No, I think any serious professional artist, photographer or designer is going to wait anyway - to see that the Intel Macs are stable. I don't know anyone who would risk their work, clients and reputation just to get the brand new MacBook. Besides, most fo them are on desktops anyway.

I think "ASAP' was the right thing to do with the Intel switch. Anything to get the transition over with as quick as possible is a good thing. The truth is, the first MacBook is kind of a Beta. The first rev. of a Mac always is.

+

Given that Adobe's OS X-native InDesign blew laggard Quark out of the water when Macs transitioned to OS X, I highly doubt they'd let their flagship Creative Studio take a back seat to Quark with the Intel transition. Not for long, anyway. My money's on Universal Adobe CS2 this spring. Despite some naysayers in the press, Adobe's been extremely good to its Mac pro customers...at least this one.

Plus, just how fast would Photoshop run via Rosetta on a MacBook Pro? Maybe too slow for Steve and for those coming from a G5 Quad, but what about those of us still happily, and professionally, plugging away in single-CPU G4 Land? I can't imagine Photoshop under Rosetta on an Intel MacBook Pro running any slower than it does on my 800Mhz G4 tower, and I'm sure many pros -- like me -- have held off major CPU upgrades pending Intel Macs.

Now...if any of those pros out there can actually afford a MacBook Pro (sadly, I am not yet one of them!), let us know how well Photoshop runs in March!

If you are a pro, you most likely NEVER buy a rev 1 of ANYTHING to replace your current system. The sooner they made this announcement the better. This is like when he rolled out the casket to proclaim OS 9 dead . . . . word to all software vendors: get off your a$$es. Adobe just needs to step up as scheduled and all wil be good. If not, it's not Steve-o's fault.

Sure a native version Photoshop would of been nice. And I'm sure that there are some people who use Photoshop on a laptop everyday. But I wonder how many of those people actually exist and are ready to buy a new laptop. Would it be enough to hold a new product launch for?

Maybe this addition of MacBook Pro isn't so Pro. Even so, it looks to be quite a capable laptop. Having a tangible product for sale will show developers that the game plan to move forward with Intel processors is going well and should be enough for Adobe (and others) to get native or universal apps out by next upgrade cycle.

I'm holding off as well in buying and feel with the current reviews of the new imac its not worth buying at the moment unless you need one.

I figure with apple releasing aperture and of course taking away adobe premiers market, adobe must be really pissed that apple is trending in their waters so there must be more than meets the eye here.

Also most pro's using photoshop use desktops not imacs and without new powermacs available why would adobe hurry to create universal libraries. I'm waiting till september.

Quote

"While times have indeed changed, and not everything from that era applies now, if sales for the MacBook Pro are slower than expected, Jobs may wish he had remembered his own words from 1997, and delayed the launch until an Intel-native version of Photoshop was ready."

That's just stupid. First of all, when did Apple ever allow a 3rd party software vendor dictate their hardware release schedule? What if Abobe delivers the universal binary for Photoshop a year late? Isn't having the equipment out there and in the hands of professionals the best way to light a fire under Adobe's butt? Especially with universal versions of Aperture and Quark coming out soon?

On top of that, the MacBook Pro is the replacement to the PowerBook. Last time I checked, the PowerBooks run Photoshop like crap, probably almost as bad as on the MacBook Pro under Rosetta, so considering what people are upgrading from, the MacBook Pro will be at worst, just as good for PhotoShop in the short term, but much faster in the long term. If someone isn't confortable with the performance of PhotoShop, they can always buy a PowerBook or PowerMac which are still available last time I checked.

The MacBook Pro is already seeing far higher demand than expected, so I don't think Jobs is going to be wishing anything except that they could build then quicker to keep up with the demand.

The movie was Pirates of Silicon Valley, not Triumph of the Nerds. Triumph was out way before the Apple MS deal, while PoSV "memorialized" the moment you are referring to.

There are people who don't use Photoshop. Does the author realize this?

Thanks for the note, DanielDecker. I should have caught that during editing, but the piece has been corrected accordingly.

I just use my PB in my business and could care less about Photoshop. Lots of us are like that. The new name might be one cause of confusion - I think it's because the PB will be MacBook Pro and the iBook will be MacBook.

If Photoshop users are 10% of the PB market then 9 out of 10 MacBook Pro users are going to be very happy with the MacBook Pro and the remnants will be happy when Adobe delivers. The growing backorder for the MacBook Pro seems to support that.

As for Adobe, they will hard a work, but it is my understanding that there is a lot of stuff in Photoshop that is very old and will need to be dragged to modern times. That will take a while.

Excuse my pointing this out: do you mean "I [...]could care less", or "I [...] couldn't care less". The former implies that you do care. [/pedant]

I agree with your second paragraph, but I would take it further - if Photoshop users are 10% of the PB market, then at least 9 out of 10 users are going to be happy.

