cs4 was release 10 months ago, and the CS's have been released every 1.5-2 years, we've still probably got about another year before cs5 i'm guessing. So I guess I've got one more year with my g5
Can someone expound please?
I am a video producer and was planning on getting Snow Leopard and the new final cut studio. I use Photoshop CS3 for my video work and graphics. So will that not work on Snow Leopard? Will I need to upgrade to CS4? I can't go without Photoshop with my video work! I don't see why it wouldn't work. It might need an update to kill some bugs, but why would it completely not work? Can someone expound please?
I assume you're using an Intel Mac if you're planning to upgrade to Snow Leopard. As Adobe CS3 are native Intel apps / Universal Binary, I don't see why it wouldn't work all of the sudden. Only people out of luck is the old PowerPC users, and they can't upgrade to Snow Leopard anyway.
"Worst" is probably a stretch, especially with Microsoft still bothering to throw in their token Office re-warm, and the many janky Linux apps that purport to be ported to OS X. However, like iTunes (and formerly the Finder glad Apple finally got off their asses and addressed that), I agree that Photoshop is gasping and crawling towards the (faraway?) oasis of a total overhaul.
On the other hand, Core Image and Cocoa might not be the best choice for them. They still have a lot of Windows customers, and writing a completely and exclusively Mac-native version of Photoshop would create a lot more work for them when they barely seem able to handle what they've got now. Do they do a similar, ground-up native rewrite in...I dunno, .NET and WPF, or whatever it is that Windows people have? Or do they keep the old, bloated cross-platform legacy branch alive even longer on that side? Obviously, some of us would love to bask in the sheer, unadulterated schadenfreude of seeing Adobe drop Windows support in PS altogether, but realistically that will never happen.
Whatever they do, Photoshop will necessarily have its roots in a cross-platform code base, whether that code is made of something new, or decades of legacy blubber.
Ya. I have never owned a PowerPC Mac. My first Mac was the iMac when they switched to Intel. I asked because someone in here that I quoted was saying that Creative Suites won't work on Snow Leopard! I don't see why not either.
I remember switching from Tiger to Leopard with my CS3 and there were some bugs... STILL ARE AHEM ADOBE, but it works still.
I am so glad I am a consumer that doesn't have to use that slow Creative Suite product. I can use something from a smaller vendor for a 10th of the price that written from the ground up as a Mac app. Too bad the Pros must suffer because they have to use it. Hopefully the new version is better and not too buggy.
It is surprising there wasn't a group complaining about PPC. I was expecting that flame war. Maybe that debate is nearing an end.
It is surprising there wasn't a group complaining about PPC. I was expecting that flame war. Maybe that debate is nearing an end.
Huh? Office 2008 uses Apple's Installer, so it's as Intel-ey as Apple make it.
The whole thing is pkgs wrapped in a mpkg. I know, because I have to explore its innards to deploy to our workstation fleet. All the recent Microsoft releases, including Office updates, RDC and the Open XML file converter have all been pkgs. The only exceptions have been drag-n-droppers, like Messenger.
I haven't looked that closely at AutoUpdate (we disable it, because our software inventory is under Change Management), but all it does is pull down updates from Microsoft, still in mpkg/pkg format, and kick off the same Apple Installer framework.
I'm getting far too lazy around here sometimes. I knew that someone, someone would bring up the packages and the usage of Installer.app and/or other package tools for deployment.
The last time I ran the Office 2008 installer it was running under PowerPC and throttling up my processor. There is a pkg somewhere but the installer on the CD probably isn't Apple's.
I'm looking at the Office 2008 12.0.0 installer disc right now.
I honestly don't know what to tell you apart from that you may have some other edition. If you're involved in software deployment, you should check with your Microsoft rep about an all-pkg copy.
In any case, even if there is a wrapper app that is PowerPC, since, as you said, there's a pkg somewhere, the Apple Installer engine is still doing the actual work. Their PowerPC "installer" won't be directly installing anything, and just providing a pretty GUI; there's no point building a pkg and then writing your own install engine when Apple's is just sitting there waiting to be used.
Oh I know. It's nice when someone keeps you on your toes. You're entirely correct about the package and Installer but for some reason mentions (even within the past week) and my own memories of the PowerPC Office 2008 installer come to mind. It's that nagging in the back of my mind. What about the updates themselves after you finish downloading them using Microsoft AutoUpdate? Those should be more packages as well though.
This is good news. If PPC suport where to remain then Photoshop's funtionality would be limited to only what a PPC could do.
Also Snow Leopard is Intel only. Likely the new CS will run only on Snow Leopard and take advantage of it's new features.
If CS did suport PPC then We'd know for sure the Adobe was not using any on Snow Leopard's new features. So like I said, this is good news.
