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Eug Wanker · Oct 26, 2006, 10:53 AM

Will there be a PowerPC version?

No. Apple is quickly moving its focus towards Intel Macs, and no longer sells Power PC systems in many places. By focusing on Apple's future, we have been able to bring this powerful application to the Mac platform much more rapidly, and with a stronger feature set.
Visit the Adobe Intel Mac FAQ for more information.

Lame.

::maroma:: · Oct 26, 2006, 11:56 AM

Frankly, coming from Adobe, I'm just glad to see them supporting Intel Macs at all. Don't have to wait for a year and a half for them to catch up on this one.

I'm excited for this thing to be finalized. In their marketing description they tout it as "built in the spirit of Sound Edit 16...". I LOVED Sound Edit 16! I was so sad when development stopped on that app. So I hope this one at least lives up to it.

Millennium · Oct 26, 2006, 12:09 PM

And so it begins.

mac128k-1984 · Oct 26, 2006, 12:35 PM

In some ways its probably understandable. I don't know what type of work it would require to create this as a UB (or PPC) program and with limited resources its understandable.

While I probably have little use for this app, it is encouraging that adobe is bringing it to the apple platform. Perhaps if more companies start moving to intel only compiled applications this may speed people to upgrade, kind of a win win situation for apple (but not for PPC owning consumer).

analogika · Oct 26, 2006, 01:14 PM

Originally Posted by Millennium

And so it begins.

Yes, the full and exclusive commitment to a long-term future.

I didn't think it would start this soon.

It was somewhat longer before things started coming out that were "PowerPC only", IIRC. Not *much* longer, though.

Eug Wanker · Oct 26, 2006, 01:42 PM

Originally Posted by analogika

Yes, the full and exclusive commitment to a long-term future.

I didn't think it would start this soon.

It was somewhat longer before things started coming out that were "PowerPC only", IIRC. Not *much* longer, though.

I didn't think it would start this soon either, at least from such a large company.

My main machines are Intel Macs, but I still find this lame. One friend learned this the hard way. His dual G5 Power Mac is too "old" to run this little app.

Chuckit · Oct 26, 2006, 01:48 PM

"Much more rapidly"? Just code properly in the first place and you won't have to slow down to fix it later.

mdc · Oct 26, 2006, 01:59 PM

I don't know much about programming, or what Adobe is using, but from Apple's mouth it's not difficult to create Universal Binaries.

Oh well. I'm not going to be using this anyway, but it does spur the question of who else is going to start doing this?

I can't see Apple making anything before 10.7 Intel only.

wr11 · Oct 26, 2006, 02:14 PM

Yeah, it's more likely a weakness in their development process. I think Adobe is getting a bit too big for it's britches these days.

Although I use PS and AI almost everyday I would seriously consider alternatives if they stacked up. Development on Adobe's main apps has been progressing at almost glacial speeds for too many years!

goMac · Oct 26, 2006, 02:34 PM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

"Much more rapidly"? Just code properly in the first place and you won't have to slow down to fix it later.

Has nothing to do with coding it properly. It takes time to do the byte swapping for the file format, memory stuff, etc.

goMac · Oct 26, 2006, 02:35 PM

Originally Posted by mdc

I don't know much about programming, or what Adobe is using, but from Apple's mouth it's not difficult to create Universal Binaries.

If you're writing in pure Cocoa it's easy (kinda), which trust me, for hardcore applications and cross platform stuff like Soundbooth, won't be happening.

Apple saying making Universal Applications is easy is kinda like when they said moving OS 9 apps to OS X is easy with Carbon. Ok, it's a bit easier, but it's along the same lines.

Millennium · Oct 26, 2006, 02:54 PM

Originally Posted by mac128k-1984

In some ways its probably understandable. I don't know what type of work it would require to create this as a UB (or PPC) program and with limited resources its understandable.

Limited resources? This is Adobe we're talking about here; there are very few companies out there with more resources. They could easily have made this Universal -this isn't a hardware driver we're talking about here- and the simple fact is that they chose not to.

Chuckit · Oct 26, 2006, 03:02 PM

Originally Posted by goMac

Has nothing to do with coding it properly. It takes time to do the byte swapping for the file format, memory stuff, etc.

How much time does it take to call a byte-swapping function? An extra day of work if your coders are really lazy and type slowly?

goMac · Oct 26, 2006, 03:08 PM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

How much time does it take to call a byte-swapping function? An extra day of work if your coders are really lazy and type slowly?

That's not the problem. How much time does it take to find everywhere you are supposed to byte swap, implement it, test it, and then test and make sure that a PowerPC machine doesn't cause any problems when it tries to send information/saved files to an Intel machine.