As an aside about compatibility - I assume that Carbon apps (am I right in thinking that Photoshop is Carbon) run fine under (or over) Rosetta?

this article is poopy, poopy I say.

delaying the release of intel macs would have done nothing for either adobe or apple except lose money. while important, the professional photoshop market is only part of the ever-increasing mac user-base, and that market would have to wait regardless of whether apple released the intel macs a week ago or when universal photoshop comes out.

mac sales were not near as high as they could have been the last half of 2005, because people were holding off, waiting for the new intel macs before commiting themselves to a depricated platform. releasing the intel macs now gives those people a reason to spend their money.

ilife and iwork are already native on intel, the apple pro apps will be in a couple months, and many other developers will be finished making the transition very soon. besides, this will also whip other deveolpers' asses into overdrive, so that they can get their universals compiled and shipping.

this may actually do good things for adobe-- getting intel macs in the hands of the people will only make the early adopters ever-ready to get their hands on universal photoshop when it comes out, and that will generate lots of sales for adobe.

Quote

LaurieF wrote:
As an aside about compatibility - I assume that Carbon apps (am I right in thinking that Photoshop is Carbon) run fine under (or over) Rosetta?

I guess it depends on what you mean by "fine."

The iMac benchmarks by Macworld show that Rosetta runs about half as fast as the same app on the iMac G5 released in December.

I wouldn't say that's "fine" at all.

On the other hand, half speed of an iMac G5 may actually be about what the current top-of-the-line PB is currently running at.

This is silly. Should Apple have sat by while sales were negatively impacted and Adobe got around to releasing PhotoShop as a universal binary...or should Apple release what it has now for all of those who don't run PhotoShop, or can run it under Rosetta and let those pros who need the speed wait?

It's kind of a no brainer if you're Apple or a customer.

But, I will respond anyway.
No! Steve is correct and Mike is wrong.

Both Intel-based products demonstrate that Apple is on track for this CPU transition. This is VERY important. Good performance today is so much better than better performance tomorrow.

I use Photoshop every day. However, most of my files are less than 1 MegaByte. The new MacBook Pro sounds fast enough for me.

It is more important (in my opinion) that all my software runs rather than exactly how fast each runs. So, running Photoshop and Illustrator and Acrobat and Dreamweaver is a huge plus (even if slower). Not running Virtual PC is a huge negative.

,dave

The pros who will be affected by speed issues are those who 1) work with very large files (several MB) that they do a lot of alterations to, not just minor editing, but things like applying complex filters, rotating images, resampling to a different pixel size, etc., or 2) process many images in a batch mode (e.g., wedding photographers). That can take a long time, even on a current G5 iMac. Those folks are going to be using dual G5 PowerMacs. They're not prime candidates for an iMac or a 15-inch laptop.

True Photoshop professionals know they really need to run Photoshop on a desktop Power Mac not a Notebook computer! The writer of this article obviously is not a photoshop professional

True Photoshop professionals know they really need to run Photoshop on a desktop Power Mac not a Notebook computer! The Power Mac has the bulky horsepower to deal with huge file workloads. The writer of this article obviously is not a photoshop professional so his analysis is flawed.

Actually, he is paying Apple a compliment since this is the first time that I have begun to see comments that Photoshop can be adequately run on
ANY Laptop for true professional heavy duty use. To make the reference about the Intel Mac suggests, that at some time in the very near future, it may make good sense for ANY Photoshop professional to use the new Intel MacBook Pro. You cannot say that for any OTHER laptop at this time!

I am and have been director of a group of Photoshop Professionals for 9 years and our company sells a database publishing engine to customers in the U.S. and Canada. We have had ample opportunity to benchmark real world applications of Photoshop. We can tell you which machines run Photoshop best and what configurations to use on those machines for optimal performance.

Never, have we seen any laptop as adequate for this task.

Not until the announcement of the IntelMacBook Pro. It just MAY be the only and the first laptop that we can recommend to our large customer base as acceptable for professional use. Note: We are not recommending it at this time for Professional use but certainly will give it a hard look once the Universal version of Photoshop is released.

And yes, IF we are not correct, I can guarantee that we will hear from our large customer base!

Later Gator!

Apple made the only reasonable choice. Enough said

Quote

Guest wrote:
I figure with apple releasing aperture and of course taking away adobe premiers market, adobe must be really pissed that apple is trending in their waters so there must be more than meets the eye here.

I figure Apple treaded in Adobe's waters because Adobe persistently showed little interest in properly addressing the Apple market. For Adobe, it has been all about lowest common denominator programming and interfaces.

I don't blame Apple for creating applications that truly exploit the superior technologies and APIs its operating system provides. Good for Apple.

The interesting thing is that Adobe's response to Aperture--Lightroom--is the first true Mac application it has made in years. Everything else is just a late-to-market port of the Windows version.

Is Adobe finally getting the message?

YEAH. What would it take, ten billion?

I'm not a professional user , but even I'm waiting for the second version of the MacBook Pro before I buy it...The actual pro's will definitely do this if they care about availability (the thing working all the time, not being available for delivery).