If you have a G4 (and I still have one, along with my newer Mac) then my old CS3 will continue to work forever
Also Snow Leopard is Intel only. Likely the new CS will run only on Snow Leopard and take advantage of it's new features.
If CS did suport PPC then We'd know for sure the Adobe was not using any on Snow Leopard's new features. So like I said, this is good news.
If you have a G4 (and I still have one, along with my newer Mac) then my old CS3 will continue to work forever
All the Office updates we deploy are the manual download versions, and AutoUpdate is disabled on all our workstation fleet (defaults write com.microsoft.autoupdate2 HowToCheck "Manual").
I have used AutoUpdate on occasion, and it still seems to use the pkg/mpkg installers - basically it just seems to retrieve and execute the same updaters as the manual download. The AutoUpdate app itself may still be PowerPC (mine seems to be Universal), but again, Apple's Installer framework does the grunt work.
Microsoft seem to have committed themselves pretty heavily to using the Installer framework, because they do manipulation of the receipts as part of the update process (/Library/Receipts). They would certainly need to make sure AutoUpdate does the same thing as the manual install. If you look at your Office receipts, the updaters often remove older receipts, seemingly as a form of establishing baselines. eg: all my original Office 12.0.0 receipts are gone.
Both codebases? Since I don't suspect they are dropping support for 10.5, then there is only one codebase. As Steve Jobs said, all it takes to make a Universal Binary is to 'check a box.' How do you suppose Intel-native apps came out so fast after the switch to Intel processors?
Thanks batchtaster. I suspected as much. It's nice to know someone else around here that has been on the admin and deployment side of things on OS X. I've been out of the loop for some time so it's a nice refresher.
Oh gee, I guess they'll just have to keep making Flash for PPC, Wii, Xbox 360, and PS3. Which are all PowerPC!
If the app is PowerPC, all Frameworks/libraries/plugins that it accesses are also PowerPC.batchtaster said:
That depends on how it's kicked off, and it depends on how Apple's framework operates, since that only applies to threads within a single process (eg: Microsoft's Installer plug-in to search for older versions). If you watch any kind of pkg installation, there are multiple processes spawned. It makes very little sense to thread the whole thing in one process - even Installer doesn't do that.
Simple example: I can write a PowerPC AppleScript that calls "installer -target / -pkg /path/to/my.pkg"). On an Intel, the AppleScript will operate in Rosetta, but the "installer" process will run natively.
Yep. Adobe could have expressed this like "As you all probably guessed, the Mac version of CS5 only supports Snow Leopard" thus everyone knowing their hardware is not capable of running SL would also know they cannot upgrade to CS5 until they've bought new hardware.
This "dropping PPC" is overly-hyped topic, because that's not even the case. They're only supporting latest OS as before, nothing has changed.
Not this year for sure
G5 Alive
I know there are only a few of us left. But some G5 owners (in my case I have the last one (Quad) before the switch) might be interested in sharing
info on what is/isn't possible on G5's going forward, officially supported or not.
http://Gackinto5h.com
not much there other than a test of Motion 4 running on a G5 for now,
but the conversation has begun and anyone who wants to find out more
about how to make their hardware last a little longer despite the shiny
new upgraded OS they miss out on is welcome to leave a question or comment.
Cheers
I know there are only a few of us left. But some G5 owners (in my case I have the last one (Quad) before the switch) might be interested in sharing
info on what is/isn't possible on G5's going forward, officially supported or not.
http://Gackinto5h.com
not much there other than a test of Motion 4 running on a G5 for now,
but the conversation has begun and anyone who wants to find out more
about how to make their hardware last a little longer despite the shiny
new upgraded OS they miss out on is welcome to leave a question or comment.
Cheers
Dadgummit, My eMac and my dual 450 won't work anymore with the next CS?!? They are all I can afford after buying the last CS!
Then where would all the xbox owners be?Now all we need is Microsoft to drop PowerPC too
There it is.
I disagree partially, I don't believe it was obvious at all. Although I understand Adobe's decision and feel its probably the right thing to do for this type of software. I feel differently about other software though, especially simple software like many of Google's Mac Intel-only offerings or Microsoft Office.
What wasn't obvious was what Apple was planning on doing because Steve Jobs made many promises that he didn't keep and in effect defrauded a large portion of Apple's customer base in my opinion. It's just plain wrong to break an historical 25+ year tradition of supporting $2000-$4000 machines just 2-3 years old. Apple sold PowerPC Macs less than 3 years ago.
All of the software companies like Adobe cannot be blamed by disgruntled PowerPC users who've got lots of money invested in PowerPC equipment. Adobe is only following Apple's lead. So that part is expected.
Its Apple's fault for abandoning its longest and most loyal customers.
Is there some feature in Snow Leopard I've not heard about? Does it sneak out at night and format the hard drives of any PPC users still on Leopard?