Future Versions of Adobe Creative Suite to Drop PowerPC Support

[JensenJJ]

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.

If you are going to buy software for 1.000-2500$ (in the US) or 2300-4800$ (In Denmark Europe(Have no idea why it cost to much more in Denmark))

Then you are not sitting on an 3+ year old computer. An if you are. Then it's about time to upgrade

 

[HyperZboy]

If you are going to buy software for 1.000-2500$ (in the US) or 2300-4800$ (In Denmark Europe(Have no idea why it cost to much more in Denmark))

Then you are not sitting on an 3+ year old computer. An if you are. Then it's about time to upgrade

The cheapest INTEL Macs sold in the last few years are slower than my PowerMac G5s!

Why should I be FORCED to upgrade when it shouldn't be necessary?

This notion that new computers are always faster/better needs to go away.

Computer speed improvements have slowed to a crawl now.

All of my G5s are 64bit, some could technically run Grand Central even while some INTEL Macs with INTEL graphics could never in a million years run OpenCL!

Once again, I'm NOT criticizing Adobe. I'm slamming Apple for the way they're treating their loyal customers.

 

[HyperZboy]

Photoshop on Mac is a gigantic cluster**** that needs a complete rewrite using Core Image and Cocoa. It is one of the worst programs on Mac and it's a shame, because I use it easily the most often.

And both Core Image and Cocoa both were initially PowerPC technologies, go figure.

 

[Eidorian]

A minor note here, the best GPU you can get for a PowerPC machine is the Radeon X1900 XT. That still predates the unified/programmable shader required for OpenCL and other GPGPU sytems.

 

[Amdahl]

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.

Perhaps I'm asking a stupid question, but are you sure that would apply to processes that are spawned by a PowerPC process? Since child processes might have IPC or shared memory areas, it would seem to me that PowerPC versions would be spawned, not Intel.

 

[Brien]

Unfortunately, tech marches on. PPC is dead. It's been dead since that fateful day in '06 when Steve announced the first intel macs.

By next summer, you'll be lucky if there's any PPC software at all. With 10.6 and a majority of the pro apps going intel-only, everyone else is sure to join the bandwagon. Especially with Apple underpricing SL to get everyone using it.

 

[Eidorian]

Unfortunately, tech marches on. PPC is dead. It's been dead since that fateful day in '06 when Steve announced the first intel macs.

By next summer, you'll be lucky if there's any PPC software at all. With 10.6 and a majority of the pro apps going intel-only, everyone else is sure to join the bandwagon. Especially with Apple underpricing SL to get everyone using it.

PowerPC was dead at WWDC 2005. The transition wasn't finished until WWDC 2006.

I've said it before but I'd like the find the last PowerPC based Mac under AppleCare until 2010.

 

[SeattleMoose]

Well Dang Nabbit!!!

I am having a hard time finding parts to keep my Model T running!!!

Progress....I say pssshhhawww!!

 

[JonB3Z]

I don't really have a problem with this decision but:

"if you haven't upgraded your workstation in four years, you're probably not in a rush to upgrade your software, either"

doesn't necessarily follow. Since Adobe has a practice of making Camera Raw not backwardly compatible with previous CS versions and then abandoning updates to Camera Raw on the older version, buyers of new digital camera models frequently must update CS to get support for their camera's raw files. Since my PowerMac (which is running Tiger, BTW) still handles photo processing just fine, I would have no need to upgrade otherwise, but if I bought a new camera I'd have a problem.

Of course, Adobe is hardly the only software house that will be doing this, so PPC users are going to find it harder and harder to avoid upgrading the hardware.

Me, I like to use hardware until it breaks. The PowerMac shows no sign of doing that. Maybe I'll have to drop it off the roof.

 

[Dr.Pants]

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?

Sometimes programmers are so anal-retentive that they don't rely on the compiler for all of their code. I naturally assumed Adobe would be in this group, but then I remember Flash Player for Macintosh... And I take anything Steve Jobs says with a grain of salt, anyways. Maybe I'm too anal-retentive - after all, FCS3 was packaged as Universal.

 

[crackbookpro]

Adobe needs to get onto the 64-bit + Cocoa train in OS X. So it's not really that surprising.

CS5!!! ...will be the best creative suite yet from Adobe

...can't wait for the Master's new features!

