Adobe and Apple, is it all over

[Roger Howard]

On Fri, October 6, 2006 12:41 pm, Chad Leigh wrote:
>
> On Oct 6, 2006, at 1:23 PM, Roger Howard wrote:
>
>> And what does Contribute have to do with it? Or rather, how does the
recent release change any of this? I don't get the connection, but I've
>> been known to be dense!
>
> The bit about Contribute 4 is this:  It seems to not be a Universal
Binary even though we are a good 9 months in to the Intel transition and
they had 1/2 year or more previous to that of warning and this is a
major release (every expected the major releases to be where they
(Adobe) go to intel / universal binaries and it didn't happen.

I guess I missed that part in the article. I see it now:

"So, some see the delay of Universal Binary versions of software in the
Apple market as being a way of punishing Apple for entering its core
market. And sending clear signals to Apple that it is not happy with the
situation. Certainly the release of Contribute 4, a major update, and not
providing support for Apple’s new platform indicates one of two things,
either Adobe lacks the skills and engineers to carry out the transition,
or perhaps that it will not move to Universal Binary apps for anything but
its core applications."

I think this is a false dichotomy; it doesn't have to be one of these two
options. I also wouldn't extrapolate what happens with former Macromedia
products to apply to Adobe products; they are still largely distinct
product lines, dev teams, etc, so what happens to Contribute probably has
little to say about what happens to CS3. I don't remember Adobe saying
anything yet about when those products will go native.

>
>> -Rh
>> And yeah, the suggestion that CI and QE will make Photoshop
>> development
>> easier is simply asinine.
>
> That is not the point.  The point is, (and it may be way off base), that
it makes it easier for others to make a photoshop replacement if Adobe
doesn't get on the boat, not that it makes it easier for Adobe.

This is just as stupid; QE and CI won't make a Photoshop replacement any
more likely to succeed than it would be without it. Sure, it'll be easier
to develop, though suggesting that if Adobe doesn't ramp up its timeline
Apple can just knock out a PS replacement is insanely naive. It's an
entrenched app, and no matter how sexy, powerful, cheap, early and native
an alternative comes out it won't replace Photoshop anywhere, and we all
know it.

That is, unless Adobe never updates Photoshop again, but that's a very
unlikely scenario. They've committed to it; yes, it'll be much later than
we all would like. But this article just strikes me as empty mumblings.

Note, I'm not defending Adobe's universal plans; they should have been
working to move to XCode years ago to make the inevitable transition
easier (if it wasn't for Apple's Intel move there still would have been  -
they've always said what a critical platform Mac OS is for them, and they
should have seen this coming. I'm sure they didn't just catch wind of
Apple going Intel last summer.