That's a lot of development time.

Not to mention it's probably going to be at least another year until this application is released to the public. By then PowerPC will even be more far gone.

Laurence · Oct 26, 2006, 03:41 PM

This is not an anomaly, within the next year, there will be many applications from major software vendors, not just Adobe, that will be Intel only. This is being done for many reasons, not the least of which is the improved speed of the Intel processors. I doubt that Adobe would release CS3 for Intel only since that is just an update to previous software, but any company starting from scratch, writing a completely new app (or porting a Windows, Intel only app!!) is very likely to limit the focus so debugging can be finished easier. It is also easier to code for one processor when you've been coding for Intel for years and are "used to it" It is partially laziness on the part of the coders, however this is to be expected from large companies as they have to get the largest return for their investment.

Remember how everyone complained about Aperture's original release due to its slowness, even on the Quad G5, It actually seems faster on the Core Duo iMac than the Quad G5. There has to be a reason for this, and if Apple can't make a good Universal binary for a new app, (which was obviously optimized for the Intel processors) we can't expect other companies to do any better.

The strange thing is Apple is currently selling the Quad G5 Powermac for MORE than the Quad Mac Pro on the refurb store. I can't imaging ANYONE buying one at this point with things like this happening.

goMac · Oct 26, 2006, 04:14 PM

Also I doubt they'll want to rewrite all that SSE code in Altivec.

Big Mac · Oct 26, 2006, 04:26 PM

Truly a shameful, ignominious day

goMac · Oct 26, 2006, 04:32 PM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

Truly a shameful, ignominious day

Why? We'll get more Mac ports faster the sooner PPC is dropped.

Chuckit · Oct 26, 2006, 04:34 PM

Heck, if they drop support for all models except Mac Pros, that's even less testing!

slugslugslug · Oct 26, 2006, 04:35 PM

Originally Posted by goMac

Also I doubt they'll want to rewrite all that SSE code in Altivec.

I thought there were vector APIs from Apple that automagically get compiled into both SSE and Altivec instructions by XCode. Are we assuming that Adobe is avoiding them because it's already writing SSE-specific code on the Windows side?

I, too, think this is a bit of a bummer, especially since it's plausible that a lot of the target market for this app aren't the folks buying new computers all the time. You'd think Apple is the only company in whose interests it is to make Intel-only OS X software, and they probably won't do that 'til iLife/iWork '08 at the earliest..

goMac · Oct 26, 2006, 04:38 PM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

Heck, if they drop support for all models except Mac Pros, that's even less testing!

Yeah, but that doesn't make sense. You can write code once for all Intel machines, but supporting PowerPC means writing significant chunks of the program twice. Universal binaries aren't magic. They'd have to rewrite any saving/opening files code, SSE code, a lot of algorithm code and audio handling code.

The whole application is basically an example of an application that is not a "check box job" for Universal Binaries. Universal Binaries are only easy to do if you are writing in pure Cocoa. I mean no C, no C++, no Carbon. Pure Objective C using the Cocoa API's. Otherwise porting can be significant work (unless your C code consists of Hello World).

goMac · Oct 26, 2006, 04:42 PM

Originally Posted by slugslugslug

I thought there were vector APIs from Apple that automagically get compiled into both SSE and Altivec instructions by XCode. Are we assuming that Adobe is avoiding them because it's already writing SSE-specific code on the Windows side?

If this is cross platform, probably not. Remember, those vector API's don't exist on Windows. Re-writing for Apple's vector API's means they'd still have to maintain two code bases, one on Windows, one on OS X, which is just as much work as maintaining two vector code bases for Altivec and SSE.

Big Mac · Oct 26, 2006, 04:53 PM

Originally Posted by goMac

Why? We'll get more Mac ports faster the sooner PPC is dropped.

Correction, we'll get more Mactel ports once Mac development is dropped.

goMac · Oct 26, 2006, 04:55 PM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

Correction, we'll get more Mactel ports once Mac development is dropped.

Dropping support for a platform supported by OS X is completely different then dropping support for Mac altogether.

What did you think was going to happen? PowerPC would continue living in a blissful utopia?

This application is quite aways from being on shelves. I don't know why the PowerPC folk have their panties in a wad. By the time this is released the PowerPC will have been gone for a while.

Big Mac · Oct 26, 2006, 05:05 PM

It hasn't even been a year since the introduction of the Mactels and the biggest Mac developer of them all is already pulling this crap. I hope Apple continues to grow market share, but as for me I'd rather get another Dell and hack OS X on it than buy a fake Mac.

goMac · Oct 26, 2006, 05:08 PM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

It hasn't even been a year since the introduction of the Mactels and the biggest Mac developer of them all is already pulling this crap. I hope Apple continues to grow market share, but as for me I'd rather get another Dell and hack OS X on it than buy a fake Mac.

