The Creative Suite team has put together info about Adobe app compatibility with Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard). It should be live on Adobe.com shortly, but in the meantime, here it is in PDF form.
Apple and Adobe have worked closely together (as always with new OS releases) to test compatibility. As for CS4, everything is good with the exception of auto-updates to Flash panels (which I guarantee you’re not using*) and Adobe Drive/Version Cue (which doesn’t work at the moment on 10.6). CS3 & earlier haven’t been tested. Please see the FAQ for additional info.
* The auto-update part, I mean
[Update: No one said anything about CS3 being “not supported” on Snow Leopard. The plan, however, is not to take resources away from other efforts (e.g. porting Photoshop to Cocoa) in order to modify 2.5-year-old software in response to changes Apple makes in the OS foundation.]
[Update 2: The Photoshop team has tested PS CS3 on Snow Leopard and found no significant problems.]
263 thoughts on “Adobe Snow Leopard FAQ”
Comments are closed.
That’s some good news! Any word on Flex Builder 3 and Flash Builder 4 Beta 1? I couldn’t find very much information on either one except for the something listed in Flash Builder 4 Compatibility Issues (http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Flash_Builder_4:Release_Notes#Compatibility_Issues).
Is it still an issue for Flash Builder 4? I assume so, but here’s to wishful thinking!
John, that answers thousands of peoples questions – thanks, my order is in!
Thanks for posting the FAQ, John.
The entry mentioning Adobe Drive issues on 64bit kernels might be a tad ambiguous. Snow Leopard boots the 32bit kernel by default and the user would have to explicitly boot into the 64bit kernel manually by depressing the “6” and “4” keys during boot. Would Adobe Drive still work in the default 32bit Snow Leopard kernel or is Adobe just playing it safe by warding off users altogether so there’s no confusion?
[Apparently it’s unusable in either mode. –J.]
So I can assume that spaces integration works great now?
[You’d have to ask Apple. I haven’t heard of Carbon/Spaces bugs being fixed in 10.6. –J.]
Surprised and disappointed that you haven’t test it on CS3. It’s not exactly 5 releases previous is it?
[I found that really surprising, too, and I’ll try to get more info. I’d frankly be shocked if people at Adobe & Apple really hadn’t tested CS3 on 10.6. I *think* it’s just some corporate conservatism at work here, and Adobe doesn’t want to over-promise anything. As I say, though, I’ll try to find out more. –J.]
I’m getting the distinct impression that Adobe are now aggressively pushing CS4, to the detriment of CS3 users who feel that the benefits of CS4 are defeated by the cost of a mass upgrade.
I’m sorry Adobe, but you’re all beginning to feel a bit “Microsoft” as a brand experience..
But you will test CS3, right?
I’m sure I’m not the only person to be pissed at Adobe for not testing CS3 on SL.
To say the least, it’s fucky. And sad.
The lack of CS3 testing is very disturbing. It was one thing for Adobe not to release CS4 in 64 bit for the Mac. I understand that recompiling the program in a different language is a major undertaking. OK, I can wait for CS5. But now, in what can only be interpreted as an attempt to force an upgrade to a program that doesn’t even take advantage of the 64 bit programming in Snow Leopard, Adobe will not even test CS3 for Snow Leopard compatibility.
[It’s not an attempt to force anything. This is a zero-sum game. Do you want Adobe’s (and Apple’s) time spent on the past or on the future? Isn’t the onus for compatibility on the people who ship 2.5 years after CS3 was finished? –J.]
I can see not going back several generations in terms of compatibility, after all Adobe is in the business of selling software, but not going back one generation is ridiculous.
[Look, I’m speaking just for myself, but I have no desire to force anything on anyone. (I don’t want anything forced on me, and I try to do unto others…) But as you’d imagine, there are only so many hours in the day. Time spent testing/changing an older version to work around changes in a future OS is time not spent addressing customer requests, taking advantage of that OS’s new features, etc. –J.]
speaking of Apple in a pdf…
the recent pdf’s from Adobe have been unreadable using Safari. We either get a blank white window or a message saying something like ‘no reader available, please choose one’ and all of the choices are grayed out, including Reader. I did reinstall Reader one time and it worked on that pdf. But not the next time.
I am moderately sure that it is some kind of Safari problem because when I really needed something, I tried Firefox and it worked.
But next time Apple insists on taking you to lunch 🙂 you might mention it.
I don’t generally look at non Adobe pdfs, so… The ones I make work ok.
Scott
Firefox worked on the pdf
These are my personal opinions. Adobe, like most software companies, tends to focus testing on what they can afford to fix.
If something broke in CS3 on Snow Leopard that was working before (a) it probably wouldn’t be Adobe’s fault (b) the costs to fix it on Adobe’s side would be astronomical. So you’ll do some testing and get some reports from other testers; but you’re just not going to expend a lot of resources on it because you can’t fix what you find anyways (and a lot of it is probably fixed in newer versions for free).
Think of what fixing something would mean: all your engineers (QE and Dev) haven’t touched that code/processes in 3+ years and have been working on 2 generations ahead. You’d have to stop work on CS5, have a huge paradigm shift to look at the older code/tools/problems, frustrate all your engineering staff doing that (no one wants to look back at bugs they already fixed), reconfigure build machines and test machines (remember Apple’s dev tools are tied to OS releases, so to build CS3 you’d have to setup Tiger Machines to build, using old versions of XCode, and debugging can’t be native so you must use painful remote debugging, etc.). When you think about it, it quickly becomes impractical. Basically, the choice is fixes for CS3, costs for the switch backwards would probably well into the 8 figure dollar amounts, and a 6 month delay for CS5 (with an even higher lost opportunity costs), all for the chance to gain no additional revenue and have an investor revolt and stock value plummet, while your current customers leave in frustration because it takes you much longer between releases… or… since you can’t fix anything that breaks in CS3, why bother to test much?
If this was your company, which would you choose: (1) Focus on making the best products that you can and making most of your current and future customers happy -or- (2) focus on old products, using old tools and technology, to make your out-of-date customers happy?
Safari worked with the PDF for me.
As for the complaints about the (assumed) lack of CS3 testing, well, I’m with John on this one. I want them working on my next upgrade, not on allowing hold outs to continue.
If you’re so determined to stick with CS3, then either wait to hear what other people find out about how it works in Snow Leopard, or don’t upgrade to Snow Leopard. It’s not like it doesn’t work fine in Leopard. Odds are it will work in Snow Leopard.
In fact, there’s a wiki that’s reporting app compatibility with Snow Leopard. And it appears someone has already tested CS3 and determined there are a few minor bugs in Photoshop and Dreamweaver.
http://snowleopard.wikidot.com/
The sense of entitlement people have is simply ludicrous. Pros spend more on camera equipment and computer hardware every year than they do on the Creative Suite they buy ever 18-24 months.
I’m a pro, and I want the latest tools that make my job easier and more effective. If you’re not a pro then you don’t need the latest and greatest and I can understand your reluctance. But I want professional tools to use, and that means they need to be forward-looking.
As for my own sense of entitlement, I am hoping very much that Applescript support continues to be as good in CS5 as it has been in CS4.
CS3 works on the dev release of snow leopard.
I’m just keeping my fingers crossed hoping snow leopard fixes the horrible issues with exposé and spaces when using the cs4 suite.
Is Photoshop Elements (6) part of CS4 (=included in the testing)? I’m no pro, so PSE is enough for me, but until now the only information I have is from snowleopard.wkidot.com which states that it won’t work. For all us non-pros it would be really great to get some info regarding this before we instal SL on Friday…
Thanks for all the answers you can give!
Good news??!! So we have to upgrade to CS4 if we want to upgrade our OS?! That sucks! A poor move to only support one of your software versions. They should at least cover the CS range OR CS3.
What about Flex Builder 3?
Does it work on 10.6?
Just to let folks know that this FAQ is being updated as it does not reflect some issues with Adobe Acrobat 9 on Snow Leopard. I am sure John will post the updated version when it becomes available.
Leonard Rosenthol
PDF Standards Architect
Adobe Systems
You gotta be kidding, right? Adobe is fucking his customers again by not providing support for CS3 on SNow Leopard. Do you actually know how much we pay for your software? screw you!
So let me get this straight. You won’t support CS3 on Snow Leopard, and want me to spend money to upgrade to CS4, but that isn’t a 64 bit application, and isn’t even a Cocoa application. No thanks. I’ll make do.
If you want to encourage people to buy your upgrades, try making the cost reasonable.
Forcing us to upgrade to CS4!! This just leaves an even worse taste in the mouth than the lack of new camera RAW support in CS3!
If there were better reasons to upgrade to CS4 or a cheaper pricepoint none of this would feel as bad butits a pretty bad way to treat customers who have invested heavily in your software!!..all feels like you’re doing it because you can and have the monopoly!!
Does this mean you wont be supporting xp and vista users when windows 7 comes out too??
What a fail. Talked my work into upgrading all computers to CS3 last summer. They have been waiting patiently for Exchange support in Snow Leopard, and now we find out CS3 will not be supported.
Let’s see. Adobe develops CS4 but then the price to benefit ratio does not justify the upgrade since it is still 32bit. The the economy tanks so Adobe is caught short on recouping their investment. So they lay people off and sit in their little offices and strategize how to save their backsides. Ah, we know. Force people to the latest release. Now, that sounds good but when did you ever hear of a reputable software company not support the n-1 release. Well we have heard it now. Sorry Adobe this is just unethical.
I’ll second the request for more information about Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac and Snow Leopard 10.6. As I’m sure you know, there isn’t a newer version of Elements for people to buy (unlike CS3/4).
FWIW, as of this morning snowleopard.wikidot.com is down.
I’m sincerely curious, what is the compelling feature that being a Cocoa app is going to give you that would make you buy an upgrade, when the many dozens of features added to CS4 don’t make it worthwhile for you?
Also, I’m curious if Adobe take the same stance with CS3 and Windows 7 when that is released in October?
Thanks for the info. But I don’t know ANYone using CS4. (I’m in the graphic design field; I also write automated programs for it.)
I know dozens using CS3. Heck, I still have two clients with huge installed bases of CS2.) I know you can’t support older suites forever, but given the installed CS3 base and that it was the first “Universal” one, I was hoping 10.6 would at least be the last Mac OS supported to work with it.
If you want people to upgrade more willingly, you’ve got to drop your prices. The upgrade price is still too steep for a one-person operation like myself to cough up.
This is starting to get blown out of proportion I think (see: AppleInsider’s report of Adobe “abandoning CS3”). I AM surprised a bit to hear it hasn’t been tested on 10.6, though I’m hoping we get an update on that front.
That said, while CS3 is only one version behind, it did come out quite awhile ago, so I don’t think it’s so ludicrous that it potentially has issues with a 2009 OS release (if it even does – the whole concern now is that it MIGHT, nobody seems to know of any). Just out of curiosity, are there any issues with CS3 on Windows 7?
As for the old issue of unreasonable cost – and I speak from the US perspective, I’m not counting the European issues – I do NOT think it’s so insane to think design professionals would upgrade their software more than once every 3-4 years. And I mean, the CS is pricey up front, but $600 to upgrade 6 (7?) apps to CS4 just isn’t that bad… provided you get a few jobs and charge appropriately to cover the cost.
Getting ranty, sorry. I do hope there’s no issues come Friday, since while I have CS4 at home, I can’t convince my employers of an upgrade that costs more than $50. 😛
I hope that this is either an ambiguous press release; I can understand support for older releases of the Adobe family, but to cut support for applications a single generation behind the most recent release seems incredibly rigid.