There will also be a whole bunch of people who "need" the latest and greatest so they look cool in their Keynote demos - they don't need to wait for a universal binary version of Photoshop.

And then there's the developers who want one to test their Universal Binary versions against, the students who want one, the *nix geeks wanting to dip their toes in, now that there's an intel chip under the hood, and anyone who has enough money to go buy one and knows they can always go back to the G4 they put on the shelf if they get revision-A-itis and have to send the new one back every couple of months.

Quote

Yet to admit this on the same day as announcing a new professional notebook computer - one which replaces the legendary PowerBook line - is baffling.

Not baffling at all. The existing PB line is old single-processor G4. For pro photogs and other heavy graphics apps users like me PBs may be "legendary" but they have never been speed demon; the 2005 PBs were the first (I have owned Apple laptops since the Duos) that I considered trulyfunctional for PS use. Those doing graphics all day usually have a tower for the heavy lifting.

My comparison of my 2005 1.67GHz PB against the MacBook Pro at Expo running PSCS2 showed the MacBook to be similarly functional, running under Rosetta. It felt "snappier" than my PB. I could not break it or make it bog worse than the PB does now. I do consider the slower CD/DVD burner a serious flaw, however, enough to make many photogs wait until v2.

Quote

During a demo of the new Intel-based Macs, Jobs admitted - to the dismay of professional users everywhere - that Rosetta, the technology used to run PowerPC only Mac applications on Intel Macs, wasn't good enough for professionals.

The lack of understanding of Job's statement is what is wrong with the editorial. Indeed the truth is that for all-day graphics use the Rosetta performance hit will be unacceptable in comparison to working on DP G5 towers. However, only MacBooks and iMacs were announced; platforms limited to max 2 GB RAM anyway, so by definition - for full time graphics usage over the 2-4 year life of a new box - those platforms are not good enough for future all-day professional use anyway! Photoshop already likes 4 GB of RAM, and PSCS3 and future versions of OS X will take good inexpensive advantage even more over the 2-4 year life of a new box.

Introducing a single 15 inch MacBook makes it obvious that other MacBooks will follow. The first is the test box, a very wise move. Bragging rights about a new line to restart totally dead PB sales yet true heavy graphics movers can wait (Q2 2006?) until towers, v2 MacBooks with decent DVDs, and PSCS3 are announced. Note that those of us who have used Mac laptops in the past a have always considered them to be compromised-for-field-use tools anyway.

Quote

Guest wrote:
If you are a pro, you most likely NEVER buy a rev 1 of ANYTHING to replace your current system. The sooner they made this announcement the better. This is like when he rolled out the casket to proclaim OS 9 dead . . . . word to all software vendors: get off your a$$es. Adobe just needs to step up as scheduled and all wil be good. If not, it's not Steve-o's fault.

Best post in the thread. I am convinced that the mission of the two Intel Macs we have now was to make it look like the transition had begun in earnest. See, Apple and the Mac community have been concerned that people would stop buying Macs while waiting for Intel. With these two Intel Macs, Apple can point to them and say "There it is, the transition is here, it's OK to buy again." I believe the REAL Intel Macs are not going to look anything like these stopgaps.

As far as PowerBooks and Photoshop, I use that combo, but no matter what CPU they put in there, the PowerBook is not going to be a serious Photoshop machine until you can stick more than 2GB of RAM in it. Same with the iMac.

The MacBook Pro is not the world's fastest notebook computer.

Laptops with the Pentium 4 or AMD dual-core CPUs have tested faster.

Steve Jobs did not claim this, in fact he said that it was "the fastest Mac notebook" ever, which indeed it is.

Pro photographers have been waiting for a fast powerbook from apple for almost 9 months. We can't crunch RAW files on location with the best powerbook g4 and probably not either under rosetta with a macbook pro in PSCS2. But if Adobe can release a version of LR that offers Adobe Camera Raw functionality in universal binary format, that may be good enough until CS3 comes out later in the year. If the benchmarks of the intel imacs are any indication of emulation performance, pro photographers are going to be very disappointed with the macbook pro until a truly fast universal binary imaging app appears. Apple may have to drop Aperture's price or bundle it at a special discount because pros will not buy a laptop that is not significantly faster than the current PBG4 1.67ghz. By offering a UB version of LR first, Adobe can keep macbook pro users happy and avoid them becoming too reliant on Aperture.

Quote

Anonymous wrote:
If the benchmarks of the intel imacs are any indication of emulation performance, pro photographers are going to be very disappointed with the macbook pro until a truly fast universal binary imaging app appears. Apple may have to drop Aperture's price or bundle it at a special discount because pros will not buy a laptop that is not significantly faster than the current PBG4 1.67ghz.

By the end of March there will be free update for Aperture that makes it universal. It will be better once Photoshop switches over, but this might be enough to most photographers to get up and going.

One Photographer I know is using a 667 mghz G4 powerbook. I'm willing to be that Photoshop under Rosetta will still be faster on a Macbook Pro than it is nativly on his G4! Throw in a universal Aperture and he'll have no reason not to upgrade!