You're talking about a program that's got at least a year to public release. So at the very least, this program will be released 2 years after the last PPC machine shipped. And for professionals, that's not so bad for requirements.

If they had to do a PPC version I bet they would just skip the Mac version period.

Big Mac · Oct 26, 2006, 05:15 PM

You're effectively saying that Apple's Universal Binary propaganda was completely hollow, as many of us expected. If that's truly the case Apple should start allowing generous trade-ins for all the Macs it orphaned when it killed the Mac platform.

OS X on a PC-in-Mac-case != Mac

goMac · Oct 26, 2006, 05:19 PM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

You're effectively saying that Apple's Universal Binary propaganda was completely hollow, as many of us expected. If that's truly the case Apple should start allowing generous trade-ins for all the Macs it orphaned when it killed the Mac platform.

OS X on a PC-in-Mac-case != Mac

Apple's Universal binaries were a stopgap for during the transition and shortly afterwards. I don't think anyone was ever under the impression that every application was going to be a Universal Binary from now until eternity.

Apple did the same thing with the transition to PowerPC. You had PowerPC only applications, and those who were on the 68k were left behind. We've known this was coming for over a year, and again, this application isn't out yet.

Gee, you have to upgrade your machine to run the latest and greatest Pro applications, which somehow you never ever had to do with the magical PowerPC? I don't get it.

Eug Wanker · Oct 26, 2006, 05:20 PM

Originally Posted by goMac

You're talking about a program that's got at least a year to public release.

All the more reason for a PPC release. They've got lots of time.

So at the very least, this program will be released 2 years after the last PPC machine shipped.

Apple is still shipping PPC machines TODAY. I suspect Apple will continue to sell them at least well into 2007, perhaps longer. Many professionals are buying them too, cuz apps like Adobe's own Photoshop run like crap on Intel Macs.

Big Mac · Oct 26, 2006, 05:22 PM

Originally Posted by goMac

Apple's Universal binaries were a stopgap for during the transition and shortly afterwards.

No, the Universal Binary is not presented as a stop-gap. Go read Apple's literature. Universal Binaries are supposedly easy enough to create and support that Mac support can continue for years to come.

goMac · Oct 26, 2006, 05:22 PM

Originally Posted by Eug Wanker

All the more reason for a PPC release. They've got lots of time.

Not enough to go back and start a second code base for PowerPC.

For unintensive basic applications, building a universal binary is easy. For performance Pro applications, that use every CPU optimization trick they can find, it's not easy to go Universal binary.

goMac · Oct 26, 2006, 05:24 PM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

No, the Universal Binary is not presented as a stop-gap. Go read Apple's literature. Universal Binaries are supposedly easy enough to create and support that Mac support can continue for years to come.

I went to WWDC 2005. I should know.

Universal Binaries are a stopgap, just as Fat binaries were a stop gap when Apple sold both 68k's and PowerPC's. With the amount of work it takes to go Universal, do you really think developers would continue creating Universal applications forever?

I don't think you remotely understand what it takes to create a universal binary. It's not just "click a check box and let XCode do the rest." I think you've been drinking the wrong kool-aid.

Big Mac · Oct 26, 2006, 05:27 PM

Well, then, Apple clearly lied. What about all those comments about finishing the code in a week and having to do very little else to support Macs and Mactels? Perhaps developers were told the truth behind closed doors, but Apple still lied (and continues to lie) to its end customers.

Eug Wanker · Oct 26, 2006, 05:28 PM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

Well, then, Apple clearly lied. Perhaps developers were told the truth, but Apple still lied (and continues to lie) to its end customers.

Actually they didn't, as far as I recall.

That doesn't make Adobe's decision here any more palatable though.

Originally Posted by goMac

Not enough to go back and start a second code base for PowerPC.

For unintensive basic applications, building a universal binary is easy. For performance Pro applications, that use every CPU optimization trick they can find, it's not easy to go Universal binary.

Who said anything about having to use every CPU optimization trick they can find? Even Apple doesn't always do that for older machines.

Chuckit · Oct 26, 2006, 05:33 PM

Originally Posted by goMac

Not enough to go back and start a second code base for PowerPC.

For unintensive basic applications, building a universal binary is easy. For performance Pro applications, that use every CPU optimization trick they can find, it's not easy to go Universal binary.

Yes, I suppose that must be why all of OS X and the Final Cut suite are still PowerPC-only.