As to the chap who made reference to the costs of testing and re-authoring as required: that’s the cost of doing business, no more, no less.
I find it quite a slap in the face of legit software users, when *very expensive* software just gets dumped after a year.
I can understand that not all past versions can be tested. Test the current, and the previous version.
But a piece of software that was still for sale less than a year ago should continue to be supported. Within my team, we have 8 copies, for crying out loud.
This is maybe slightly off-topic for this blog but I purchased Photoshop Elements 6 for OS X a month or so ago (I would rather have bought CS4 but couldn’t justify the ~10x price difference). Since this is based on CS3 and is the current version, I really hope it’s going to keep working smoothly on Snow Leopard 😉
I can’t say I’m surprised that CS3 compatibility isn’t a concern.
I run into this bug every day (especially now that it seems to be affecting Firefox 3.5), and the “solution” is just fantastic: http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/404/kb404978.html
I shouldn’t read your blog, John. It sometimes makes me angry how Adobe treats me as a customer. CS3 not supported? Wtf? I bought the CS3 Suite for more than 3000$ over here in Europe not even a year ago. Wtf? This is the reason NOT to buy CS4 now. It won’t be supported for very long… I will be forced to buy CS5 next year.
Any word on Photoshop Elements compatibility with Snow Leopard?
[I don’t know, as this FAQ concerns only the Creative Suite, but I’ve asked the PSE guys for comment. –J.]
This compatibility issue just boils down to lazy programming and greed on Adobe’s part. CS3 and CS4 have tons of non-universal applications all over the place and Bridge doesn’t even take advantage of Web Kit. Instead Adobe though it would be a good idea to dump a full version (now outdated) of Opera into Bridge. Try right clicking on Bridge and click on “show package contents” in the menu then poke around…. there’s Opera, you can even launch it. Apple’s been warning Adobe to completely re-write the Suite for the past eight years. How can anyone be shocked that CS4 on the Mac wasn’t 64-bit? It’s time for Adobe to start treating there customer better, consider the amount of money they want for the suite to kill support for CS3 under Snow Leopard is just unacceptable an embarrassing.
Re John’s zero-sum argument – surely the cost of support time when thousands (?) of individuals and businesses on CS3 upgrade to 10.6, and find out CS3 is not being supported, renders this argument moot.
Maybe the CS4 upgrades will cover the costs of the bad PR, but that’s a rather short sighted view.
It all adds up. Quark didn’t get to where they are(n’t) today overnight.
So I bought Photoshop CS3 for US$650. It’s now one version old, and you aren’t supporting it?
Even Microsoft supports their software that’s one version old.
Frankly, I’m disgusted and put off Adobe and their products. The least they could do is offer us a heavily discounted upgrade.
What they should do though is test CS3 and update it. After all, we all gave them lots of our money.
Now we see what kind of company we gave all this money to. Will I do it again? Likely not.
Your update says “No one said anything about CS3 being ‘not supported’ on Snow Leopard” but the FAQ PDF download says so: “Older versions of our creative software will not be updated to support Mac OS X Snow Leopard (v10.6)”
Something is wrong with the world when people who do the right thing and buy expensive software rather than pirate it get shafted by the software developer. You guys make it very hard for people to be honest and ethical when you do things like this. When you tell your customers that you don’t care about them or you tell them “tough luck” eventually those customers refuse to purchase your products and find other ways of acquiring it that don’t benefit you. You’re upsetting a lot of people. Simply look on social sites like Twitter, Digg, etc. If you’re unloyal to your customers, eventually they will be unloyal to you.
With Adobe Creative Suite being your flagship product I’m sure you can find the resources it takes to test and release a “Snow Leopard” patch in a reasonable amount of time. I understand budgeting and time restraints, but I think major bugs should be resolved. I could live with a few minor bugs as long as there are decent workarounds. I think it would be in your best interest to keep the reputation of your CS line of products as untarnished as possible.
I’m hoping you guys change your mind.
@Steven
So don’t upgrade to Snow Leopard. Leopard will still work great next week. Hold off until you upgrade to CS5 next year.
I’m just shocked this is coming to light 3 days before the release of Snow Leopard. As a systems administrator it leaves me with a very tough call on the correct decision to make for our company running CS3 on almost every machine.
There has been a slow but steady hardening of Adobe through the years. After Aldus and Macromedia were gobbled up came authentication limits, “suites” and no manuals. Now the bottom has been reached. We have no choice but to bow and say yes master Vader, thank you for supporting anything.
In my view, and the pricing reflects this, SL is a minor release that fixes a lot of Leopard bug. The idea that if we make a $29 service pack upgrade we will need to make a $800 upgrade to our applications is not cool. And to those that say then not to upgrade the OS, well then that cuts you off from future bug fixes to the OS. It is kind of a no win situation. I have looked at the wiki and some other sites and it does appear that CS3 works with SL, but what some are calling minor bugs for them, could be major for me.
This is not good news at all. I paid Adobe lots of $$$ for CS3 and this is what I get? So sad. I guess Adobe will NOT get my money for CS4 or CS5 either. Adobe, your loss anyway.
Thanks for the post!
Me customer .. you supplier !
You didn’t test CS3 ?
Did you remember to pay the rent ?
Do you know how much money I pay you guys for your ancient memory chomping code ?
“No resources” .. As a customer – I just don’t want to hear this
You guys are the new Microsoft and will doubtless cry like hell when a competitor does finally come along and take your crown
Well well…. Since when does Adobe not screw their users? The next thing you know they might announce that a cocoa version of Photoshop is impossible to make and Adobe is dropping support for Apple because Microsoft gave them money.
Commentors should note, before getting too worked up, that, wise or not, Adobe did the exact same thing when Leopard came out. See the Leopard support faq at http://www.adobe.com/support/products/pdfs/leopardsupport.pdf
For Leopard, CS3 apps were supported and updated as necessary; pre-CS3 apps were not updated for Leopard.
[Sorry, Bruce, but your level-headed sense of history doesn’t play to this crowd. Please rephrase your comments to sound more ignorant/petulant. That’ll really get the torch-wielding villagers into a froth. –TIA, J.]
[Sorry, my comment above was stupid & unworthy of the conversation I’d like to have. I take it back. –J.]
Note also that Photoshop Elements 4 was not supported under Leopard. I would also like to know if Elements 6 will be updated for Snow Leopard or if we will have to wait for the unannounced next version.
[I would be really surprised if PSE6 were updated. (Note that I have no idea whether anything would even require an update.) –J.]
I fully agree with David Mingay’s comment about Adobe beginning to be reminiscent of Microsoft. This has crossed my mind before.
I will be extremely disappointed – and annoyed – if Adobe abandons CS3 (even CS2) support for Snow Leopard users. If they haven’t got the time or the resources then maybe they should make the time and find the resources.
I’d also like to know about Photoshop Elements 6. I’m a professional blogger and use it to create the graphics for my work. CS4 is overkill for that though and there is no reason for me to pay the huge price for it.
It’s one thing to fight over whether Adobe is obligated to support CS3 or not, but PSE 6 for Mac is the current version of that software. Adobe should be supporting its users of that product unless it would like to announce it is officially discontinuing Photoshop Elements for Mac.
But as of today, it is still on the Adobe site as a current product and they are still selling it, so they have an obligation to update it. And yet there is no mention of it (or Lightroom, which I also use) whatsoever in the statement from Adobe.
“The plan, however, is not to take resources away from other efforts”
That’s not really a good excuse. Most software companies have people working on patches for years after a product is released. In any case, you guys charge enough for your software that it should be supported well. Hire more people if you have to. But don’t give us this BS.
Face it: CS4 wasn’t worth the upgrade price for Mac users. That’s not our fault. It’s your fault for rushing it out to get more upgrade revenue.
Since it wasn’t worth the upgrade, I’m certain you have many, many current CS3 users. And you should /support/ those users. At least if you want happy customers.
–t
Those are two adjectives I completely agree with.
To not “officially” support CS3 is just lame.
And those “we-have-so-much-more-important-stuff-to-do-so-stop-bugging-us” excuses are just as lame. What are we talking about here, a mom and pop business or a big effing organization? C’mon….
I was thinking about upgrading to CS4 in the next few weeks but this type of attitude towards customers really blew it for me.
Shame on you, Adobe.
Asking if I want Adobe to spend time in the past or in the future is a terrible argument.
From a service/application standpoint your question should be “should Adobe support the millions of users who have purchased CS3 or should we tell them to invest another $700 in an upgrade to a product they purchased last year.”
You can take a company line on this or you can attempt to understand your massive CS3 audience’s outrage over this.
I’m very disappointed. Considering you could buy CS3 less than a year ago, Adobe’s lack of support for Snow Leopard is disgusting. Apple even announced when Snow Leopard’s approximate release would be while CS3 sat on store shelves, so Adobe’s had time to anticipate.
When your customers are paying such a hefty price, they should reasonably expect to be able to use it comfortably for at least 1 to 2 years. Where’s your sense of decency Adobe?
[“Disgusting.” Right. If something breaks on Snow Leopard, that must be Adobe’s fault, right? The funny thing is that if a new version of Windows came out & didn’t work with previously solid applications, people would say, “Microsoft sucks” (and that’s despite MSFT bending over backwards to keep things compatible). If Apple changes something and causes apps to break, however, the Mac amen corner says, “Adobe {or whoever} sucks!”
Apple is perhaps the industry’s greatest proponent of cutting ties with the past. It’s the company that said adios to the floppy drive at a time when no one else dared to do so. Apple wants to phase out Carbon support, and that’s why they’ve chosen to make 64-bit support Cocoa-only. If they hadn’t, you’d have a 64-bit Mac Photoshop (and no doubt Final Cut Pro) today. They also just lopped off OS support for 3-year-old G5’s (though you guys didn’t make a peep). Apple realizes that to make progress, they have to spend their resources focused on the future, not the past.
Ah, but it’s Adobe that’s “disgusting.” Gotcha. –J.]
I am wondering what about Photoshop Elements. It’s based on CS3 platform, there is no updates, and even to a 2 or 3 year’s old software as you said, you do keep selling it. Why?? do you sell it if you can not afford support??? It’s a crime I think so. Disgusting. I am very disappointed too! Shame on you, Adobe.
Unbelievable. Adobe’s determination to piss on their customers is matched only by the RIAA’s. This is extortion.
We are a small design studio. We depend on Adobe software, but the cost of upgrading all our Macs to CS4 is just too much. We usually buy every other version of Adobe’s software because, for a small studio, it’s a huge expense.
Not supporting your last version (only 2.5 years old, and still current just one year ago) is an unbelievable slap in the face to your customers—a slap you would never be able to get away with were you not our only option.
You should be ashamed.
Adobe hasn’t tested CS3 with Apple Snow Leopard. That’s totally bogus – not to mention negligent. Snow Leopard test code has been out there for ages. Really bad. Really bad.
John, perhaps comment in such a harsh way (like myself) because they paid SO MUCH for the app(s).
If you buy something very expensive, you expect a perfect service and not a “we don’t spend ressources on your 1 year old investment”.
Gotcha, too. 🙂
You are right John about Apple but we are talking about less than 11 month old, very expensive, software. CS3 is not an old Win98/DOS program, it’s still the same OS X.
