Filed under: Software, Podcasting, Universal Binary
Universal binary status of Adobe applications
Adobe Photoshop Product Manager John Nack had this to say
about the Universal Binary status of Adobe applications in an interview with Inside Mac Radio at Flash Forward 2006
this week. As you've probably heard, with the exception of the public beta of Adobe Lightroom, Adobe apps are not yet
Universal. You can read more excerpts from the interview at The
Unofficial Photoshop Weblog, or listen to the interview on the March 2, 2006 episode of Inside Mac Radio [ iTMS link ].Nack:
"We recognize that to really address the way the market's been changing around digital photography it wasn't going to be good enough to just keep doing incremental additions to our existing code. What we really need is to start with a fresh slate. So in the case of Lightroom, because they did that, it's been a lot quicker for them to move to Mactel.
With some of the more mature apps, like Photoshop, Illustrator, it's a really big project, and there's a lot of work to move the code from Code Warrior over into Xcode, get that compiling, and then get that compiling on Mactel. So it's something where it's a long process. I wish we could do it faster. But Apple's been really great in supporting that. There've been Apple folks on site all the time over at Adobe answering questions, bouncing ideas back and forth. . . Both companies really want to see this happen, just like users do. We'll have it out as soon as we can, with the obvious qualifier that we want to right. We don't want to just rush it out there and have it not work well. So it'll take some time, but we're definitely working closely on it.
As we work with Apple we want to make sure that our applications keep evolving and taking really good advantage of all the new innovations they've got. They came out with the dual processor, dual core G5's. They're making some really great changes around the graphics architecture, like with the new MacBook--much faster memory systems with their GPU. And so I think that this evolution will help us stay really current and take good advantage of that. And of course every time a new system comes out one of the key benchmarks is how fast does it run Photoshop. And so it's in everybody's interest to make sure that our apps really shine on the new boxes."
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Daniel D said 10:36AM on 3-04-2006
tl;dr
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Goobimama said 10:36AM on 3-04-2006
So where does that leave the universal binary release date of photoshop? or do we still have to wait for CS3?
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Samuel McConnell said 10:46AM on 3-04-2006
Photoshop CS works as well on my MacBook Pro as it did on my PBG4 1.0GHz. Other than starting it up, I don't really detect much of a slowdown. Granted, a PBG4 isn't exactly the Quad G5 market that Photoshop is meant for, but...
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iPanic said 12:27PM on 3-04-2006
I think this is a very dangerous situation for Adobe.
The reason being that Apple are famous for doing things their own way and they usually deliver a solid solution. What i think might happen is that Apple will release a rival to Photoshop, when the rest of the mactel range comes out, Apple are pretty much the only (well a few traitors hehe) hardware used in the creative industry, and Adobe products are a big part of that, especially now that Adobe own Macromedia too.
Look at Aperture, how long did it take Adobe to integrate RAW image support to it's products, Apple saw an gap in the market and now we have an amazing piece of kit to complement any digital photographers Mac.
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Brian said 4:33PM on 3-04-2006
Dangerous for Adobe? You're not serious. If Adobe doesn't update their software soon enough, I'm dropping Apple. At least with Windows you don't have to wait for software.
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Mars said 4:49PM on 3-04-2006
Windows XP has been around for nearly 5 years, running on the same architecture as it always has. Why don't we compare apples to apples and see how quickly programs get ported to the 64bit versions of Vista? No one is forcing you to upgrade. If you have been using your quad G5 till now you can continue to use it tomorrow.
If you want to be an early adopter you should expect things to take some time.
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Moquiti said 9:40PM on 3-04-2006
"... As we work with Apple we want to make sure that our applications keep evolving and taking really good advantage of all the new innovations they've got. They came out with the dual processor, dual core G5's ..."
In addition to MacTel optimization, this quote tells me that Adobe may be seriously optimizing for multiple processors, potentially giving their apps the advantage that video ones have taken advantage of for "years"
A (read: not "any") substantial move in this direction by the Adobe beast is worth the wait (again!).
Unfortunately for PPC hangers-on (like myself) I would be fooling myself to think they would compile a universal version. But then again, my foolishness at times knows no bounds!
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Reid Ellis said 11:14AM on 3-05-2006
Adobe is only moving from Code Warrior to Xcode *now*? This tells me there is serious incompetence going on at Adobe.
It's corporately irresponsible to have your flagship products depend on a development environment that had been officially unsupported by its company (Code Warrior) for years. (How many? 2? 3?)
Moving to Xcode should have started the minute Metrowerks announced they were no longer developing Code Warrior, not now.
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Dave K. said 6:35PM on 3-06-2006
Sorry if this sounds like a stupid question. I can't get a simple answer anywhere. Is it possible to develop and compile a universal binary application _without_ an intel mac? (or is the $2000 G5 I bought last month rapidly turning into a pretty paperweight?)
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NetworkShadpw said 2:47PM on 3-08-2006
Well I'm very unimpressed with the performance of Photoshop and other Adobe apps on my work PC. It's a Dell with Pentium 4 3.20GHz, and 2 GB of RAM and it runs Photoshop slower than my G4 1.25 GHz with 1.25 GB of RAM most of the time... wtf?! I max out my ram more on the PC than I ever have on my Mac. The Adobe apps just run better on Mac... I can't wait to get a MacBook Pro and the updated Adobe apps, they'll smoke the PC versions I'm sure.
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jrkarp said 10:53AM on 3-09-2006
"Windows XP has been around for nearly 5 years, running on the same architecture as it always has. Why don't we compare apples to apples and see how quickly programs get ported to the 64bit versions of Vista? No one is forcing you to upgrade. If you have been using your quad G5 till now you can continue to use it tomorrow."
Are you kidding? 99% of apps compiled for WinXP 32 bit will run FULL SPEED on Vista x64. Your point is hardly apples to apples.
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