 

[HyperZboy]

Funny Comment, but...

I am having a hard time finding parts to keep my Model T running!!!

Progress....I say pssshhhawww!!

My PowerPC G5s can kick half of your INTEL azzes! LOL

But seriously, this is not progress, it's planned obsolescence for the purposes of blatant profit, nothing more.

And the discontinued operating support breaks with 25 years of Apple precedent.

And to those people that say that OpenCL won't run on PowerPC...

Well guess what? I won't run on MOST INTEL Macs EITHER!

HAHA! The joke is on you guys too!

So maybe you should junk all those 1 year old INTEL Macs too huh?

 

[Tallest Skil]

My PowerPC G5s can kick half of your INTEL azzes! LOL

But seriously, this is not progress, it's planned obsolescence for the purposes of blatant profit, nothing more.

And the discontinued operating support breaks with 25 years of Apple precedent.

And to those people that say that OpenCL won't run on PowerPC...

Well guess what? I won't run on MOST INTEL Macs EITHER!

HAHA! The joke is on you guys too!

So maybe you should junk all those 1 year old INTEL Macs too huh?

Anyone who advocates 3 year old tech as usable for high-end work is out of touch with reality.

 

[vohdoun]

It's amusing at one point in the past it use to be Apple users and Windows/PC users bashing each other.

Now it's Apple users attacking Apple users. Ironic.

 

[Burnsey]

Meh, I cant imagine how poorly future Adobe products will run on PPCs, they are quite bloated and slow on the intels as it is.

 

[Poll Smoker]

...is out of touch with reality.

Coming from the guy who has "1 Geostationary Tower Plaza" as his location.

Nerd!

 

[SnowLeopard2008]

Bye bye PPC. You won't be missed.

 

[DakotaGuy]

Bye bye PPC. You won't be missed.

I agree. I never figured out why Apple messed with PPC in the first place. Intel x86 was always faster and far more advanced. I know they were just trying to be different, but different isn't always better. I had a couple of PPC Macs and I guess they were fine, but we were always running slower then the PC's back in the day.

 

[Tallest Skil]

I agree. I never figured out why Apple messed with PPC in the first place. Intel x86 was always faster and far more advanced. I know they were just trying to be different, but different isn't always better. I had a couple of PPC Macs and I guess they were fine, but we were always running slower then the PC's back in the day.

I seem to remember the G3 running faster than the Pentiums of that time.

I think that's about it, though. By the time of the G5, the speed discrepancy was noticeable.

 

[eobanb]

this means 64-bit is nigh

Awesome.

Dropping PPC support probably means that Adobe will finally be able to do a total Cocoa rewrite of the remaining Carbon parts of CS, thereby enabling them to offer 64-bit versions across the line. Lightroom was pure Intel and Cocoa from the very beginning, and that's why there's a 64-bit version. Apple's dropped support for 64-bit Carbon, which is why there was a 64-bit version of CS4 on Windows but not Mac OS X.

 

[Amdahl]

It's amusing at one point in the past it use to be Apple users and Windows/PC users bashing each other.

Now it's Apple users attacking Apple users. Ironic.

A schism in the cult.

I agree. I never figured out why Apple messed with PPC in the first place. Intel x86 was always faster and far more advanced. I know they were just trying to be different, but different isn't always better. I had a couple of PPC Macs and I guess they were fine, but we were always running slower then the PC's back in the day.

PowerPC was the logical choice for Apple. The Motorola 68000 series was being dropped, and Motorola and IBM were working on the new PowerPC chip as the replacement. PowerPC was big-endian just like 68000, which was more important 'back in the day,' when making those kinds of binary level changes would upset an entire software eco-systems Apple cart. So, Apple went along for the ride. There was real hope that PowerPC was going to throw Intel overboard at the time of introduction. Microsoft at the time was producing Windows NT for MIPS, i386, PowerPC, and Alpha. According to Wiki, versions for SPARC and 'Clipper' were also being developed by a 3rd party, but never sold at retail. OS/2 was also issued in beta-form for PowerPC, including a 'Rosetta' type of software that let x86 apps run.

As it turns out, x86 & Microsoft are two sides of the same coin. Once Microsoft figured this out, all the other versions of NT were cancelled. Alpha lasted one cycle longer than the others.