Hi John,
I see a problem with Photoshop CS4 on the retail version of 10.6 Snow Leopard. When I attempt to open a PSD with Smart Objects in it, the document opens in the background and the following error appears and reappears in an infinite loop when dismissed, effectively blocking use of the application:
In order to stop the errors from appearing, I need to force quit Photoshop.
My Photoshop installation was brought over using Mac OS X’s built-in Migration Assistant from my 10.5 installation, where Smart Objects work fine.
Per the instructions in the PDF you linked to, I’ve reported this issue through the bug tracker.
Seriously folks. Chances are, it’ll run fine.
And really – You paid for CS3, and it listed the OS compatibility on the box. Did it say Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard on it? If not, you’ve got no case. Adobe met their end of the deal, don’t be whiners. If CS3 is so important to you, don’t upgrade to an unsupported OS.
Adobe has a product that is supported on 10.6. It’s called CS4.
John .. I think that attitude is exactly the problem. We don’t want to hear it .. we just want you to do the decent thing
Remember again : we customer, you supplier !
We are tired of your overpriced upgrades, adding bells and whistles onto what is still essentially still OLD CODE.
To compare this to legacy G4’s .. I dont know – the last of those were sold THREE years ago, not 10 months ago.
And to knock Apple (or Microsoft) while defending your actions .. very poor attitude
I’m no PR genius, but perhaps a better press release may have been “Adobe will do it’s level best to make sure Snow Leopard Customers running our recent product will be fully supported and satisfied !”
You guys have made me so angry .. I look forward to the day I no longer have to pay your wages
“Ah, but it’s Adobe that’s “disgusting.” Gotcha. –J.”
You are a Principal Product Manager and you are talking to your customers in this tone?
Either you are super arrogant, or Adobe breeds this arrogance in their corporate culture and this is why your customers have been consistently frustrated with you.
Having the blog hosted by Adobe and stating it is your opinion and not Adobe’s is pretty challenging considering you are the Photoshop Principal Product Manager.
I will never look at Photoshop the same way again knowing that you are in charge of the product.
Just admit you guys screwed up, ramp up a QA team in india to publish a list of known issues, fix the major ones and be done with it.
Excuses for looking to the future are incomprehensible. Snow Leopard has been discussed with developer builds for OVER ONE YEAR NOW and I just got CS3 about a year ago and am passing on CS4.
So you tell me how that is good PR with loyal consumers for Adobe?
Any news regarding Flash Player, like 64-bit support in Safari 4?
John, I felt I needed to respond to the comments you left Chris.
Apple replaced the G5 in January 2007 with the first Intel Core Duo machine and ceased developing for it in August 2009. That’s a solid 2.5+ YEARS later.
Adobe replaced CS3 in October 2008 when it released CS4 and is ceasing to support\develop for it in August 2009. That’s a meager 10 MONTHS later.
See the difference?
No one is blaming Adobe for breaking things. If the new Windows came out this week and broke CS3, people would still look to Adobe to release a fix for it. People are blaming Adobe for essentially wiping their hands clean and saying “tough luck”, especially THE WEEK that Snow Leopard is being released.
I don’t know what the internal relationship is between Adobe and Apple or if there is any bad blood. Regardless, in your eyes… we should be your customers first. You trying to turn this into a Microsoft vs. Apple vs. Adobe thing is a cop-out.
Speaking of 64-bit Cocoa, can you share any information on a target time line for CS5? It is widely rumored to be all-Cocoa and 64-bit.
There are a lot of CS3 users on OS X 10.5 who are trying to decide whether to upgrade now to CS4 and Snow Leopard or to wait on Snow Leopard until CS5 is out.
History shows 18-24 months between CS releases. Given that CS4 came out in the fall of 2008, can we anticipate a spring 2010 release of CS5?
John, your sarcastic response to Chris and others is over the line. I use CS4, but these folks have every right to be upset.
CS3 was the current, active fully-supported version less than a year ago, and while it is true that Adobe developed it several years ago, people were still putting their hard-earned cash into buying it less than a year ago. It’s not really fair to tell them that you’ll make no updates to CS3 anymore, less than a year into their ownership. Blaming them for complaining is cheap, and makes you look pretty awful, honestly.
Let’s be frank: Neither CS3 nor CS4 has ever been perfect (under any OS). I’m sure that any regular user of either suite will report nearly daily issues that are never resolved — menus disappear, bizarre crashes occur, etc. Relaunching Adobe apps is pretty much par for the course (and the fact that the launch times get slower with every release is nice, too). For a lot of users, Adobe’s quality control is a joke — just take a look at all the sites like dearadobe.com. This is not fatal — all software has bugs. The key is that a software developer should strive to fix these bugs, rather than shifting the blame for the problems to other parties or to ‘low resources.’
Adobe is the only software developer I know that blames the OS vendor anytime a flaw in their product is discovered. Yes, Apple’s OS changes break your code through no fault of your own. A responsible developer nonetheless apologizes to its users — even when it’s not the developer’s fault — and assures them it will work on a patch or an appropriate solution. If your car breaks down in the first year of ownership, the dealer better not blame it on changes to the roadways, and it better not demand the owner buy a whole new car.
Finally, it’s disingenuous to claim, as you do, “No one said anything about CS3 being ‘not supported’ on Snow Leopard.” I believe that the document says that Adobe has not and will not test CS3 on Snow Leopard, and that if problems arise, it will not issue patches to correct these problems. I believe that is the definition of “unsupported.” If you disagree, please provide an example of the kind of “support” CS3 users under Snow Leopard can expect.
Respectfully,
Scott
I am a CS3 user, hoping it will work on Snow Leopard. I held off on upgrading to CS4 because I couldn’t justify the expense. I will be interested in spending my money again when Adobe gets Photoshop ported to Cocoa. That is the real question here: Why has this taken so long? Of course, the same question could be leveled at Apple’s Finder, which is only now making it to Cocoa in Snow Leopard.
I keep seeing the “2.5 year old” reason. It may be a little old, but we have to remember it is only one version behind the current.
I see the point of not testing CS3, but I hope Adobe realizes how many upset people there will be if it doesn’t work on 10.6.
First you drop the RAW support and now Snow Leopard?
[No one dropped raw support. It’s provided via the free DNG Converter. (Oddly enough, Adobe’s use of this approach also supports competing DNG-compatible raw processors like Aperture.) –J.]
As to not mislead people in the future, could you put expiration date on your software? That way, we can think twice before spending $600 on your CS version updates (which comes out every 1.5 to 2 years).
Well if your not testing it I’d better cancel the SL upgrade, I’ve got an office of 25 Mac’s and can’t afford to upgrade to CS4 – pricing is more like Quark Xpress these days and possibly Adobe’s attitude and lack of customer focus is becoming the same as there’s before their downfall.
Guess it’s time to look elsewhere. Thanks for the memories Adobe
Hi David,
Thanks for your comments on this, which from a purely monetary point of view make perfect sense (and hey, I understand that companies are driven by shareholders and stock markets). But as you can see from the wealth of comments regarding this, the decision doesn’t sound so good from a brand experience point of view. Adobe has always felt to be “one of the good guys” overall, until now. I think the long term, the accumulative costs for this strategy will eventually count against you in terms of brand loyalty, halo effect, recommendations, words of mouth twitter buzz etc. And sooner or later this WILL reflect in the company’s bottom line.
Look, I’m not saying test with every previous version of CS with 100% rigor. Just make sure that there is a high level of robustness with the previous version, that’s all. As someone in charge of volume licensing for our team, I’ve bought every CS upgrade up to CS4. But now, with costs and the economic climate being as it is, plus the lack of significant and relevant feature improvements/additions compared to CS3 (for the line of work I’m in), CS4 doesn’t make financial sense to my company. When CS5 comes out, hopefully we’ll jump back aboard.
But please help me keep the faith with you as a company by treating me (and my CS3), as a current and valued customer!
Honestly, I can understand not wanting to waste resources on software designed for 10.4 Tiger. However, there could have at least been some kind of testing, as I can recall Adobe doing for CS2 when CS3 was announced for Leopard. I can make due with a few minor bugs in my CS3 Design Premium when I upgrade, but some kind of testing result would have been nice.
Just my two cents…
The problem is in the pricing. I did not upgrade to CS4 because of the crazy $600 upgrade.
If:
1. Adobe supported their older apps. or
2. Made their upgrades at a resonable cost.
There would not be the outrage.
SL cost $30 to upgrade, you can’t tell me there is more R&D in Photoshop that it cost $570 more to release an update.
I have had it with PS, all I need is a good alternative and I am out of here.
What I don’t understand is people that want to upgrade to Snow Leopard, but not perform upgrades on apps required to run on it. If you don’t care or can’t afford upgrades (a completely valid position), then come to grips with the proposition that it’s all or nothing.
Upgrade both (SL and CS4), or not at all. Why is that so hard to absorb? Upgrading for compatibility is a fact of life in the digital era, and has been since the beginning.
CS3 may be “2.5-year-old software.” However, I bought it last year–2008–Master Collection–at full price.
I have a simple solution for all of the people who want to keep using CS3:
Don’t upgrade to Snow Leopard. You’re welcome.
Cocoa is required for 64-bit GUI apps. No Cocoa, no 64-bit, it’s as simple as that. Adobe is upset with Apple because the latter originally promised to enable Carbon apps for 64-bit, but then reneged on that pledge. This is why the Cocoa porting effort is required (and will presumably be delivered in CS5), thus placing Adobe in an awkward situation with its Mac customers.
As to why 64-bit is required: my Mac Pro has 12GB RAM. 32-bit Photoshop can only use 1/3 of that, and thrashes to disk with the large (gigapixel) panoramas I work with.
Adobe has been trying to make a brave face about the lack of 64-bit support in CS4, which is at best an interim release for Mac users (but a major one for Windows users).
Does that explain why high-end Mac users are not exactly enthusiastic about paying hundreds of dollars for an interim release when they know the one they really want is a year away. and they will have to shell out again? Not to mention that each successive release of CS seems to introduce new weirdness and brokenness in the installers and updaters, and the fact people who rely on software for a living expect a stable workflow and cannot afford the disruption of yearly changes – they have actual work to do to pay the bills, after all.
Adobe’s response to people who bought CS3 a mere year ago seems to be “tough it and delay the upgrade to Snow Leopard, or pay us for the privilege”. In other words, Quark’s attitude towards OS X, or for that matter how long it took for the native Intel port in CS2 to arrive.
I don’t think it is unreasonable of users to expect a version that was superseded less than a year ago to remain supported. And no, I don’t think forward compatibility is an unreasonable demand to make. Apple still supports Tiger and Microsoft still supports XP.
To be sure, Adobe’s stance is legal, but that’s simply because the state of consumer protections in software is so abysmal in the US. I am not sure this is also the case in locales like the EU where consumer interests are not drowned out by industry lobbyists.
In all likelihood CS3 will work just fine in Snow Leopard, with a few minor glitches in functionality 99% of users never use. It is the uncertainty that is riling users.
I used to manage a 20-person software team and I am well aware of the constraints of project management and QA. Obviously Adobe’s priority is to qualify the shipping release CS4 against Snow Leopard. I have a hard time believing that the CS QA team will be fully loaded all the way to the CS5 release. It would be perfectly acceptable for Adobe to say regression testing of CS3 against Snow Leopard will take a while, and the ETA is yet to be determined. It is not acceptable, however, for them to wash their hands altogether of a product that was still for sale less than a year ago.
