Photoshop for OS X 398
MolGOLD writes: "Well, finally OS X users are getting their wish: Adobe has finally made good on their promise to bring native OS X support to their graphical applications. C|Net is running a story on the upcoming version of Photoshop, which will feature native OS X support. Now that Photoshop 7 will run natively under OS X, will we see companies like Macromedia (who also promised native OS X support) hurry along to follow suit?"
weird idea maybe (Score:1, Interesting)
...and there was much rejoicing. (Score:5, Interesting)
UNIX/Linux/BSD is neato, but I failed math, suck at logic, and can't grep to save my life. I'd like to play around with it and learn it, but I have no real reason to- and my experience with Free Software has been pretty nasty- I bitch about nonexistant intallers, suck-ass window managers, poor hardware support, and I'm told "FIX IT YOURSELF!"... and as a non programmer, I'd rather stick with something that already works for me to begin with.
Apple has brought UNIX to the desktop. Now I can run all of my happy fun day to day tasks and learn the bash (well, ZSH), discover the joys of suing to root and doing a kill 0 to see what happens, and generally have the best of both worlds. I see this as being rather relevant, really- if the company known for making "idiot friendly" machines can make UNIX useable for an idiot (or those of us that know a few lines of HTML, Lingo and BASIC)...and the companies that support that company port their apps.... then what the hell is keeping the rest of the world from following suit? Hmm?
Hell. With OS X, I can run Apache, X-11 apps, Gimp, Photoshop, Maya, Combustion, Quake.... dear gods, it can do absolutely EVERYTHING I NEED. I only need to run ONE OS for all of my art geek and computer geek needs. Hot damn. THAT is relevant.
Re:NO (Score:2, Interesting)
Just because an app runs in OS X doesn't mean it's automatically Cocoa - most apps ported from OS 9 to X use Carbon, which, while it can still be a task, takes nowhere near the time it would take to port to Cocoa.
You won't see any OS X app running on *ix/X anytime soon.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if you are proved wrong within a year. With OS X infiltrating the hardcore *ix crowd, it's only a matter of time before someone climbs the Carbon learning curve and ports some cool stuff over. I suggest you educate yourself a little on the Carbon/Cocoa difference before you go batting others down.
Why did it take so long? (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't know about the rest of the community, but while these features will be nice (I guess) the feature I REALLY wanted was running natively on OSX. And that has taken some time for Adobe to deliver.
When OSX came out, everyone asked "Great, when do we get Photoshop to run natively" Adobe's response was "We're not going to change our software release schedule, just because Apple has released a new OS."
Which from a business perspective seems a little weird, why not do a OSX port and charge people for it. There would be no shortage of customers willing to pay.
They chose not to. Ok fine but it seems like quite a long time ago, especially since a year ago, (don't remember, maybe it was 2 years ago) they showed an alpha version of PS 6 running at WWDC, that had been ported to OSX by one of the project managers. One person! And a self-admitted "average" coder. Said it took him a couple of weekends.
I can only guess that there was a heck of a lot of more work to do to create a good carbon app than Apple and Adobe originally led us to believe. Or maybe an earlire release just didn't fit Adobe's financial schedule.
Also of note. Lately Adobe has gotten in this bad habit of "announcing" new software, but not actually having it available, and then slipping on that date as well. See Adobe GoLive as an example. All kinds of press about it's release, a lot of users thinking its available for immediate purchase and use. Not the case though, still not shipping yet. Hopefully Photoshop will not take a similar course. They are saying April as of now.
Re:...and there was much rejoicing. (Score:4, Interesting)
Again - what's the point?
The point is the right tool for the job.
As you clearly point out in your post, "... I like being able to choose my own processor and motherboard and then the case I want to put it in...", you have a much higher comfort level with computer technology then does Solios.
Thus the right tool is a Mac because that is what works for him/her.
It is not clear if you have ever used a Mac for any length of time. And your comment, "... and I'm proud to say not one is a Mac ..." makes clear your anti-Mac bias. So despite claims to the contrary it would appear that you avoid Macs not because you don't see the point but because you don't like Macs.
I don't know how many computers there are in a bunch. I have four on my home network. Two Macs and two PCs. I run Mac OS (9 and X) apps, Linux apps, Windows apps, Darwin apps, and even the occasional Palm app (via an emulator).
My prefered system is my TiBook running OS X which also allows me to run OS 9 and Darwin apps. I've installed VPC on it and can run Windows apps as well (albeit slowly).
For me the TiBook is the right tool for the job. And as I said above, that is the point.
Steve M
OS X still in it's infancy (Score:3, Interesting)
I mean, is it polished? yes. Is it solid? yes. Is it ready for the people? it already has been. But OS X is basically a new OS and some kinks are still getting worked out. A lack of serious apps, like Photoshop, was one of those kinks that needed to be worked out and it's a good thing that it's being worked out now.
