[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by olePigeon 

As long as the 64-bit version is a free upgrade to anyone who buys CS4 for OS X when it comes out, I don't see a huge problem.

CS4 -> CS5 (theoretically) being a free upgrade? Seriously? Do you know anything about Adobe and its pricing schemes?

[voodoo]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Nice. First pointing out that no one predicted the "obvious" axing of Carbon's 64-bit support ahead of time is a syllogism, and now pointing out that bundling something with Photoshop isn't the same as bundling something with an OS is a straw-man argument.

Color me confused.

In this case you can only blame yourself for your confusion, because you choose to be confused. First of all I never used the word syllogism in this thread up until this moment, so when constructing an argument against something I supposedly wrote, it would be far more effective to use something I actually wrote.

That said the deprecation of Carbon should have been no surprise to anyone, it sure was no surprise to me. That it would come in this form or another is irrelevant. You are right when you say that the drop of 64-bit Carbon support wasn't obvious, but the eventual demise of Carbon was.

Apple always intended Carbon to be a stop-gap measure for slow and 'conservative' (a euphimism) software companies to be able to make OS X apps from their existing OS 9 code in a relatively easy manner. The OS X API would always be Cocoa, as it was presented back in 1997 as 'Yellow Box'.

Refusing to accept that is your choice and the source for your confusion.

As for the straw-man argument, Photoshop is used by 90%+ of the creative community, much like Windows by the general public. The market that buys Photoshop for printing purposes will use Illustrator and either XPress or Indesign. Buying Photoshop and Illustrator seperately is certainly an option for $649+$599=$1248 or alternatively buy the Standard Design version of CS3 for $1199, which includes the aforementioned critical print design apps along with InDesign.

The option of choosing Photoshop only isn't an option because it is more expensive. Like it or not a print designer can't rely only on Photoshop and Quark. You're going to get Indesign, whether you need it or not, which is the way Adobe chose to push their 'Quark killer' upon the 90%+ of designers in the world. This is completely equivalent to Microsoft pusing Internet Explorer with their dominating OS to achieve marketshare.

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

How is that equivalent to bundling something with an OS? Windows is used by 90-some percent of the computer-using population,

I explained it above so clearly a child would understand it. Windows to your average corporation is as fundamental as Photoshop is to your average print designer.

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

and MS managed to get Apple to pre-install IE on their computers as well, so basically IE was preinstalled on pretty much every personal computer on earth,

Microsoft paid Apple good money for that privilege and actually delivered a decent browser, something that could not be said in defense of their own Windows counterpart. But that's neither here nor there.

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

other than the tiny minority who were running Linux on the desktop in the 1990s. If you think putting Adobe CS is equivalent to that, you're nuts.

The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off.

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Photoshop is an important app, but it doesn't even come close to having a 100% marketshare among personal computer users.

It does come close to 100% marketshare among designers who use computers.

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

And InDesign isn't even bundled with every copy of Photoshop - only the $1200 Creative Suite, which I certainly wouldn't buy if all I wanted was Photoshop, which is only $650 by itself, or perhaps even Photoshop Elements for $100.

Since this is only relevant to those who would also want a page setting application they need Photoshop/Distiller, Photoshop/Illustrator or Photoshop/Illustrator/Distiller and Quark XPress or Indesign. None of the Adobe combinations are cheaper than the $1199 CS. This means that whether designers like it or not, they'll get Indesign. Now should they spend extra $800 on XPress? Some will, but the new kids probably won't.

I'll just politely ignore your absurd suggestion that anyone should get Photoshop Elements for the Mac. Might as well go for GIMP. At least it's free and crappy.

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

And of course Quark/InDesign are marketed to a type of user who is far less likely to use something critical to their professional work just because it came with the computer for free anyway, and the people who need Quark/InDesign might not necessarily even be the same people who need Photoshop in the first place.

Which explains why Indesign never became the 'Quark killer', but I notice that very many younger designers are Quark illiterate. They've always worked with CS, even before they made anything critical and art-schools get a similarly lucrative deal on Indesign as CS buyers. Essentially they get it for free. A new generation is slowly accepting Indesign.