This does not justify the torrent of bile directed at John Nack. He has nothing to do with this decision. The flip side of being the human face of Adobe, I suppose.
You’ve lost nothing by upgrading to CS3. The older CS2 (and CS) wouldn’t have worked on Snow Leopard, either.
CS3 is 2.5 years old, not 1 year.
Adobe is sending a terrible message with this decision – especially in this economy. Many people spent a lot of money on CS3 little more than a year ago.
I hope Adobe reverses its position and wins back some of the goodwill that they are quickly losing.
Are you kidding me? If someone bought a 2.5 year old product last month, do you expect that support for that product should be based on that?
CS3 was the “active fully-supported version less than a year ago”. Yes, when Leopard was out.
If you don’t want to upgrade to CS4, then don’t upgrade to Snow Leopard.
How long do you actually expect a company to keep supporting old products?
If you’re that unhappy, then STOP BUYING ADOBE PRODUCTS.
I don’t think the villagers would be so unruly if the cost of Adobe’s suites were reasonable for small business people like myself and/or there were viable alternatives.
@Neal: hear, hear. It’s a bit patronizing for Mr. Nack to suggest that this is a black and white issue. Users who purchased CS3 within the past 18 months have invested a non-trivial amount of time and money into the product, and I think we have a reasonable expectation that it will work with Snow Leopard, which, lest we forget, Apple calls merely a “refinement” of Leopard.
[Did anyone say that CS3 won’t work with Snow Leopard? Part of my frustration here derives from the relentless leaping to conclusions. –J.]
I’m a CS3 user and if it doesn’t work on 10.6, it’s a dealbreaker. I’ll have to stay on 10.5. Of course, I’d love to upgrade to CS4, but the funds just aren’t there.
It does suck for Adobe. As has been pointed out, Apple changes something and it’s up to Adobe to fix it or people get pissed. Hopefully one or both of the companies have been working on making it compatible. As a staple app for such a large percentage of Mac users, Apple should be on top of either fixing it or helping Adobe fix it.
In any case, THANK YOU JOHN for keeping an open and honest discussion with your users on this blog. I may not agree with the choices Adobe makes (CS3 support soon please! Lower upgrade prices please!) but I respect the willingness to keep the users in the loop as much as you can. Most companies never say a word. (I’m looking at you, Apple.)
If you are fine working in CS3, then you should be fine not upgrading to OS X 10.6, nobody is being ‘forced’ to upgrade anything.
If you want to upgrade your Operating System, you will have to make sure all of your applications are up to date, paying to upgrade some of them. This is nothing new folks…
Seriously John, you cannot see why some people may be a little bit miffed. I can see how this makes great business sense to Adobe: to read your justification seems a little weak. It isn’t like apple are removing features from the operating system
[YES IT IS. Sorry, but Apple certainly has removed things from the OS. Whereas it was possible to extend contextual menus in 10.5, that functionality has been removed in 10.6. Consequently Adobe Drive (part of CS4) no longer works. I wasn’t involved in either side of that conversation, so I can’t speak about it in any detail. I can tell you, however, that Apple removed functionality from the OS. For all I know that was the best decision in the world; I can’t say. I can only note that it happened. –J.]
that will stop CS3 from working.
[There’s the rub: No one has said that Apple’s changes have stopped anything in CS3 from working. We don’t know, and that’s what bothers people. The commenters who’ve shown up in force today are saying, “If Apple’s changes break anything, it’s Adobe’s job to fix it.” I’m not sure that’s an entirely reasonable conclusion to draw. –J.]
From a customer perspective they seem to think they are paying premium prices for something that may last a couple of years. It seems that Adobe has a high degree of manual testing of their product: they should listen to their customers and find a solution to speed up testing. Streamlining would give better value for the customer and profits for Adobe. However it seems though it’s another opportunity for adobe evangelists to tell valued customers like it or leave. There are many ways Adobe could solve the problem beyond berating customers that spend lots of money with them.
I’ve had CS3 for only 13 months and Adobe won’t support it on OS 10.6? Those A-holes expect me to pay hundreds of dollars to ensure I have a CS that will run on a $29 OS upgrade?
This is total BS, and will seriously weigh on and future Adobe purchasing decisions.
I’m not a professional user, I broke the bank to get CS3 just because I’m interested in this sort of thing and I expected a super expensive software suit like this to have a long shelf life. I’ve got any number of $20 or $30 programs that the developers are bending over backwards to ensure their wares will run on 10.6, and at no charge.
This really, really leaves a bad taste in my mouth and is requiring major effort to restrain myself from writing a string of expetives!!!
I will only state that I purchased CS3 on Oct 26, 2008. Less than 1 year later I am told (not even directly I will add) that maybe CS3 will work with SL, maybe it won’t, but Adobe isn’t even checking to see.If I had known that this was the policy, I would have thought a lot harder about whether to purchase a product that had already been on the market for 1.5 years. Now that I know that this is the policy, I would have to question the wisdom of continuing to upgrade at all.
@Mr. Nack, while I suppose Adobe should be commended for allowing you unfettered freedom of speech on your company-hosted blog, your snide characterization of those customers who are frustrated by the decision not to support CS3 under Snow Leopard as “ignorant/petulant” is quite astonishingly rude. Don’t you feel any responsibility to stay above the fray, as it were? I mean come on, “torch-wielding villagers”? This isn’t Usenet. We’re your customers!
Everyone who develops on the Mac knew that Apple was moving to Cocoa and they’ve been telling their developers to stop using Carbon for well over a year if not longer. Considering how close Adobe and Apple are I’d love to know how the programmers at Adobe didn’t realize awhile back that it was time to do a complete re-write for the Mac.
CS3 and CS4 are broken under 10.6 because: Some components are still PowerPC only, the proper API’s were not used during development (using Opera instead of web kit), code base is outdated using Carbon which made 64-bit impossible.
Considering the Master Collection is around $2500US these types of problems are unacceptable and cutting support for CS3 user on a product under two years old is just wrong.
To blame Apple for updating there OS and breaking your poorly written dated code is childish. The right thing to do would be to support your CS3 and CS4 users, admit that Adobe dropped the ball and will do better in the future.
This mess is completely Adobe’s fault and it is disgusting considering the prices you charge and the fact that your the only real choice for creative professionals.
And….?
How long should Adobe ensure that this product works with future OS releases?
If Apple were to drop support for my 2.5-year-old Mac Mini — even if it only cost $600 — I would be more than a little surprised and upset.
That Adobe would drop support for a 2.5-year-old software suite — which cost far more than $600 — leaves me frustrated and angry. This only reinforces the frustration I feel every day, as I work around bugs that were never fixed for the current (Leopard) version of OS X.
“Why is that so hard to absorb?”
Maybe because one product is $29 to upgrade and the other is $899?
Maybe because the $29 upgrade has a few compelling features, and for many, many users, the only motivator for the $899 upgrade is compatibility?
John, the time frames matter. One year is different than three years — and keep in mind that the Intel announcement was announced four years and one month ago; folks who bought that G5 three years ago knew they were buying on the tail end of the architecture. You’re raining on a lot of people’s parades three days before Snow Leopard ships.
[This is why I’m running out of steam on responding to comments: No one has said that anything in CS3 doesn’t work in Snow Leopard. I’ve only said that testing it wasn’t a priority. But people keep repeating the same assertion (“CS3 is broken!!”) OVER AND OVER AND OVER. Eventually I’ll just give up on trying to respond. I can repeat myself only so many times.
If you want to talk about raining on anyone’s parade, cite my quoting Apple on the real-world impact of 64-bit. And of course in that case I wasn’t trying to be a buzzkill; I was simply trying to share useful info that can cut through marketing hype & wishful thinking. –J.]
The pricing also matters here. It bites to pay $1,699 for a disc and know that the vendor is going to leave you out in the cold in less than a year.
Now as I see it, there are two arguments here. Adobe can either pull resources away from supporting legacy software (CS3) or push people to adopt the new CS4, which aside from a few minor issues, works just fine under SL. Fair enough. I recognize that not everyone is hungry for the latest and greatest (I know designers that still use CS2 on their PCs) and treat it strictly as ROI. Again, fair enough. I also want CS5 to drop with this fabled Cocoa re-write (I’ll believe it when I see it) and it seems pulling resources will delay that (or may even alter the final version, making it filled with less Unicorns and Leprechauns). But I think I’m the only one that sees a huge problem with these choices.
CS5 won’t be here for another year. That’s not good news for people who upgrade to SL because it means those that pay for an upgrade to CS4 will only use it for less than half of it’s life. If I was big on ROI, I would wait for CS5 to sink my money into, that is, if I had to update. And it looks like CS3 users are facing that conundrum. They can try to use a busted CS3 for the next year or so, or upgrade now to an already aging version and maybe forgo the next iteration altogether… but that would mean spending dollars on a 1.5 year piece of software that won’t be updated for another 3+ years…
I don’t know about you, but I’d say CS3 users have a right to be a little miffed… Again people are left in the cold because direct competition to Photoshop is non-existence. And we all know from the switch from PPC to Universal, that Adobe does things whenever they want to, regardless of their loyal customers pleas. But then again, I wonder just how many of us are that loyal given their is no real alternative to Ps. I’d have to say that I’m not all that happy with their SOPs, or their lacklustre revisions.
Man, that’s some Quark level arrogance you got there. Hope it doesn’t turn out as well as it did for them.
It might be worthwhile for Adobe, John, whoever to post somewhere prominent a reminder that to use Lightroom in 64 bit mode you have to select it in the Finder, Get Info, and uncheck “32 bit” mode.
I’ve been using the GM build and couldn’t figure out why Lightroom, touted as 64 bit, on a 64 bit OS, running on a 64 bit laptop, wasn’t running 64 bits according to Activity Monitor.
Then Google answered my questions:
http://www.trajiklyhip.com/blog/index.cfm/2009/4/11/How-To-Run-Adobe-Lightroom-in-64bit-Mode
[True enough. I asked LR PM Tom Hogarty for info, and he replies, “When we shipped 64-bit was the new new thing and that meant the there was opportunity for printer driver compatibility problems, etc in the still largely 32-bit world. So we decided to default to 32-bit.” –J.]
CS3 never even worked properly in Leopard. I upgraded to CS4 mainly to see if fixes were made. The problems still exist. Then I find statement from Adobe employees that it’s a problem with Apple. Hopefully that would be fixed in 10.6. So now that 10.6 is here, Adobe isn’t going to do anything to hopefully get their app working which never fully worked to begin with.
I can understand that Adobe is not going to go back and make an app older app work with a newer OS. However, since CS3 never worked right in Leopard and Adobe kept pointing the finger at Apple, why doesn’t Adobe take a little responsibility for creating products that don’t work right?
For years Adobe pointed the finger at Apple saying Adobe is waiting for fixes from Apple. Now that those fixes may have finally come, and Adobe is saying they’re not going to spend any effort trying to make sure it works.
The end result after all the finger pointing is customers never got fully functional software in CS3 and Adobe is pushing those customers to CS4 just to have hope of things working.
And John, I am disappointed that you write “No one said anything about CS3 being “not supported” on Snow Leopard. The plan, however, is not to take resources away from other efforts” – not allocating resources onto a project is the definition of “not support”. If Adobe is going to hire some more people to work on CS3, I stand corrected. But I highly doubt Adobe is going to do that.