I can't wait for OS Z!
Re:Big day for Apple (Score:5, Interesting)
This holds back adoption of OS X because there's no compelling reason to invest in cocoa for such a small base and even carbon can be put off until you start getting requests for it. Well, now all those artists are going to start swapping over and that's going to make it easier to shift the programmers as well.
Upping the OS X adoption rate and moving forward with their competitive strategy is important for Apple because it provides unique abilities that you don't get on Windows boxen (like system wide spell checking for all Cocoa apps). It's going to be nice to be able to have functionality bought once and spread throughout your application irregardless of vendor. Apple wants us to get to that nice world fast because *that's* going to get a lot more boxes sold.
Remember, Apple is a hardware company, not a software company. They like OS X primarily because it's a driver of their hardware sales, and only secondarily because of the money they get directly from it.
They need to sell more boxes because if they get to a magic point, one very clear advantage will appear, PPC chips are smaller and cheaper to produce at like volumes. At that point, Macs will not only become the easier to use alternative, they will become the cheaper alternative as well.
Re:Adobe vs. Corel -- I'll take Corel, please (Score:5, Interesting)
Tried The GIMP but wasn't impressed -- struck me as too much like an update of PaintBrush. Oh well.
Re:Macromedia & OSX (Score:2, Interesting)
They'll devote a few people to Mac stuff now and then --you know throw a bone to the Mac people-- but for a company that started out Mac, their efforts are pretty lame especially when you get into the top of their higher level tools like Director and Authorware. It's pathetic that Authorware has become almost totally MS Windows(TM) focused to the point that you have to do your design work in Windows even if you're going to build your project with a Mac runtime if you plan on using one of the more recent versions of the product.
From what I've gotten off their corporate news server, that's the way THEY like it. They take a rather dismissive view of Mac in their Director/Authorware discussion groups and boy don't you even mention Linux unless you want to get all these communist stereotypes laid on ya. I wouldn't hold my breath for innovation from Macromedia on the Mac despite the similarity in the names and the former association that was implied by that connection.
The only solution is a decent icon/flow control development package for Linux, but we're still a long way from that. Until then, Macromedia is the solution to Microsoft's problems, not Mac's or Linux's.
Re:Macromedia & OSX (Score:1, Interesting)
Flash 6 (mm_corp() has renamed all their new stuff to MX)-- Flash MX, DW MX, Fireworks MX should be out next month - and from what i know, they all run native in OSX
Re:other neat features (Score:2, Interesting)
How refreshing.
Re:Big day for Apple (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, I know certain average users who won't buy Apple machines today because they think they're primarily for video editing, something they're simply not interested in. Most users still (and a few years ago, when the iMac became a hit) want decent Internet. I know, this flies in the face of most internet appliance sales, but the predominant thing I hear is "I want to do word processing, a few games, and get on the net".
I see Macromedia going the other way (Score:2, Interesting)
Why it took so long... (Score:4, Interesting)
1. Carbonizing seemed easy, at first. When they demoed their "Carbonized" version of PS back in the day, there was really nothing to it. All they had to do was modify the non-complying API calls. However, since OS X's paradigm shifted so much, they also had to remake a lot of the interface to conform and work with Aqua. That is a very difficult proposition when you have a program with a code base such as PS.
2. Their apps also seem to have a lot of legacy 68k-centric code. While I'm certainly not an expert in OS X programming, I'm sure that it doesn't help to have 68k-based instructions when you're trying to have your program run on a modern PPC-based operating system with a new set of APIs. It just doesn't make things easy.
3. Trying to develop Carbonized apps is a difficult proposition because the API isn't set in stone. When the "Carbonization is easy" thing was first floated, most folks probably didn't think it was going to be still under development. A lot of people have likened it to a moving target. I would agree from my point of view, because if you don't know what is going to change from one CarbonLib revision to another, life becomes a bitch
There are probably many inaccuracies in this posting, but from my point of view, Adobe isn't completely to blame. Right now, I'm just keeping my fingers crossed and hope it was worth the wait.
Nitpick alert! (Score:1, Interesting)
Regardless [dictionary.com] of what you may have heard, "irregardless" [dictionary.com] is not a word. See also: "irrespective" [dictionary.com].
Re:Why it took so long... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Macromedia & OSX (Score:1, Interesting)
With all that, though, Macromedia still sells about 60/40 Windows/Mac. I think what makes it hard to judge is that it's not uniform across all their products. Some products are heavily Windows or Windows-only, especially after the Allaire merger.
Also, I know from talking to other Dreamweaver users that there are a LOT of them who are going to Mac OS X. Having Apache and UNIX right there is hard to resist for the heavy code-jockies, especially on a 1" thick notebook with FireWire, Wi-Fi, a combo drive, and 5-hour battery life built-in.