Hey, wait…

goMac · Oct 26, 2006, 05:34 PM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

Well, then, Apple clearly lied. What about all those comments about finishing the code in a week and having to do very little else to support Macs and Mactels? Perhaps developers were told the truth behind closed doors, but Apple still lied (and continues to lie) to its end customers.

Apple said Universal Binaries are a good solution for shipping to both PowerPC and Intel Macs. But all a Universal Binary is is the Intel code and the PowerPC code stitched together so that they can be launched from the same application. That's it. If you're doing things that won't work on Intel, XCode is not going to fix that for you. You get to fix it yourself.

Apple never said publicly or behind closed doors that Universal Binaries were here to stay. I thought they made it clear it was a good way to support customers during the transition.

Developers have no interest in supporting two different platforms. I can't wait for the day when I can stop maintaining PowerPC code, but in the mean time, I'm putting in the extra work to keep my stuff running on both platforms nicely. For my Cocoa stuff, that's no trouble at all. Anything deeper and I start running into issues.

Chuckit · Oct 26, 2006, 05:38 PM

Originally Posted by goMac

Lazy developers have no interest in supporting two different platforms.

Fixed. Obviously, as Mac users, we have no interest in supporting lazy Windows developers like this.

goMac · Oct 26, 2006, 05:39 PM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

Yes, I suppose that must be why all of OS X and the Final Cut suite are still PowerPC-only.

Hey, wait…

In other words, the company that was working on the Intel version of OS X four years prior was ready for the Intel version of OS X pretty quickly. This isn't news.

Most of OS X's apps were Cocoa. Final Cut is Mac only so it was safe to use the Mac only API's.

Soundstage is not Cocoa, it is not Mac only so it can't use the Mac only API's. Conencidently, Apple's cross-platform not Cocoa application, iTunes, was way later than the other iApps in moving to Intel.

analogika · Oct 26, 2006, 05:41 PM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

It hasn't even been a year since the introduction of the Mactels and the biggest Mac developer of them all is already pulling this crap. I hope Apple continues to grow market share, but as for me I'd rather get another Dell and hack OS X on it than buy a fake Mac.

YEAH! **** the PowerPC!

680x0 forever!

A game console processor in a Mac case != a Mac!

If I want a G5, I'll buy a Playstation!

etc.

goMac · Oct 26, 2006, 05:41 PM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

Fixed. Obviously, as Mac users, we have no interest in supporting lazy Windows developers like this.

I'm not being lazy, I'm supporting both platforms. However, if I wasn't, this would make my life as easy as... oh I don't know... a Windows developer who just has to worry about one platform, or even an OS X developer from 2 years ago.

It entirely depends on what your application does. If your application is NewStickiesOnlyForMac Pro, you probably don't have to worry about it. If your application is IntensiveProApplicationForWindowsAndMac, it's going to be a big deal.

Hell, even the game porting houses are talking about ditching the PowerPC next year. Adobe is certainly not the first to discuss this.

Edit:

You have to understand. At least on my scale of applications, which is much smaller than Adobe's, it's not that it's painstakingly hard to write the PowerPC and Intel code, it's that I have to keep two machines around. I have to have two testing groups. I have to have two sets of bugs. I have to make sure changes in Intel specific code are mirrored in the PowerPC version. It's not nearly are pretty as it was when the Mac was one platform, and I really can't wait for the Mac to get back to one platform. It's not that I prefer coding for Intel over the PowerPC, I could care less. I just will be happy the day we're back on one chip.

analogika · Oct 26, 2006, 05:47 PM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

You're effectively saying that Apple's Universal Binary propaganda was completely hollow, as many of us expected. If that's truly the case Apple should start allowing generous trade-ins for all the Macs it orphaned when it killed the Mac platform.

It's not *that* difficult to grasp that the Universal Binary path was an outlook for those porting existing PowerPC apps to Intel.

Soundbooth wouldn't exist for the Mac AT ALL if it weren't for the Intel switch.

And please stop spouting this propaganda bullshit about the death of the Mac platform. That died in 1993, and it hasn't been in better shape than now since years before that.

Big Mac · Oct 26, 2006, 05:48 PM

Originally Posted by goMac

I'm not being lazy, I'm supporting both platforms. However, if I wasn't, this would make my life as easy as... oh I don't know... a Windows developer who just has to worry about one platform, or even an OS X developer from 2 years ago.

Then take it up with Apple. Don't punish end users because of Apple's defection and deception.

goMac · Oct 26, 2006, 05:49 PM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

Then take it up with Apple. Don't punish end users because of Apple's defection.

