Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Audio, Software, Developer
Adobe's John Nack explains lack of PPC support in Soundbooth
Some corners of the Mac web aren't too happy about Adobe's choice to not support the PowerPC chip with their latest beta offering, Soundbooth. We've received a few comments on our original post, and Macintouch has a few posts from readers who are, let's say, 'somewhat upset.' To help bring some sense to the table, Adobe's John Nack (the product manager of Photoshop, mind you) has stepped in to lay down the company's decision on his blog. Long story short, John explains that support isn't being 'removed' from the product - while it's been dubbed as 'Audition Elements' by some, it's a brand new baby for both Mac OS X and Windows. In this context, Adobe made the choice of streamlining development (supporting one chipset) which favors focusing on things like features and performance, rather than trying to get a team of audio engineers who are used to working with Intel-based chips to start jugging a second architecture (PowerPC) which Adobe believes Apple is treating as "dead to us."
I think this is a really difficult position for Adobe to be in, and given the circumstances, I understand their decision. While the PowerPC architecture is by no means 'dead' just yet, it's getting up from the dinner table and making its way for the coat closet (don't forget, there's plenty of conversation and lingering while putting one's coat on and rounding up all the kids). Readers at Macintouch have cited that a fair portion of the Mac audio industry are still using PowerPC based rigs and probably will for quite some time, and I think that might also have been a significant factor in the decision: Soundbooth isn't competing with Pro Tools and professional workflows, it's a mid-range app (at least from what I understand). I am certainly no software engineer, and I know equally little about the intricacies of audio software, but if a company with Adobe's girth says that now is a bad time to start building PowerPC support into a brand new product - I'll listen. From the non-developer sidelines, it sounds like it's a lot easier for code ninjas who already had a PowerPC app to unite forces with Intel support (thanks in part to Apple's UB efforts), as opposed to getting Intel backgrounds (remember: Adobe's audio guys are coming over from Windows development on this one) to shake hands with PowerPC.
In the grander scheme of Adobe matters, however, they haven't shown this "abandoning" attitude in any of their other existing products, such as the entire Creative Suite (in fact Nack reminds us PPC hasn't gone anywhere in CS3), and even
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
morgan said 2:09PM on 10-29-2006
i just think its hypocritical, especially from a corporation of their size
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FRITZ the Cat said 2:12PM on 10-29-2006
I think nobody who do profesionell audio would use this tool anyway... Mac-Audio will stay PPC for quite a long time...
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Doc Multimedia said 6:31PM on 10-29-2006
I have no problem with Adobe looking towards the future. Soundbooth and Lightroom (which does run under PPC) are both looking to be great products for the upcoming years.
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Matt J said 2:39PM on 10-29-2006
Soundbooth is so ugly I can't be bothered to use it.
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michel said 2:55PM on 10-29-2006
ho please, no more excuse for Adobe
it's like excusing apple or microsoft (the excuse about the lack of vbscript in the next mac office for example) or ibm for everything bad they do
Okay okay ,YES YES photoshop and illustrator are good products , YES PDF IS a big succes, a very great quality technology and noone can forget postscript works from adobe
but GHAAA!!! NO , Adobe have NO excuse to stop ppc development for a new product.
they are simply LAZY and thinks it will not get them enough money to support owners of ppc macintosh. simply _that_
IT'S the THIRD time Adobe give a totally technological excuse to their mistreatments of consumers
- Flash 9 for linux and os X. promised to be available in the SAME time than windows. it was delay and delay and STUPID excuses about things than a more than a few opensource products DOES everyday (synchronize audio/video on linux with the alsa or oss api) . they are professionals for god's sake! PAID for that. and _no_ , the software as totem, mplayer or xine didn't wait month to have good synchronization. all is available for years now to program that quickly.
- CS 3 . no, adobe has no excuse to wait more two years to sell an universal version of CS 3. Apple inform ALL developpers in july 2005 of the jump. no, adobe just keep alive the very old code base dating of mac 7 or before, years after years, never preparing any change which could come. and it shows
- and no that, another complex excuse noone cares to explain they are only a tiny microscopic enterprise with just one guy in the basement and not enough resources. ho please ! the enterprise which can keep LIGHTROOM in eternal beta state ? ! the one which use the somewhere-experimental cross-platform language LUA-based foundation for their new lightroom.
no and NO. they have the resources, they have the skills to use new technologies when they want, they have the engineers.
they just don't have the commercial will. no good economical reasons to do more , and they COULD TELL THAT. it's not a crime.
I am software engineer and I call the audio-technology-stuff pure BIAS and lies.
of course there are the real problems of little-indians and big-indians order between ppc and intel but there are tools for that, YEARS of tools, tens and tens years
it's nOT NEW ! Motorola to intel was the SAME. always. in 80s years !
how can I explain ? it's common problems the INDUSTRY solved again and again. it's not new. it's academic. it's History !
and now adobe tell "we cannot" ?! they are not prepared ? no.
reality check : audio analogic-digital interface in computers are not all the same, and it matters,
windows , os x (and linux) gives some API to manage all of that, the API matters, it brings bugs, features, some hypothesis how to manage the hardware.
all of that is difficult problems, all of that are common industrial problems all software companies have to deal with that. Adobe is not so special.
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Josh said 3:03PM on 10-29-2006
I can't believe people are that surprised by this. This was bound to happen, and would most likely happen with a brand new app than with older apps that have established user bases. My only surprise is that this sort of thing happened so shortly after the transition to Intel was "complete".