So, when you add a little history, it doesn't seem so silly that Apple would head to PowerPC instead of Intel. PowerPC was faster than Intel from introduction to about 1996-1997 when the Pentium Pro made a big leap for Intel that carried all the way to the Pentium III. That is what brought Intel back to even, and in the 2003-2004 years, they pulled ahead of IBM PPC 970 on clock speed, until everybody hit the wall. But what Intel did have going for it was low-power laptop chips.

And really, how do you figure that x86, a 30-year-old format with 8 registers, is more advanced than PowerPC, a 15-year old format with 32 registers? The whole advantage to '64-bit' on Intel is actually not to do with 64-bit, but with having 16 registers instead of 8.

Dropping PPC support probably means that Adobe will finally be able to do a total Cocoa rewrite of the remaining Carbon parts of CS, thereby enabling them to offer 64-bit versions across the line. Lightroom was pure Intel and Cocoa from the very beginning, and that's why there's a 64-bit version. Apple's dropped support for 64-bit Carbon, which is why there was a 64-bit version of CS4 on Windows but not Mac OS X.

There is no connection between PPC and Cocoa, or PPC and Carbon. 64-bit Cocoa exists on PowerPC in 10.5 right now. There is only a 64-bit version of Lightroom because it was newer code, written for Cocoa, not because it was for Intel.

 

[charlituna]

If anyone is at all shocked by this then they're silly. The second Apple drops PPC support Adobe is sure to follow suit.

agreed.

anyone that hasn't been keeping up with the current systems, or would be highly put out to have to upgrade to a new machine is likely not part of the core audience for CS anyway. so they will be fine with the older products.

 

[RMo]

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?

The "check a box" statement is mostly true for Cocoa programs, but there may still be problems caused by endianness (Google it), particularly with larger or more complex programs--and I'm sure Adobe's products are all among this group. Basically, you can check the box, but you still need to test on both. This works for Carbon apps too (and again, I'm sure this is most of Adobe's apps), but they'll usually need a bit more work. And if they're really old and written with CodeWarrior or PowerPlant, they'll almost surely require some work--like, for example--moving to Xcode (and Carbon or Cocoa, though PowerPlant was Carbon-based). Again, since Adobe has been developing for Mac since well before we even knew pre-X would someday become "Classic," I'm sure they have at least some projects in these then-popular IDEs/frameworks, and getting it to work is undoubtedly not as simple as checking the box to compile it for both architectures.

 

[Amdahl]

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.

Its Apple's fault for abandoning its longest and most loyal customers.

Yes, I agree - COMPLETELY. My G5 AppleCare expires in two months. But you have to look at it this way: Apple lost the war, and when you lose a war, there are casualties.

 

[Amdahl]

The "check a box" statement is mostly true for Cocoa programs, but there may still be problems caused by endianness (Google it), particularly with larger or more complex programs--and I'm sure Adobe's products are all among this group. Basically, you can check the box, but you still need to test on both. This works for Carbon apps too (and again, I'm sure this is most of Adobe's apps), but they'll usually need a bit more work. And if they're really old and written with CodeWarrior or PowerPlant, they'll almost surely require some work--like, for example--moving to Xcode (and Carbon or Cocoa, though PowerPlant was Carbon-based). Again, since Adobe has been developing for Mac since well before we even knew pre-X would someday become "Classic," I'm sure they have at least some projects in these then-popular IDEs/frameworks, and getting it to work is undoubtedly not as simple as checking the box to compile it for both architectures.

Since this is a theoretical discussion (we don't have Adobe's source), I am going to disagree with you. They did it (addressed endian issues) on both PPC (Mac) and x86 (Windows) with their CARBON/Win32 codebase. Since they are rewriting to Cocoa/Win64, it isn't going to be harder, it will be EASIER than what they've already done. They are just dropping it for the marketing reasons they plainly stated, not due to any difficulty.

Same as Apple. It isn't hard, they've just already got your money.

For an example of why I say it 'isn't hard,' I am going to point to the thousands of free, open source applications that will run on a dozen operating systems, on a dozen architectures. Or Linux or FreeBSD or NetBSD, which will run on every architecture out there. Endianness is really only a problem when you never thought about it when you first started your coding. Same for being '32-bit clean.'