Why take it up with Apple? They're not getting rid of the ability to create Universal Binaries. It's simply that people are going to stop using it.

What do you want? Impossible computer science magic to make the same code work the same on both platforms?

Chuckit · 05:58 PM

Originally Posted by goMac

In other words, the company that was working on the Intel version of OS X four years prior was ready for the Intel version of OS X pretty quickly. This isn't news.

Most of OS X's apps were Cocoa. Final Cut is Mac only so it was safe to use the Mac only API's.

And I'm sure Adobe's dog ate its homework too.

All we've got in this thread are excuses — it's just too hard for the morons at Adobe to figure out when they're dealing with external data that they might have to byte-swap (seriously, WTF?), it's completely unreasonable for a big company to test code on different hardware, developers can't be expected to put forth the modicum of effort required to write byte-safe code, and Apple cheated when it did all these things. None of these amount to anything more than "programmers shouldn't be expected to be anything but lazy and stupid."

I find it annoying primarily because creative types will still be buying PPCs until right around the time this is released, what with how they decided to delay UB Photoshop, so it's really kind of a giant "**** you" to anybody who does creative work on a Mac. Yeah, it's a little bit more work to support PowerPC — but not that much.

analogika · Oct 26, 2006, 05:52 PM

Well, ADOBE certainly shouldn't...

goMac · Oct 26, 2006, 05:56 PM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

And I'm sure Adobe's dog ate its homework too.

All we've got in this thread are excuses — it's just too hard for the morons at Adobe to figure out when they're dealing with external data...

I don't think that's the problem...

Originally Posted by Chuckit

...it's completely unreasonable for a big company to test code on different hardware...

Owning computers is easy. Testing, fixing, and maintaining? Not so much.

Originally Posted by Chuckit

...developers can't be expected to put forth the modicum of effort required to write byte-safe code...

I'm not sure what "byte safe code" is, but I can assure you I never saw it in my classes. Do you have examples of "byte safe code"? Because the only thing I have is "code that has added functions with if statements and byteswaps to make the code run on other platforms." Code can't be inherently "byte-safe".

Originally Posted by Chuckit

and Apple cheated when it did exactly what I'm saying is impossible! None of these amount to anything more than "programmers shouldn't be expected to be anything but lazy and stupid."

I don't know what keynote you watched, but Steve explicitly said Cocoa was the only platform that got nearly for free compiles on Intel (excluding Java for obvious reasons). Steve then said Carbon would be more of a problem, which got some chuckles because developers knew exactly what he was talking about. A lot of things done in lower level languages than Cocoa are endian dependent. And sadly Cocoa isn't an option for Mac/Windows apps.

Eug Wanker · Oct 26, 2006, 05:58 PM

It's of course a business decision, and it's one that likely makes sense: They probably wouldn't make enough money off the extra work to justify it. Nonetheless, it's still quite disappointing, and one that won't win them any more Mac friends.

goMac · Oct 26, 2006, 06:09 PM

Originally Posted by Eug Wanker

It's of course a business decision, and it's one that likely makes sense: They probably wouldn't make enough money off the extra work to justify it. Nonetheless, it's still quite disappointing, and one that won't win them any more Mac friends.

I would guess a PowerPC version of this application would require a dual processor/dual core G5, which at that point means the only PowerPC users who would be able to use this app would be Powermac G5 owners anyway. Not a very large group for the amount of work that would have to be put into a PowerPC version.

mac128k-1984 · Oct 26, 2006, 07:23 PM

Originally Posted by Millennium

Limited resources? This is Adobe we're talking about here; there are very few companies out there with more resources. They could easily have made this Universal -this isn't a hardware driver we're talking about here- and the simple fact is that they chose not to.

That doesn't mean they have unlimited resources and they decided the cost was not worth investing so from that perspective yes limited resources. They only have so many employees and so much money to use for a specific product.

Laurence · Oct 26, 2006, 07:41 PM

It wouldn't surprise me if Apple has something to do with this. I'm sure Adobe gets all kinds of hardware/support deals from Apple and Apple wants everyone to buy a new Intel Mac. I for one think this is a good thing. If CS3 comes out for Intel macs only (I doubt this will happen) it would be a "good thing" This would force a major hardware upgrade for millions of users and surely some would defect and buy a Dell, but most wont. Mac users will, for the most part, continue to buy Macs. This has nothing to do with the hardware, but the OS. I still have a PPC mac (and a 68k Mac!), but I mainly use my new Intel Mac because its smaller, faster, quieter... and just plain better than the others. It cost less than $500 which is about the same as the upgrade price for the Creative Suite will be and I have a new machine for my new software and many old machines if I really want to run old software.