John, I find your comments towards myself (a paying customer) resentful and sarcastic. As a Principal Product Manager at Adobe, you’ve bitten the hand that feeds you… which is particularly distasteful when you consider that I give you a large portion of what little money I have to spend. I will not purchase another Adobe product until you’ve apologized.
Well–I can’t imagine the reaction was unexpected. But, I totally don’t see how people think it’s Adobe’s FAULT! I do agree that Adobe should test it (I mean, really–how tough is that)… maybe document some workarounds or work with Apple to get it better. But, ultimately, it’s up to the OS to not break old stuff.
I think the REAL lesson here is that lots of people still use CS3… there’s a reason and that’s what Adobe can learn from. What are the reasons? price? For me, I only use AE CS4… Premiere is totally unusable (despite the admirable and heroic efforts of the Adobe support folks). I’m on Windows and don’t really mind this little spat… plus, when I upgrade to Win7 if stuff breaks–who would I blame? MSFT of course. Maybe someone can explain why that’s backwards.
“No one has said that anything in CS3 doesn’t work in Snow Leopard.”
No, it appears the company’s stance is “maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t, and you’re on your own.”
Let me quote from the PDF: “Older versions of Adobe Creative Suite software were not designed to run on Mac OS X Snow Leopard (v10.6), so you may experience issues installing and using the software for which there are no solutions.” If we don’t have Snow Leopard installed, we don’t know whether to expect it to install, to run, or to function in any capacity after it runs.
If there is anybody at Adobe who knows anything about CS3 on Snow Leopard, maybe you could update the FAQ to say “CS3 will not install or launch,” or “Early reports indicate that CS3 installs and runs with minor issues,” or “Adobe does not plan to issue any patches to address CS3/Snow Leopard compatibility issues, but we will keep the knowledge base article at ____ updated with a list of known issues and workarounds.” Give us _something_ more than “who knows?”
It’s absurd to say, on one hand, that you will not test compatibility and will not address any issues in any form, and to then say that “No one said anything about CS3 being not supported on Snow Leopard.” Well, yes, actually, you did. Read your own PDF.
I don’t even think I’m a torch-wielding villager here. I’m hoping, reading between the lines of your protestations about what you think the PDF doesn’t say, that CS3 may in fact run on SL, in some capacity; and since I’m not a particularly advanced user it’ll probably work fine for what I want. But apparently, Adobe won’t tell us whether it will even run.
“No one has said that Apple’s changes have stopped anything in CS3 from working. We don’t know, and that’s what bothers people.”
As a customer, I consider “we don’t know and we don’t care“ to be a far worse response than either “it doesn’t work” or “it kinda works, but there are problems.”
It’s one thing not to patch issues for Snow Leopard. It’s another to say you’re washing your hands of it, doing no testing and no documenting.
When I update to SL will I need to deactivate CS3 first? What’ll happen when, not if, I forget to?
I haven’t upgraded to CS4 from CS3 yet, but I don’t think I would consider myself a “holdout”. There’s a lot of money involved, and the work I do within CS3 is a hobby, not a driver of income.
No, You haven’t said that it *will not* work, I accept and acknowledge that. However, coming out and saying rather publically that it *may not* work, and you’re not sure because it hasn’t been tested is something of a slap in the face. How this testing wasn’t a priority for either company boggles the mind. I understand resources are finite, but so are the fiscal resources of your customer base.
The situation is unfortunate for everyone. As a developer, I know that Adobe’s team is probably not happy with their situation. And the customers are certainly unhappy.
Here’s the thing, everyone needs to decide what to do next. Adobe decided, officially, and we shouldn’t expect them to change their minds because their reasoning is sound (they cannot survive delaying CS5 to fix CS3 – it would cost money, morale, sanity, etc).
What will you do? Take a deep breath and decide. You can decide to not buy CS4. Or CS5. You can decide to buy both. You can decide to do something else. You can rightfully complain, but I don’t see how that’s the final solution. So what do you do next?
Innovators lead the way not by complaining about problems – instead, by finding novel solutions. Such as? I sarcastically state this radical thought which I hope some of you are intelligent enough to appreciate: maybe this is a sign that it’s time for you to go off and make a competing product. Seriously – you go make another Photoshop. Let’s see you do better. I’m being negative, condescending and sarcastic. Really though, if you did it, wouldn’t that solve the problem?
I understand the higher ups wanting to be conservative with over promising compatibility but then why would you post this when there are LOTS of your (previously, here) devoted users that have probably pre-ordered snow leopard 10.6 because of all the absolute garbage we’ve had to put up with leopard 10.5. Users who are now PANICKING they either have to continue to use a buggy, sluggish OS OR Spend another $700+ to upgrade in the very near future.
You’re not yelling fire and seeing who runs for the door, are you?
There’s another option that I’m researching. If this pans out to be a real problem I am going to find Open Source alternatives for ALL my creative needs. Adobe will not receive any more of my business, that would be 100% certain.
(I appreciate you sharing this information because it does change things for me. I don’t want to attack you, personally, but instead hope that you pass along our fury to the decision makers and let them know We Are Not Pleased. Charged emotions when it comes to software solutions in this price bracket are to be expected, wherever the blame may lay.)
Cheers, ~Bug
As a CS3 User, to find out that my current application to be describe as ‘gray area’ by Adobe, I would like to agree with most everyone(especially David Every). Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems that when I read the F.A.Q, Adobe is REALLY trying hard to sell CS4 and it may identify as all about ‘All User MUST Upgrade To CS4’ which I feel it’s irrelevant. Being a supporter to Adobe, I think this time around, Adobe fail to understand about their users. Not to mention, the phone support from Adobe is irritating, especially after my previous accident of my Macbook motherboard failure and I have to go through h3ll to activate back my license. I’m telling you, with the economic turmoil, it’s not wise to ask your returning consumer to spend too much money to buy this expensive software. Some of us aren’t born rich and we do sometimes have priorities. We look forward to ensure Adobe improve to give us a better option. For now, it’s frustrating to hear so many respond that all of us wanted to hear.
Adobe needs a well-publicised lifecycle statement a la http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifepolicy
This way, every customer purchasing an Adobe product knows precisely how they’ll get support, and for how long. All Adobe needs to do is honour it. Let’s face it, Adobe products are expensive premium solutions and ultimately, customers expect top-class support.
I think it’s fair to say Adobe support isn’t what it used to be, but having a go at John isn’t the solution. I dealt with John on a personal basis when I had a problem with activation in CS3, through this blog. The result I got was nothing short of amazing. This man is *super passionate* about Photoshop and he goes out of his way for users. Sometimes it must feel like trying to steer the Titanic! I’m pretty sure John will do his level best for all Adobe users with regards to Snow Leopard.
For what it’s worth, I for one would not wish to see this place become sanitised by the corporate men-in-suits essentially because of trolling. Let’s keep it professional.
You Suck!!!!!!!!
Not supporting a generation old piece of software is unforgivable. I will be pulling all Adobe software out of my company and telling friends to do the same. I only bought CS3 a year ago. At full pop 2500. Thanks for taking my money and treating me like shit.
Maybe next time, I’ll pirate it.
You SHIT HEADS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What can you say… I am extremely frustrated and disappointed by Adobe announcement today.
All I will say is that if I told my customers that I would cease support for their software less than 10 months after the product was withdrawn from sale – I’d be out of business!
I don’t expect Adobe to support CS or even CS2, however, I would expect Adobe to support the previous version (CS3) and (CS4) considering this is a premium product with a premium price tag. – I only brought CS3 in January last year.
It would appear, however, Adobe has forgotten the most important thing when doing business your customers, after all businesses are nothing without them.
And I think this is the saddest inditement of all. I just hope that they listen to what has been said here today and have a change of heart
Above all else I hope Adobe remembers loyalty is hard to win, but easily lost!
I am so excited about this Friday. The 17″ powerbook I bought for $2500 3.5 years ago and the Creative Suite I bought 1.5 years ago for $1800 is now obsolete. Snow Leopard will not run on the Power PC based powerbook, and CS3 will not be “updated to support” on my Intel iMac with Snow Leopard according to this pdf: “Older versions of our creative software will not be updated to support Mac OS X Snow Leopard (v10.6).”
This ignorant/petulant torch-wielding villager, who ignorantly purchased the CS3 Master Suite, is a little petulantly narked that her choices appear to be:
A) Stay on 10.5, giving up future OS upgrades (and presumably, any future OS security/stability updates)
or
B) Shell out for an upgrade to CS4, which she does not need or want so soon after paying so much for the previous version
or
C) Upgrade the OS and take the chance that the extremely expensive software she so ignorantly bought not long ago won’t work anymore. She assumes there is a pretty good chance of this, since the PDF from Adobe clearly says CS3 hasn’t been tested and won’t be updated. (And while we’re on that note, 2.5 year-old software is NOT “several years” old.)
And then she’s thinking, “Oh goodie, and I’ll get to go through this all again at the next CS and/or OS update. I am *so* happy I chose this product!”
So yeah, damn right I’m petulant.
Adobe’s lack of support — lack of even an *attempt* at support in this case — for the previous version of their software is shocking, given the price they charge for it.
It demonstrates to me quite clearly exactly how much they value their customers: NIL.
Sal, I realize that CS3 was released 2.5 years ago. However, we bought copies of it when it was the current version, in September 2008. That is less than a year ago.
Analogy: Say, you buy a car. It is based on a 3-year old model. If less than a year later, your dealer tells you that he will not perform any repairs to the car, because there is a new model on the market, would you accept that?
The argument to “just don’t upgrade to SL” doesn’t hold either. Computers are not static items. I fully expect Apple to support my 2.5 year old Macbook Pro. I fully expect Adobe to support my 1 year old piece of software.
Of course, Adobe does not have the legal obligation (*), but it is very customer unfriendly and not spending the resources does a lot of PR harm.
(*) In Europe it actually might. A product needs to work within its ‘expected economic life span’.
Thanks John, is there a specific Adobe blog for PSE?
@Mr. Nack, thanks for your reply, which is spot on. Speculation and unfounded conclusions can be frustrating. But what’s beyond dispute is that Adobe’s decision not to test CS3 under SL still rankles. Among my colleagues, CS4 has few compelling features requiring us to upgrade. Meanwhile, Apple is calling on *all* Leopard users to upgrade to SL, and pricing it accordingly.
Whoa… there´s a lot of pitchforks here (“John Nack, Warlock and Product Manager” – sounds great!)
Serioulsy guys, you don´t NEED to upgrade to SL, at least for some days. It´s NOT the Second Coming and from my POV, it´s somewhat dumb to jump immediately from a stable, working and patched OS to a f******* point-zero/potentially bug-ridden release.
Now, of course, since almost everybody here likes to blame Adobe for using old code, consider this: CS4 STILL USES THE DAMN OLD CODEBASE FROM CS3. Chances are: it’ll work fine (and someone will test it and post on Twitter seconds after 10.6 hits the shelves), if not, well, you can always use… dunno… the perfectly fine and funcional 10.5.X.
Nah, it´s more fun to raise pitchforks and burn John for being honest.
Exactly! I’d love to upgrade too, don’t have the money now, and so will wait. It’s not the end of the world.
My point was that although development on CS3 ceased 2.5 years ago, it was still on the market last year, without any discounts for being “old” software. Similarly, if I were to buy CS4 today, there would be no discounts for its age, or apologies when support is dropped for it next year (presumedly) when CS5 comes out.
I bought the Windows version of the old Adobe Studio collection back in 1998, which came with Photoshop 5, Illustrator 8, and Pagemaker.