Unless the decision was a purely technical one (i.e. the sound library only supported Intel), it probably came down to a bean-counter decision. They estimated the cost to make a PPC version, compared that to the expected number of sales to PPC computers, and made a decision that it was not "economically feasible".
I'd be surprised if that was really the decision, because most non-pro users who might want to use this app, would be looking to stretch their dollars as much as possible, and right now, a G5 on eBay is cheap compared to a new one, and wouldn't a budding musician want to spend their money on better musical equipment than a computer?
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Steve said 3:05PM on 10-29-2006
Dave, you really need to learn how to say, "find out after the jump". Every time I see an 3 page dissertation on the TUAW homepage I know who wrote it without ever having to look.
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Rob Knight said 3:10PM on 10-29-2006
Sounds like being a software engineer for Adobe is no picnic.
They are so pressured to get things out on a schedule, that they aren't even allowed to run it on old hardware.
Let's not forget that the Creative Suite is delayed because Adobe refused to remove legacy code from the OS9 days and bring it up to date with Cocoa.
They had 3 iterations to do it and did nothing. Then Apple gives them a year and they can't do that. So rather than put money and engineers into developing new software on PowerPC, they shun it all together.
Bad PR. Bad Move. And they are getting their due criticism for it.
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John said 3:42PM on 10-29-2006
Do you think Apple gives a stuff about Power PC ? How about all G5 PCIe owners NEVER have been able to order a video card upgrade ! Contemptable behaviour.
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Yong Hwee said 8:12PM on 10-29-2006
Well, I'm sure it's not that hard to make it UB? Anyway, it's a pity to those PPC users including me..
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Adrian said 7:40PM on 10-29-2006
The funny thing is how many people apparently (from this thread) think that there is any life left to the PowerPC machines. As far as Apple is concerned, they're just doing what they have to do for PR reasons. If we could see the make-up of their engineering teams, we'd surely see it. I'm sure that primary development is all intel and then ported to PPC.
This whole thing reminds me of the BeOS transition from PowerPC to Intel... same concern from the community, same PR messages from the parent company, and same lack of interest in PPC by developers who have to do more than check a box to support it.
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Nate said 8:51PM on 10-29-2006
@Adrian: Universal (Fat) Binaries are a bit more than just PR. The BeOS example isn't really relevant because that was opening a system up to be installed and used (later for free) on any old PC. Apple's move to Intel is really only a "technical" change. BeOS on x86 quickly eclipsed PPC; whereas the installed-base of PPC Macs will be larger than that of Intel Macs for some time to come.
What you're actually seeing here is yet another software corporation (Adobe) that has grown too big to do anything really well (anymore). Why even have Soundbooth run on the Mac if they're only going to be able to market it to a subset of Mac owners?
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John P. said 10:46PM on 10-29-2006
Adobe's on the ropes, their software has mostly sucked for years yet survives because it's the only game in town. Alright, I might be a bit harsh,... Am I?
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left in the dust said 10:51PM on 10-29-2006
Man, I feel bad for those guys with their fancy 5 grand G5 quads sitting around. I really and truly hope that not another application is ever released like that again.
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Mark D. said 11:19PM on 10-29-2006
michel:
Whoa, need to compose yourself a bit, there. You make some good points, but it's kind of rough to dig through the dodgy writing (it's endian not indian, right?) I wouldn't say they're lazy, but with the platform transition they probably decided it's easier to quickly develop the app and market it to the common consumer switching to macs that wants a mid-line audio editing app (like me, though Audacity always serves me well in Win/Lin/OS X.) Since switchers are now buying Intel systems, PPC support wouldn't be an issue (though I agree, it should be there, at least for release.) Also, technically by the release of Flash 9 they should have the browser plug-ins finalized, which would technically mean it'd be 'ready at the same time'. Heck, if anything we should just be happy they've finally got a beta of the Linux plug-in out after skipping 8 completely and stranding the Linux community with 7 for so long (well hey, that's Macromedia's fault, not Adobe technically.)
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Padriac said 3:46AM on 10-30-2006
500 words over three paragraphs is now a dissertation? Don't be scared people, they're just words. Reading for more than two minutes at a time will not kill you.
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Jay Vaughan said 5:34AM on 10-30-2006
Its ludicrous. "Old" computers don't stop working just because there's something new around the corner. If there is any community of users that prove this, its the Mac world, where 8-year old systems are still in active, daily use, by productive people who simply use what works, not whats new and hot.
Ignoring the PPC realm is a real idiot maneuver; it basically says "your computer is old, buy a new one for our software". Cross-platform builds are not that hard .. so there is no reason not to support PPC here, except, plain and simple, elitism.
And it seems that elitism is a big part of Adobe culture. If so, consider Soundbooth off my list of useful tools; I'd rather build Audacity myself for whatever platform I've got in front of me, not what some market-droid wants me to buy "like some happy little consumer" ..
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henrrrik said 9:10AM on 10-30-2006
Just wait, there will be 64 bit-only applications soon.
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Michael Tam said 4:25PM on 10-30-2006
Ignoring the PPC realm is a real idiot maneuver
Actually, it makes perfect sense. Let us not forget that most software developers ignore development for the Mac altogether.
For Adobe, the potential market for this software for PPC versions of MacOS X is small and more likely than not WORTH the additional development cost. In business, it is profits at the end of the day, and hard core PPC Mac devotees probably would be building Audacity from source. The other Mac loving crowd would have or will be upgrading to an Intel Mac.
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Jack VanBurace said 8:32AM on 10-30-2006
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endianness
PPC is dead.
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