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Yes, InDesign has been making cross-roads into Quark's marketshare, but I don't think it's because of its being bundled in Adobe CS.

Setting aside the vocal Quark haters, I think that it is the main reason.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by voodoo 

Apple always intended Carbon to be a stop-gap measure for slow and 'conservative' (a euphimism) software companies to be able to make OS X apps from their existing OS 9 code in a relatively easy manner. The OS X API would always be Cocoa, as it was presented back in 1997 as 'Yellow Box'.

That's not what Apple has claimed publicly ever since Carbon was debuted. The stop-gap was Classic. Yes, Carbon was a compromise, but Apple always claimed that it was a compromise that made sense and that Carbon would be a first class citizen along with Cocoa on the new platform. You seem to be basing your view on the original outline for Rhapsody, not what OS X actually became. If you can show us official statements to the contrary, I'd be glad to cede the point to you. To his credit, Charles has made a compelling case that Carbon was receiving preferential treatment by Apple over Cocoa until Panther.

[voodoo]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

That's not what Apple has claimed publicly ever since Carbon was debuted. The stop-gap was Classic. Yes, Carbon was a compromise, but Apple always claimed that it was a compromise that made sense and that Carbon would be a first class citizen along with Cocoa on the new platform. You seem to be basing your view on the original outline for Rhapsody, not what OS X actually became. If you can show us official statements to the contrary, I'd be glad to cede the point to you. To his credit, Charles has made a compelling case that Carbon was receiving preferential treatment by Apple over Cocoa until Panther.

It was discussed at WWDC 1998, and texts from that era are hard to find, but here's a snippet:

In a session on YellowBox, Ken Bereskin, Jordan Dea-Mattson and others made
it clear that YB is the advanced future OS and that Carbon is a stopgap for
people with existing Mac code. Bereskin went so far as to say that if one
were to start from scratch, then YB is the way to go.

YB = Yellow Box or what we now know as Cocoa.

Re: Leftover questions...

[voodoo]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

To his credit, Charles has made a compelling case that Carbon was receiving preferential treatment by Apple over Cocoa until Panther.

Maybe he can convince reality that it just made an honest mistake?

My point being, this isn't really up for discussion. Apple deprecated Carbon at WWDC 2007, completely in-line with Apple's original intentions. Both Charles and I know well that maintaining two seperate APIs wasn't going to be the long term solution and he expected them to merge.

Perhaps there were ideas of such nature, but obviously they never came to fruition and when 2007 arrives and 10 years have passed since Rhapsody was introduced and Carbon was being put together the choice was made to phase one of the APIs out.

Did it have to be now? Of course not. But it was inevitable that either the two merger or one fades out, the end result had to be one API remaining. I guess Apple just felt that resources would be better spent elsewhere and however inconvenient, software companies would adapt if they had to.

Very few have to, and those that do, are. Adobe included. There is no foreseeable need for 64-bit Office. Carbon is still there, just not 64-bit. In ten years I expect all apps to be written with 64-bit memory addressing by default and in Cocoa.

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by MacosNerd 

Problem is that PS is pretty much THE application in the graphic world and who in their right mind would dump PS and buy a brand new, graphics program. Just because they can doesn't mean they should, or that it would be successful.

I wasn't saying this will happen over night.
Look at iView (before Aperture was released): it went from (essentially) a cheap shareware-type of app to a full-fledged professional program within a few years. Or InDesign: it's now a very serious threat to Quark. Nobody claims that any competitor to Photoshop will be able to replace it over night, but after a few versions it will be a serious competitor.

Originally Posted by MacosNerd 

I think also there's something to be said to have a large group of software companies writing applications for the platform. If apple becomes the one and only source of applications for the macintosh, it will be in trouble.

I absolutely agree. That's one reason I think it's not a good idea for Apple to buy Adobe.

Originally Posted by MacosNerd 

Apple does need to have MS office and photoshop (and other apps) to be considered a serious alternative to a PC. If a consumer wants a computer and finds out that office is not available, they will bypass it. Simple as that.

Exactly, Apple needs a good ecosystem.