Photoshop 5, Illustrator 8, and Pagemaker still work on the XP laptop I have it installed on. XP was several operating systems after the Windows 98 that those apps were designed for.
The reason I bought CS3 last year was in part because I wanted to switch platforms, from Windows to Mac.
I don’t necessarily expect CS3 to remain usable for the next decade, like Photoshop 5.0. But, is disconcerting to read in that PDF you provide that, concerning CS3, “You may therefore experience a variety of installation, stability, and reliability issues for which there is no resolution.”
It is not promised that we will even be able to install CS3 in Snow Leopard. And, it’s a real nightmare activate Adobe products these days. When I bought CS3 the box said “Compatible with Mac OS X Leopard (v10.5).” Yet, several of the apps in the collection did not want to install, and updating anything that did install caused kernel panics. It wasn’t until this year that updates to CS3 started working properly and the CS3 apps started becoming stable. (This, on a year-old Mac Pro with a lot of memory, that has no issues with other apps from other software companies, including Microsoft.) Trying to go back to Old Leopard after a failed installation attempt on Snow Leopard is enough to make me stick with Old Leopard simply because of CS3.
You ask: “How long should Adobe ensure that this product works with future OS releases?” I don’t know. But, I have bought a lot of software that added the phrase “or higher” after giving the OS requirement. So, some software companies leave it open-ended. And that, for software costing much less than several thousand dollars.
Good luck finding a replacement for the Adobe Suite apps. There isn’t one.
I mean, when you bought it (like we all did), did you not expect upgrades, eventually? How long has it been?
Have you ever done this before? I mean, I understand if you’re new to the industry and have never had to upgrade software or an OS before. Yeah, it costs money, but you get value (always debatable of course). No one is robbing you or forcing you to upgrade to Snow Leopard.
Your language tells me you won’t listen, but thought I’d gently reply nonetheless.
@ Jas, posting a vulgar, childish comment like this on a corporate blog makes you look like an infantile moron. You honestly expect anyone to believe that you spent $2,500 on Adobe’s software, but will pirate the next version simply because of an operating system support issue? Everyone knows you’re lying. Get lost.
Exactly. Supermarkets discount milks closer to the expiration date. And since Adobe isn’t keen on supporting slightly older and very expensive software (when CS4 is less than a year old), it should at least consider lowering prices as the product approaches a date upon it will stop supporting it.
Damn! This is a major offense. After swallowing Macromedia, Adobe seems to think they don’t have to care anymore. :((
Supporting the CS4 and letting behind CS3. Come on guys, as the monopolist you SHOULD have enough money to hire another team for some time.
Other (way smaller) software companies also manage to publish updates for way longer time and grant compatibility for so much longer.
It’s not a question of “delay CS5 or work on an ooouuutdated product”. It’s just a question of money. Which you are not willing to spend. Because customer satisfaction is unimportant to Adobe.
Too sad there are no competitors anymore on the market.
Adobe’s microsoftisation is complete.
Just my 2 cents.
I’m also curious about Elements 6, as my copy was purchased only a year ago at full price, and that is the prime reason I’m holding out for SL.
The project manager for the mac development needs to be fired. This is unacceptable.
The Mac users seem to have a very different mentality from Windows users. I can’t imagine shifting over to a new OS the day it’s released, much less expecting everything to work just fine under it. Vista is about to be replaced with Windows 7, but a large number of Windows users are still using XP, which is what, 5 years old? I’m still using it on all of my family computers, and my law office is still using XP.
When Vista came out, Adobe didn’t support CS2 on it (although it apparently worked just fine, with a few tweaks and quirks). And I fully expect that Adobe won’t support CS3 on Windows 7, although it probably will more or less work.
[That’s my expectation as well. –J.]
I would expect Adobe to put the highest priority on bringing the current and future releases of its products into compatibility with new OSs such as Snow Leopard and Win7. Testing of older versions with new OSs can wait.
I agree with John regarding what would happen if a Windows upgrade broke a software program. Everyone would blame Microsoft. That’s why when you upgrade Windows it does a compatibility check on all your installed software/hardware and notifies you of which things MIGHT not work after the upgrade. With Windows 7, it said my Wacom and fingerprint scanner might not work. I upgraded anyway, they didn’t work, but luckily reinstalling the Wacom software brought my tablet back. That’s also why there’s a free Windows XP Virtual mode for the cases where people are running software that hasn’t been updated in 8 years. I bet I could run Illustrator 4 on Windows 7. 😉
As for our Macs, we did upgrade some to CS4, but will not be upgrading to Snow Leopard mainly because many of our Macs are still running PowerPC chips and Apple has dropped support for those. I wonder how long before Apple switches to another completely different architecture and Adobe has to rewrite the Creative Suite again.
CS3 not tested. I find that hard to believe. Great way to force an upgrade Microsoft… I mean adobe…
Petulant commenter say, me buy CS3 for biggie price tag, me ignorant. Now me hear God not care about CS3, me say, why buy CS4 for biggie price tag too? Petulant/Ignorant commenter buy pirate copy of CS4 for $50. Petulant commenter give petulant finger to corporate God.
CS3 is not 2.5 years old. It was still bought by many customers just one year ago.
Wow! My CS3 is old and outdated now. Who knew?
Isn’t this exactly how you guys gave Quark the smack down when they refused to update during the the OS9 – OSX change over? Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
For all those complainers — no one is making you upgrade to Snow Leopard and further more, who’s to say it won’t work? I’m guessing it won’t be any more or less buggy that CS4.
“I’d love to know how the programmers at Adobe didn’t realize awhile back that it was time to do a complete re-write for the Mac.”
Maybe because they were still catching up from the previous complete re-write that Apple forced them to do for the Intel switch:
http://blogs.adobe.com/scottbyer/2006/03/macintosh_and_t.html
“To blame Apple for updating there OS and breaking your poorly written dated code is childish.”
To blame Adobe, when Apple completely changes their operating system platforms, runtime APIs, and development tools every couple of years, is unreasonable. True, Adobe is a giant in the software industry, but if they’re having trouble keeping up with Apple, imagine how hard it is for small software vendors, many of whom have either had to devote large portions of their development efforts over the last seven years or so to just keeping up with Apple, instead of actually adding features or making new products, or simply had to abandon Mac development.
If you’re wondering why there aren’t as many enterprise-level applications available on Mac as on Windows, maybe that has less to do with Adobe’s shortcomings than with Apple’s own development focus on the iPhone SDK.
Meeting the customer’s expectations is where Adobe needs to be on this topic .. whether they like it or not. That is just good business. I don’t know about your business but in my business, ignoring customer’s expectations and suggesting that they are “ignorant” is a fast track way to lose said customer.
Adobe has no resources to meet it’s customers expectation .. at the prices you guys charge .. I never heard anything so ridiculous.
Something I don’t see mentioned in any of these comments is that CS3.3 was released in June, 2008. So, it’s not just an issue of “2.5-year-old” software; some of us purchased a brand-new release from Adobe just over a year ago.
[I was talking about when CS3 was built & shipped. –J.]
(as I did, and there’s still no 3.3-to-4 upgrade in the online store, and no hint of what it costs; you have to call and find out)
-j
Quick everybody, CS4 Master Collection is available on Amazon for only $2335.00, just grab your extra cash you have lying and everything will be okay again.
p.s. Thanks for telling us right before Snow Leopard is released. What if I had already pre-ordered it?
[You’ll probably be fine. –J.]
Cool. Thanks for the quick response. 🙂
This reads like one of our current political debates. Adobe says they *don’t know* whether CS3 works properly under SL and there is a great hue and cry that Adobe is *forcing* people to upgrade. I’m expecting people to start screaming about Adobe CS3 Death Panels pretty soon.
Salient points:
– You currently have a solution that works Leopard and CSwhatever.
– You may voluntarily upgrade your OS. Apple ain’t forcing you.
– If you voluntarily upgrade your OS, Adobe has taken the time to explain that they have not had resources to completely test CS3, YMMV. Still want to upgrade your OS?
– Ok, you still want to, but think Adobe should either 1) Dedicate engineering resources to whatever version you currently own even though you have a completely satisfactory solution right now; or 2) They should stop working on this Cocoa stuff; or 3) Everything Adobe does is about mind and wallet control and they will draw you into the mothership.
I’m happy to keep on the Adobe upgrade merry-go-round because, in contrast to comments from others, I believe CS4 was an incredible upgrade. The usability features and GPU utilization alone have saved me the cost of the upgrade. You do what you like, but I think they did a great job.
When CS5 comes out, I’ll be in line for it because … well, because there has never been a release when I haven’t been able to look back and pick out a bunch of features that I’d hate to live without.
Cut ’em some slack, and give John and Adobe credit for putting good and relevant information out there early so you can make an informed decision about upgrading your OS today or waiting a few months.
Just sayin’.
For me the most telling thing in these comments is the way that Quark keeps being mentioned.
Adobe is perfectly within their rights not to devote any resources to upgrading CS3. Their choice.
Quark didn’t do anything evil, either. But they didn’t go the extra mile to keep their customers happy. Instead, there was just this trickle of little things – and once in a while a really big thing (funnily enough, upgrade policy was one of them) – that made people think “Hm… maybe I’ll find out a bit more about the alternatives before signing the next cheque”. And that, of course, is why everyone now uses InDesign.
The same is happening here. Maybe Adobe will be lucky and, this time, a nimble-footed competitor won’t release an alternative. Maybe some products will survive (Photoshop) and others wither (Flash). All I know is that, next time I need to upgrade, I’m going to spend a bit longer checking out the competition.
stiff upper lip, John. You’re doing good, and doing it well.
I bought the Windows version of the old Adobe Studio collection back in 1998, which came with Photoshop 5, Illustrator 8, and Pagemaker. Photoshop 5, Illustrator 8, and Pagemaker still work on the XP laptop I have it installed on. XP was several operating systems after the Windows 98 that those apps were designed for. The reason I bought CS3 last year was in part because I wanted to switch platforms, from Windows to Mac.
MS work hard to maintain backwards capability. Apple don’t and have a long history of changing things so that old software/hardware doesn’t work. So why are people attacking Adobe? It’s the same idiotic nonsense as when all the complaints came out blaming Adobe for CS4 not being 64bit on the Mac when it was on the PC, despite the fact it was Apple’s change of mind re carbon/cocoa that was to blame.
Why on Earth did you and many others buy CS3 when CS4 was imminent or in your case after CS4 came out? You do realise you should be eligible for a free CS4 upgrade as you bought CS3 after the CS4 announcement.
Though it is obvious that many people are too daft to realise software gets upgraded on a regular basis, buy just before the wel known and expected upgrade and then moan about their older software not being supported.
Dear me, so much moaning that only shows how little the whingers know.
Am curious: Apple says that Snow L is aimed at speed. Will that speed up Adobe’s software, or are your products tuned beyond that?
or might it just affect narrow things like saving, or ?
Thanks
Scott
God, I’m proud to be an Apple customer.
Sorry John, I just had to say it. BTW, you are an Apple customer too, right? I just want to verify that for all the people who seem to think you pick on Apple so much.
… I can’t wait for someone to suggest that I must be a windowz troll because I’m dissing the clan like this but honestly, this is the “family” I try to pretend I’m not related to.
can i just say that there’s a part of me that’s just ecstatic that apple and adobe-on-apple is experiencing these issues? all these macbook pro hipsters here coffee shops and the library here in manhattan with their naive tv-commercial cockiness in apple’s superiority to everything PC can once again officially eat their words (regardless of who’s fault it is). excellent.
only a matter of time until the GIMP or other open source software renders photoshop and paying an obscene $500 per license obsolete.
