Filed under: Software, Universal Binary
Adobe Reader 8.0 out for Mac
Santa came early, bringing a little gift from Adobe. Adobe Reader (née Acrobat Reader) Version 8.0 is out and guess what... It's Universal Binary and it's kinda fast. Not like lightening fast, but practically zippy. Thanks, Adobe!Then again, since I have to complain about something (because you all say I do, so I must), I'll tell you how annoyed I am that I have to download an application that I don't want from Adobe in order to download an application that I do want from Adobe. When you go through the download area and click the download link, you get the familiar "Thank you for downloading Adobe Reader. Your Adobe Reader software download will start automatically." But that's a lie. The Reader software isn't downloaded. The Reader Download Manager is downloaded. So you have to download that, install it (grrrrr...), and then it launches and starts downloading the actual program you wanted to begin with, which takes much longer on an 8 Mbps cable connection than it should, and then you finally get the actual Adobe Reader installer. But wait, you're not in the clear yet. After it finally installs, it automatically launches, bugs you a few times about updating the Safari plugin and the immediately starts downloading an update for the Adobe Updater app. I nodded off at that point so I have no idea what happened next, but eventually I opened a PDF with it and noticed how much faster it launched than Adobe Reader 7.0.8. Three dock bounces to launch instead of 6. That must mean it's twice as good, right?
Ok, I've gotten that out of my system now. Did I mention the pretty new red splash screen? That's kinda nice.
Reader 8 requires Mac OS X v. 10.4.3 or later, weighs in at just over 20MB, and it awaits your call.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Chris Meisenzahl said 7:12AM on 12-06-2006
Cool, thanks for the heads-up.
Reply
james brown said 7:31AM on 12-06-2006
I never seem to find a reason why adobe reader needs to be installed when i have preview, maybe there is something new here that i am not seeing to justify this, but I am guessing that isn't the case.
Reply
Steve said 7:34AM on 12-06-2006
I musta got lucky - it just downloaded the whole thing right off the bat for me - no "download the manager" mess first (I selected the PPC dload, if that matters). Hee hee - Adobe likes me better :P
Reply
WOPR said 7:35AM on 12-06-2006
Download button doesn't work for me in Safari so tried Camino and it worked and downloaded the full 21mb file straight away...
Reply
Huy said 7:40AM on 12-06-2006
Just change the link you're given and remove "DLM" from it.
http://ardownload.adobe.com/pub/adobe/reader/mac/8.x/8.0/enu/AdbeRdr80_en_US_i386.dmg
Instead of the one with DLM.
Reply
stainboy said 7:55AM on 12-06-2006
worst. Adobe. Reader. EVER.
Reply
ecne said 8:01AM on 12-06-2006
all praise to adobe! it took them only eleven long months to port their bread-and-butter software to intel macs! they failed to make it universal yet. but way to go, adobe! another year, and, ahem, who knows, what we're gonna see then. maybe even i386 compatible adobe bridge.
Reply
MagerValp said 8:02AM on 12-06-2006
I don't suppose anyone has a direct link to the download, without that useless download manager crap?
Reply
Ray Gossen said 8:02AM on 12-06-2006
I don't know why anyone would even bother with this. Preview does a decent job with PDFs, and it's much faster (admittedly, I haven't tried this new one), and if you want to view PDFs from inside your browser, there's the excellent Schubert plugin. These don't have flashy red splash screens, but they don't weigh in at anywhere near 20MB, nor do they automatically load a bunch of other unwanted crap, nor pester you to upgrade or any of that other shit that Acrobat does.
Reply
MagerValp said 8:02AM on 12-06-2006
Huy: Worked beautifully, thanks!
Reply
Steve L said 8:11AM on 12-06-2006
No installation issues here - disk image was downloaded, installer copied to the desktop and disk image deleted in about a minute. Just close the "beyond reader" screen and you're done. I assume no UB because that would mean a 40MB download. Plenty snappy on 2GHz iMac.
Now I'm waiting on M$ to get an intel version of office out, and the intel transition will be complete.
Reply
David said 8:17AM on 12-06-2006
Serious question. Why should I care? Preview seems to work very well for me and much faster than Acrobat Reader ever was on a PC. (I admit I haven't tried Acrobat reader on a Mac yet.) What does Acrobat Reader offer that Preview doesn't?
Reply
Nick said 8:23AM on 12-06-2006
As far as I'm concerned Adobe can keep its bloatware. I'd sooner use Preview.app. In fact, I tend to avoid Adobe Reader even on Windows, since there are lighter, cleaner options - one that'll even fit on a USB thumbdrive.
But it would be nice if more ISVs would offer separate PPC and Intel versions. Adobe obviously doesn't want to make its installer any bigger than it is *already*, which prolly says somethinmg about it's current size. But separate downloads *is* a nice thought. There's to much unusable cruft (including unwanted .lproj files) in too many OS X downloads already.
Reply
Jono said 8:47AM on 12-06-2006
I have to agree with David. I don't see the point of downloading/installing a different app when Preview already does it.
Maybe Reader has features that Preview doesn't, I don't know? But Preview 'reads' PDFs & that's all I want in a PDF reader.
Reply
Michel said 8:48AM on 12-06-2006
alas... there are some specialized functions of PDF only available in acrobat reader. for example pdf-forms.
but yeah, for all others pdf (from newspapers for example), I just love preview.
Reply
anonymous said 9:15AM on 12-06-2006
yep, sticking to Preview.app here, too. it's just so fast and easy. Downloaded and tried Reader - anyone know why they use those installers still?
The only things I would love to see in preview.app are
(a) better text selection
(b) text selection with one-button underlining.
(c) tabs (hey, i want tabbed family members)
Oh, I'd be so happy.
Reply
Josh said 9:40AM on 12-06-2006
Grrr...separate PPC/Intel versions?! What, does Adobe think no one in IT will be deploying this? Do they think IT managers *like* having to deploy 2 versions of the same software to just a certain subset of machines and having to keep track of which goes where?
Dumbasses...
Reply
JailerJoe said 10:31AM on 12-06-2006
Yeah that download manager really pi$$ed me off as well. And I don't get why anyone would want to use Reader anyway. It's bloatware that installs way too much crap all over your system.
Just say no to Reader.
Reply
Dave said 10:44AM on 12-06-2006
Yes, Preview is nice, but for work, sometimes, you do need Adobe.
As mentioned above, forms is one of the bigger issues - Preview will not work with PDFs created with Acrobat 7 (I think) with automated form boxes. I think the security options and permisssions and some other things are affected.
Oh well. Maybe Preview will be updated soon as well (or, at least with Leopard).
Reply
Archange11 said 11:01AM on 12-06-2006
Does Reader 8.0 allow me to view pdf's in the browser of Firefox on an Intel Mac? Schubert only works when Firefox runs in Rosetta mode, making it slow.
Reply