Originally Posted by MacosNerd 

On the carbon front, I really don't think apple is going to be killing it off, too much work has been invested in improving it over the years to only throw it away. I'm not sure why apple killed 64bit carbon but it may not be killing it off as much as delaying it.

I think they were pretty clear that they don't want to bring out 64 bit Carbon -- unless they are forced to change direction. But most new Mac developers use Cocoa, mostly only old apps that have their roots in OS 9 are using Carbon.

From Apple's point of view it makes sense: they focus on one API instead of two that can be used interchangeably. I guess the honchos at Apple felt that this was a good point in time to stop development in one important area of Carbon.

[OreoCookie]

To add to Voodoo's source: just have a look at the intro of OS X, Steve also explicitly said that Carbon was a compromise, a stop-gap solution to port old OS 9 apps to OS X with relative ease, but that all new development should be done in Cocoa.

None of the Mac developers I know personallly (I know quite a few) were surprised.

[Big Mac]

Apple has been sending decidedly mixed messages then. I can blame Adobe for many things, but I can't blame Adobe for taking Apple at its word that Carbon would go 64-bit.

[voodoo]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

Apple has been sending decidedly mixed messages then.

The message is and has always been: Carbon is exists, it works and you can use it, but don't rely on it for the future.

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

I can blame Adobe for many things, but I can't blame Adobe for taking Apple at its word that Carbon would go 64-bit.

Agreed, nor do I blame them for that. However, when Apple was working on 64-bit Carbon Adobe had no known plans for 64-bit Photoshop, because Adobe claimed it had to have a common codebase with Windows, and it wasn't until a while after Apple nixed 64-bit Carbon that Adobe declares its intentions of making 64-bit Photoshop.

To reiterate questions read on the internets:

Adobe has said for years that they couldn't introduce Mac-specific technologies to Creative Suite because the Suite had one codebase and had to be cross-platform.

So why is the PC getting 64-bitness if the Mac can't?

Suddenly the 'common codebase' dogma isn't that holy any longer. Food for thought.

[MacosNerd]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

I think they were pretty clear that they don't want to bring out 64 bit Carbon -- unless they are forced to change direction. But most new Mac developers use Cocoa, mostly only old apps that have their roots in OS 9 are using Carbon.

I agree but there are others in this thread that are trying postulate the opposite. So far their arguments while substantive have not offered any true proof that apple is killing off carbon. While not producing is a 64 bit carbon framwork, is unfortunate, its does not mean the end of carbon.

Then of course there are people who have an irrational attitude that adobe produces poor software and are a footnote in todays graphic sector. This of course has no basis on reality.

[OreoCookie]

Apple is not killing Carbon, it's just doesn't add one new feature (64 bit) to it.
I'm honestly surprised that people seemed to have been convinced that Apple would actively develop two APIs instead of one. They have made it easier and easier for programmers with an existing Carbon code base to use some Cocoa.

Since most of Photoshop should be cross-platform code (well, the important stuff anyway), how much difficult Carbon code does it actually contain? And how is rewriting Shake, for instance, less difficult than rewriting Photoshop?

[TETENAL]

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by voodoo 

Adobe has said for years that they couldn't introduce Mac-specific technologies to Creative Suite because the Suite had one codebase and had to be cross-platform.

That doesn't really seem to be the case. Photoshop supports AltiVec, and I'm pretty sure there aren't any Windows PCs running on PowerPC chips.

Originally Posted by voodoo 

So why is the PC getting 64-bitness if the Mac can't?

Because the Mac UI library they're linking against won't allow them to compile it as 64-bit. It's not like they're writing a whole new 32-bit Photoshop just to prevent the Mac from being able to run in 64-bit mode — they're still keeping the same codebase as the 32-bit Windows version, as far as I can tell.

[voodoo]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

That doesn't really seem to be the case. Photoshop supports AltiVec, and I'm pretty sure there aren't any Windows PCs running on PowerPC chips.

I said that was their story and they have stuck to it. Adobe claims a common codebase and feature parity in all cross-platform apps ever since the mid-90s or so. Go tell them that they don't.

Add to that, the actual processor is not Mac specific, only the hardest PPC fanatics have been claiming that. A code can be compiled for different processors. A PPC is the equivalent to an x86 and at least the latest of both support 64-bit apps, AltiVec the equivalent of MMX.