Adobe would go a long way to redeem itself if it just listed any major incompatibilities between CS3 and SL, and publicize it widely. I’ve been using CS4 and dev builds of SL for six months and there’s problems there too. Adobe and Apple are perhaps reluctant collaborators, but us small people…those who pay both Adobe and Apple’s employees’ salaries…shouldn’t be caught in the middle of a corporate squabble.
[What corporate squabble? Did you see the parts where I talked about Apple and Adobe working together closely? –J.]
Gee, what do you do for a living? Something creative? Something you expect to be paid for? OSS is a great model for what it is. I use it all the time for software development, but then that makes me a propellerhead. But I don’t know any production design, photography, etc. shops that have the time to sort out the installation, compatibility, training, and blah, blah, blah issues surrounding running a creative team on tools like the GIMP. G’luck waiting for OSS to put Adobe out of business.
I understand that you don’t want to waste resources, but I plan on upgrading to Snow Leopard, but cannot afford a new version of CS. At this point, I will not be out growing this version for some time. PLEASE don’t leave thousands of us weekend warriors behind with version after version. True, the new tools are cool for the powere users, but average folk just can’t keep up on price!!! HELP – please support CS3 for a little while longer!!!
Because of the lack of 64-bit support in CS4 I think that CS3 to CS4 upgrade is very expensive compare to the leopard to snow leopard upgrade. As a developper I can understand that Adobe don’t want to invest on past version of their product. What I don’t understand is why Adobe is not producing true upgrades between versions. For a web developper, there’s nothing really significant between CS3 and CS4. The graphic processor accelleration is only proposed for a few models and is useless for what I do. I’ll upgrade to snow leopard and sell my CS3 suite if too buggy.I’ll be back when CS5 will prove that it’s core have been truly re writed for 64bit.
Dumped? Who said anything about dumping CS3. What was said is that some testing was done but not full testing and full testing support wouldn’t be taking place. Everybody’s acting like CS3 will immediately break on install of SL. Get real! Many of you are really over reacting. -je
Ouch… color management doesn’t seem to work properly on dual monitors (MBP + Dell 2408) with Photoshop 11/CS4 and 10.6.
Each monitor is independently calibrated and for reference Preview 5.0/FireFox both render properly across both monitors. Note Preview 4.X under 10.5 did not render properly across two monitors. This seems to only happen on the 2nd monitor, if I move the menu bar to the external monitor making it primary then it works for that monitor, but not the laptop display.
Maybe it’s just me, but it worked fine under 10.5… Anyone else?
Thanks John! I might actually order SL soon after all.
As the QA Manager overseeing Photoshop, Bridge, and Camera Raw, I want to clarify that we did test CS3 on Snow Leopard. As a customer, I would expect nothing less. If we found issues, we worked directly with Apple to get them fixed. Having a new OS come on the scene that breaks existing applications is not something I want to see, nor does Apple. At this point, I am not aware of any significant issues. If you do find any, please let me know.
PS: I can certainly understand the frustration that’s been unleashed here over the past day. The FAQ in my opinion did not do a good job representing what the Photoshop team did, nor our stance on Snow Leopard compatibility. One of the main reasons I work on Photoshop is because we do strive to go that extra mile. Do we always succeed? No, and I apologize for the times when we do fall short. But I wouldn’t still be working here after 12+ years if we didn’t try or fell short on any kind of regularity.
When Adobe is not willing to take a little time and effort to check compatibility of products which customers see as new (2.5 years is not that long to us) it smells of corporate greed. I think Adobe knows they have a sudo-monopoly on creative software and their management is reflecting a poor customer service attitude. But when they act this way they are indeed very much “standing in my light”. Please try to do better next time by thinking of the customer first.
We have not upgraded our 20+ licences of CS3 to CS4. Mainly because of the steep European upgrade price, but also because there are not much reason to do so. It is nothing new in CS4 that is of much interest. It is still single-core, 32bit, non-Cocoa. (We don’t need “new features”. We need stability, and productivity!) So we wait for CS5. Paying $30.000 for nothing is a pretty bad deal. I know of very few others that have “upgraded” to CS4.
That is Adobes headache.
If there were any reason to buy CS4 we would gladly do so. (CS3 was a big step forward from CS2).
Being forced to buy a “bugfix update” does not feel right.
Well, except for PPC users….
So, Mr. Howe, what’s the story with Photoshop Elements 6 for the Mac and Snow Leopard?
Any news on PSE 6 compatibility w/ Snow Leopard?
John, I understand the rationale behind not supporting CS3, and I even understand your reluctance to say anything about Photoshop Elements 6. I don’t agree with them, though.
Adobe bit me like this, before. I bought a new Mac in late 2006, and a copy of Dreamweaver 8. A little while later, I decided to install Leopard – and my Dreamweaver 8 stopped working. The response from Adobe is best summed up as “Tough luck, kid. Go buy the latest version – that works!” Not having the few hundred dollars this would cost, I was left with an $800 coaster. It has held many a mug of coffee since.
I purchased and installed Photoshop Elements 6 because I needed something much better than iPhoto for some pictures I’d taken. I sort of like it, although it is far too much of a Windows program for my liking.
Tomorrow I will go out and buy Snow Leopard – because I want to. But now I will have two Adobe disks for coasters. Because Adobe can’t be bothered figuring out how to make PSE work on Snow Leopard. Or telling us if there’s a forthcoming update.
You accuse some of your correspondents of whining. You are matching them. The lack of information about PSE is not helping your case, and your -your – cavalier attitude toward people expressing frustration and indignation is more wearing than their expression. How dare you tell your audience they are petulant villagers?
People have a right to expect Adobe to support the software they recently purchased. Adobe has also had a lot of time to figure out it isn’t going to support Snow Leopard – and it has an extensive list of email addresses for those consumers. I know because I get emails from Adobe often. But Adobe doesn’t bother sending out an alert until a few days before an important OS release? “Condescending” is merely one verb that came to mind. “Insulting” was another. The adjectives “negligent” and “uncaring” also came to mind.
Might I suggest at least a simple few things you and Adobe could do?
1. Put the information on your website – in plain view.
2. Get the Photoshop Elements for Mac product manager to make an announcement, and prominently publish it. (After all – there are a lot of people, world wide, who are going to be disappointed when their still-for-sale copy of Photoshop Elements 6 stops working).
3. (Quickly) develop a plan to either support PSE 6 for Mac, and provide an upgrade price that is not exorbitant.
3a. Considering the opacity of the PSE Mac team, a free upgrade would not be out of place. It would be considerate. A $50 upgrade for CS3 would also be reasonable.
Your point re Apple not being backward compatible is also misconstrued. When they abandoned certain technologies, there was protest. There isn’t any this time because no one reasonably expects Apple to support the PPC line of products. But Adobe knew that this OS was coming out – they could have reasonably guessed there would be protests at the decision to not support CS3 (it doesn’t matter what you actually call it – it translates to “we’re abandoning you, unless you pay for the latest upgrade”. Don’t fob the blame onto Apple – Adobe has known this would be an issue for some time. If they didn’t, they seriously need a consumer advocate.
Your frustration, John, with the comments from disappointed customers is nothing compared to their frustration with Adobe.
Thank you for the opportunity to vent my own frustration.
Carolyn Ann
“If this was your company, which would you choose: (1) Focus on making the best products that you can and making most of your current and future customers happy -or- (2) focus on old products, using old tools and technology, to make your out-of-date customers happy?”
David, this is flawed. It’s not an either/or. I’m a CS3 user and will not upgrade to CS4 because I can’t justify the cost. That doesn’t mean I won’t jump to CS5 when it comes out. I may be an “out of date” customer to you, but I’m still an Adobe user who is very, very likely to upgrade in the future.
Yeah how dare all of us peasants from wanting our ancient 2.5 year old software from working on a new operating system. Let me make this clear Snow Leopard upgrade 30 bucks my cs3 design suite was something like 1200 bucks I expect more from you.
Because CS4 is a dog of a product. The UI is flaky, it falls over regularly, and is slow as molasses. I’ve retrograded to CS3.
Dear John,
Could you shed some light on the performance of the Adobe Flash player in Snow Leopard? Has it improved or does it still turn Macs into ovens and jet engines?
CS4 is not a worthwhile upgrade — I need 64-bit memory support and am disappointed that 64-bit CS4 support is only available on an “inferior” OS. That a less-than 1-year-old license is unsupported is salt in the wound.
Any word on the original CS (Illustrator & Photoshop CS1)?
I’m running both successfully on Leopard, wondering if they’ll just quit working on Snow Leopard.
Wait – All along Adobe has saying that CS4 would not be 64-bit, due to _Apple’s_ decision not to include Carbon in Snow Leopard. When CS3 was the current version, Adobe has been saying that you would not have 64-bit support until CS5 at the earliest. Since I had a need for more RAM support, I moved to 64-bit Windows and sold my Macs. Adobe has mad it very clear all along, and I was able to plan accordingly.
So why doesn’t everyone go complain to Apple about this? They were the ones that caused this.
What should the expectation be around running Photoshop CS2 on Snow Leopard.
I’m excited about Snow Leopard, but have always felt that Adobe overcharges for upgrades to Photoshop. Should I expect CS2 to work at all, or should I look into a competitor?
CS3 2,5 years old?
Funny, I purchased it a couple of MONTHS ago (the full CS3-package for about 2000 euro’s == 2500 USD). For me it’s only those couple of months that count.
Be decent. Test it and support it properly.
If Adobe had posted David Howe’s comments about SL and CS3, I’m sure the backlash would have been a lot less. David seems to care about customer satisfaction, which doesn’t seem to be the corporate philosophy.
Personally, I think Adobe is making a huge strategic error by issuing the statement that “older versions of our creative software will not be updated to support Mac OS X Snow Leopard (v10.6).” Sure, Adobe may wish to spend their resources moving forward on the next generation of software and not looking back. But given the last version was selling a year ago at great cost (with no easy upgrade path), I think they are cutting their own throats by not building on customer satisfaction and loyalty. I’ll probably stick to Leopard and CS3 because it all works together. But Adobe has lost me as a loyal customer. I invested a lot of money into CS3 last August and am quite disappointed that Adobe won’t make the effort to support it a year later. If the upgrade path were affordable, I’d take it in a heartbeat. In the future I’ll look around for other software programs to meet my needs. As the saying goes, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”
I just upgraded, and noticed a pretty serious problem which I’m not sure is your end or Apple’s: I can’t drag and drop photos from Safari into Photoshop (or any Adobe apps) anymore. When I try to drag a photo, it’s as if nothing happened.
Any thoughts? Am I doing something wrong?
I can drag and drop from Safari to both PS CS3 and PS CS4. Does it work with any application on Snow Leopard for you?
http://twitter.com/dhowe “Their QA manager said they tested previous seeds & didn’t find big problems. They’re retesting on the GM. Hope to have word EOD Mon.”
If you have OnOne plugins installed in CS4, congratulations, your productivity just went to zero
Wow guys, take piece of software that people spent a ton of money on, and depend on for their livelihoods.. and then abandon it right away, putting a lot of people’s jobs at risk during a huge recession because they may not be able to afford the new version. And you wonder why piracy is so huge? Luckily I just steal all your software anyways, I feel sorry for all the poor people that decided to actually pay you and that you’re essentially abandoning.
