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Providing a taste of what is likely to come as Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) gears up to shift customers over to Intel-powered Macs, Adobe (Nasdaq: ADBE) has indicated that it is unlikely to provide an immediate update to its Photoshop graphics suite.
The cost of creating such an application is significant, it turns out, mainly because Apple's development tool, Xcode, cannot handle such a large job, explains Adobe engineer Scott Byer in a blog post.
Down the Road
Using Rosetta, the tool created by Apple to transition PowerPCs onto the Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) architecture, is too slow for this suite as well, he points out.
Adobe's comments hardly come as a surprise, according to Joe Wilcox, senior research analyst for JupiterResearch.
"It was clear when Apple first announced the shift that there would be issues transitioning the larger applications over to Intel," he told MacNewsWorld.
Adobe and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) are among the major providers of software for Mac, so delays could have a significant impact on consumers and firms that rely on their applications.
The repercussions will vary, though, depending on the product. "As long as the software can run reasonably well on Rosetta, there shouldn't be a problem," Wilcox said, "but keep in mind that the Intel versions of the larger applications have yet to be released."
Additionally, "there might be problems shifting people onto the Intel-based processes because of a presumption of performance benefit of running on native architecture," he noted.
The Vista Factor
One development that has gone Apple's way is Microsoft's announcement that it will delay its Vista operating system.
"It is an opportunity for Apple to go out and evangelize the new Intel processors to developers and nudge them to get more of their applications out of the door," Wilcox adds.
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