Both OSs and architectures, Mac and Wintel, can handle 64-bit apps. As explained before, this would mean that if Macs had AltiVec and Wintels had nothing then Adobe would not make their apps Altivec aware. Such is (was) their policy. Feature parity and common codebase.

This is one of the reasons Adobe apps look like ass and have their own built in VM machine, font rendering and even their own custom Adobe help. Feature parity and common codebase.

Until now. Windows is getting a different treatment. Were the tables turned, you could bet your life-savings Adobe would not be making PS 64-bit for the Mac only. That's they hypocracy being pointed out.

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

Because the Mac UI library they're linking against won't allow them to compile it as 64-bit. It's not like they're writing a whole new 32-bit Photoshop just to prevent the Mac from being able to run in 64-bit mode — they're still keeping the same codebase as the 32-bit Windows version, as far as I can tell.

Well wow. I gosh darn golly henny penny just didn't think of that possibility. Are you tired or something? I know full well why Adobe isn't doing 64-bit Mac PS, but they are breaking their own policy by making the 64-bit Windows PS because they can't have a common codebase on that with the Mac.

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

At least DVD Studio Pro, iMovie, iPhoto and iDVD. Aperture has been written in Cocoa as well. Since I don't use DVD Studio Pro, I'm not sure whether its complexity is really comparable to Final Cut.

Fat much help did that do. DVD Studio Pro is sluggish even on a Mac Pro. Never mind the fact that it was left untouched when the rest of the suite was upgraded for Studio 2.

Which I guess pretty much dismantles any arguments from the "Cocoa is the magic bullet" camp.

[voodoo]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

Fat much help did that do. DVD Studio Pro is sluggish even on a Mac Pro. Never mind the fact that it was left untouched when the rest of the suite was upgraded for Studio 2.

Which I guess pretty much dismantles any arguments from the "Cocoa is the magic bullet" camp.

This is also my experience, that Cocoa apps are generally noticably slower than Carbon apps. They feel more sluggish and heavy.

They may be easier to develop and bugfix, but faster they are not.

[Dark Goob]

Does anyone actually need 64-bit in Photoshop? I mean, do you realize what size of image file would necessitate 64-bit addressing??? Seriously, unless you're working with like, hundreds of layers and gigapixel resolutions, which is just insanity, then it just doesn't matter. I'm sure Adobe realizes that having 64-bit is just not a priority in an image editing application.

Let me also point out: if you are running the 64-bit version of Vista, then you cannot run 32-bit versions of applications. And if you want your computer to even see more than 3.x GB of RAM, you'll need the 64-bit version. So, as you can see, there's a compelling reason for Adobe to make a 64-bit version of Photoshop for Windows. However on the Mac, even if Photoshop is technically a 32-bit app, AFAIK it can still see as much of your physical RAM as it wants to; it's never had a problem using up more than 4GB of my hard drive, why would it matter with RAM? Can't it just break it up into chunks of 4GB or smaller?

I mean it's not like Photoshop is, say, Digidesign Pro Tools, where 64-bit is super critical since you really need to use more than 4GB of RAM at the same EXACT time for recording, say, 64 tracks of "high definition" audio at the same time, whilst running effects on it etc.

Oh yeah and, everybody wants everything to be in Cocoa since they have boners for it. Not everything needs to be done in object-oriented programming, which is unnecessarily complicated, and is a bunch of snake-oil. Procedural FTW. And if Photoshop ever starts to look remotely like a horrific Apple iApp, just because they just haaaad to do it in XCode, then I will shoot myself in the head because my childhood will be ruined forever.

I'd rather it stayed 32-bit forever than for it to lose its soul to Apple's mindnumbing crapola interface. Because the highest megapixel camera that exists right now is about 40mp, and even at 48-bit depth, that's only a 240MB image. You can still do 16 layers of such an image within 32-bit, but seriously, who cares if you have to wait until CS5 for more than that? If you really have a 40-megapixel camera, then I applaud you sir, charge your client by the hour and make sure they know it's Adobe's fault their work is taking longer to put out because it only runs in 32-bit. I mean, really.