Strictly speaking, Apple is responsible for maintaining compatibility between new and old versions of Mac OS X. In this case, with Snow Leopard being a refinement of Leopard –the final, optimized version of Mac OS X– compatibility is especially expected. Then again, with Adobe suites costing huge money (not $79 for some iWork app), Adobe has a special responsibility, based on fair play and good manners. If something unforeseen breaks an older Adobe app under a new OS, Adobe needs to analyze it. If the fix is easy or at least not too difficult, then they have an obligation to release a point update. If the fix is too complicated to be reasonable, then they should say so, explain the problem, and offer upgrades.
Well…i have read and completely understood all the + and – of developing a new software.. monies involved and stuff… i am wondering if i should switch to my good old friend XP with Adobe CS3 running and keep running on it until Adobe and Apple comes to a conclusion on what is supported and what is not. If not stay on XP for as long as it exists.
Designing is my livelihood and i am at loss with all this. For those who can afford all this stuff.. all the best guys… have fun… from a disappointed money less designer…
I just have to say I’m so tired of my life revolving around Adobe… As a freelancer, I can’t automatically upgrade my Mac or my OS for fear that CreativeSuite applications may or may not work with it… If CS doesn’t work, I don’t work. And with Adobe buying the actual competition up (except Quark) there’s really no option. My life continues to revolve around Adobe or I find a brand new career.
And these snarky responses from Adobe authorized people on these forums? I understand you’re probably stressed and sick of people “whining” but when you’re talking about the amount of cash required for Premium suites and upgrades (which don’t even usually offer industry shattering new features anymore), you should really treat your customers a bit better… This REALLY isn’t helping my opinions of Adobe…
[I already apologized for my one snarky comment, and I’ve tried to explain that brevity doesn’t indicate anything other than a shortage of time to write more. In any event, it’s never my intention to be offensive or curt, and I’m sorry if I come off that way. –J.]
My question will be brief: when can we expect another CS4 patch ?
– Will there be a fix for the clumsy ‘Save for Web dialogue ?”
– Will there be a fix for the UI glitches ?
– Will it finally work good with spaces ?
– Will the be a fix for stability issues ?
Does Lightroom 1.x (latest pre-2 version) work under Snow Leopard? Any comments appreciated. Thanks,
-ravi
ps: Would that be included in the comment that CS3 works?
will ADDT work as an extension I am using in CS4 if I install Snow Leopard? I know that CS4 ( DW) will work in snow leopard, but will the ADDT extension work as well?
Thanks for any assistance.
James
Thanks everyone for theiy’re input and comments.
YES, I want Adobe to support CS3 and if needed, Stop working on CS5 and direct engineers and developers to support CS3 and CS4, if they care at all about their customers. Adobe should not abandon those who use one version prior, especially cannot afford the astronomical fees to update every year.
CS3 is NOT old, I have only had it for a little over one year, so to some of us CS3 is sill NEW to us!
No functionality issues with CS4, BUT I’ve had several crashes while trying to save files in both Illustrator and Photoshop since upgrading to Snow Leopard.
Wow, some strong views on here! I add my disappointment to those who are using CS3 and have found that Snow Leopard *might* be incompatible due to lack of testing.
That said, I have taken the simple decision to not upgrade until CS5 comes out. CS3 has all the functionality I need to carry out my job (I’m a self-employed designer) so I’ll just wait it out.
It’s annoying but not worth getting so worked up about! This is the price of progress – I don’t expect my VHS tapes to work in my Blu-Ray player (wow, I’m going to get flamed for that!).
So far I haven’t had any real issues following the SL update, but then I fully expected to encounter more problems with CS3 apps than I have. Maybe I’ve just been lucky, I don’t know. That doesn’t diminish the fact that Adobe’s attitude towards a fairly large customer base is … Quark-y, for lack of a better term. If there were viable alternatives to, in my case primarily, InDesign and Illustrator, I wouldn’t hesitate for a second to chuck CS3 out the window, just like I did back in the day when Quark messed up.
It should be reasonable to expect support for current version -1 at the same time as development for current version +1, that is a model that most savvy developers use these days. To not even test current version -1 (= CS3) on Snow Leopard seems a bit daft, or arrogant, to me. If that in fact is what’s happened here.
As a CS3 customer who really can’t justify the CS4 update price, I’m both annoyed and relieved. Annoyed at the attitude. Relieved that only a few, manageable problems have appeared. So far.
I have had nearly 20 crashes in CS4 Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop in the last 24 hours since upgrading to SL. Crashes occur while either placing images or saving files.
I just installed Mac OS X Snow Leopard.
Adobe CS3 (I made sure I updated it before installing the new OS) – Photoshop, Illustrator and Flash all work. I re-compiled a Flash application and it worked. I edited PSD and AI files with ease.
OpenOffice 3.x, Firefox 3.5, etc. all work fine.
Good to hear CS3 works in SL. But I would strongly prefer Adobe to support CS3, if the possibly needed fixes would not take too much resources. CS3 is very much a preferred production environment in many places.
I will not upgrade to CS4 any case. I am afraid my MBP 2.4GHz is not fast enough for it and I do not like the direction UI is going. I guess I’ll wait for CS5 and 3GHz/8GB-RAM Mac notebook.
The problem I have is that Acrobat 8.0’s distiller apparently doesn’t work, and apparently Adobe’s help page only points to 9.0 (see http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/509/cpsid_50981.html ). Any rumors on the street regarding fixes?
As a potential customer for Adobe product, here is what this story tells me :
In order to have support for the product you buy for a pretty high price, you have to spent 40% of that price every 18 months in upgrades.
As I can understand the economics of company’s decision making, so do you.
If your company do not take care of the past, there will be no future to deal with.
PS : If I was in Apple’s shoes, I’ld be pretty pissed. Moving the price tag for their upgrade from 30 bucks to several hundreds does make them loose customers as well.
Is anyone having troubles with CS4, especially with Photoshop. It constantly crashes and I have reinstalled Snow Leopard with a clean install and also installed CS4 like 5 times. I even installed the latest updates from Apple and Adobe?
I have been on a MAC for 20 years and have never had this many issues? I have been troubleshooting various options but with not luck. I have even been to the apple store with no luck?
Anybody else having issues like this? Please help!
I am having a problem with all Adobe CS3 programs crashing in Snow Leopard when I try to open a file. I search for it in the finder search box, open it and a program crashes. I go to the file using the folder structure and it opens fine. How is this something you can’t fix?
No, I don’t own CS4, and yes I’ve read the posts from the dorks trying to be funny above and reply with some snarkey comment, but seriously, why can’t Adobe support your current product (CS4) and the last release (CS3) that tons of people bought? To be fair, Adobe wasn’t exactly upfront about the compatibility issue before this controversy started.
We want to use your products. We pay good money for authentic software and Adobe will change their mind and release an update for SL. Please… At least fix the finder/search issue!
All apps on Snow Leopard are crashing on open/save and whenver the heck they feel like. Apple seriously dropped the ball with 10.6. I don’t think you can serioiusly blame Adobe for a bug that affects litterally every application on MacOS 10.6.
Save yourself some headaches and go back to 10.5.8, where at least it’s stable.
if you create a new user in SL, the suite work fine in these user.
Is there ANY way for me to access my files that I stored using Adobe Drive for the time being? This completely screwed some of us.
I’m more interested in fixing my access to CS4 than in rants. Is there any known issue around having purchased CS through a legitimate discounted academic release? Any experience with the suggestion of adding a new user to SL?
My SL eperience has been terrific except for (and it’s a big deal to me) the CS issues.
I’m more interested in fixing my access to CS4 than in rants. Is there any known issue around having purchased CS through a legitimate discounted academic release? Any experience with the suggestion of adding a new user to SL?
My SL eperience has been terrific except for (and it’s a big deal to me) the CS issues.
Perhaps apps are crashing for YOU; I’ve yet to have a single app crash under Snow Leopard, though I don’t use CS3 or CS4.
For what it’s worth, Elements 6 works just fine under Snow Leopard in my experience.
You can have your Intel Macs with non-64-bit CS4 and Snow Leopard: these are not improvements in any way for those designing in vector editing software (ie Illustrator). FreeHand on a PPC will always be faster than Illustrator in any form. Period. Have fun with the bugs! http://www.freefreehand.org
I upgraded to SL and it broke my PS CS3.
All the commands are grayed out including the quit. I can open a file and that is about all.
Why Adobe does not put CS3 available for the Open Sources Community in order to solve :
1) the monetary issue coming from shareholders
2) have the OS Community to fix CS3 and make available for Snow Leopard.
3) save the investments of those Companies had installed CS3
4) or proposing a political upgrade to CS4 and then CS5 (when available) in order to guarantee a smooth change with not impacts.
My regards
M.
[Sometimes I wonder whether these comments are written as self-parody. And you are aware that crashing on Snow Leopard results from bugs in Snow Leopard itself, right? –J.]
They’re engineers do not pay for they’re products. They’re customers do. Who cares if Adobe testers are mad that they have to go back and look at old code. Chances are the software isn’t backward compatible because Adobe did not allot time to make sure that the product would be. Buyer beware!
I was working with CS$ suite completely fine until upgrading to Snow Leopard… now my life is a Hell. Simple commands like save or open (if you using the menu in all applications) is crashing… never seen a thing like that… do you have any suggestions?
Tks
Wait for Apple to fix it? Seriously, every app I’ve tried on Snow Leopard crashes, often, on open and save, and whenever else they feel like it. This isn’t an Adobe problem, it’s an Apple scrwe up.
Albino and Pissed Mac User,
I hate having those sorts of problems and I feel for you. However, we are using Snow Leopard and CS4 at my work on a bunch of Macs (iMac, Macbook and Macbook Pro) and we don’t have any of those issues. Are using CS3 and having these problems? Have you tried a reinstall of SL and the CS suite (I know, painful)?
CS3, CS4, FinalCut, Motion, Pages, BBEdit, Dreamweaver — everything crashes. Yes, I’ve tried reinstalling, wiping my disk, etc. Really, it’s a bug in Snow Leopard. Really, a lot of people are seeing it even if you somehow haven’t hit it yet.
Wow! I’m glad I googled “Snow Leopard and CS2” before upgrading to SL.
OK, I’ll have some decisions to make…
FYI, John, here’s how my company handles the issues being expressed by the villagers.
We, too, sell “expensive” enterprise software — it ranges from a couple of thousand to tens of thousands of dollars if fully loaded. We are currently on Version 7 of our package, yet still support customers on V3.2 or V4.1 IF, and only IF, they are on software maintenance.
Software maintenance is an annual support contract that is 18% of the software license.
We do not fix bugs in (way) earlier versions of our software, but will help our customers with workarounds if they are unwilling to upgrade to the latest version of the software which is FREE if they have an annual support contract.
As long as the customer is on maintenance all new releases of that package are FREE.
The cost of this policy to us? We have to keep a number of servers fixed at various OS mod levels, each loaded with all versions of our software (3.2, 4.1, 5.0, 5.1, 6.0, 6.1, 6.5, 7.0, 7.1, 7.5, and 7.6) as test beds for all of our customers on maintenance.
Why doesn’t Adobe have a policy that if a customer buys CS3 or CS4 and purchases a support contract they will get the next release for FREE as long as the contract is paid up?
(By the way, this approach smoothes the revenue bumps that occur only when you release a new version) Instead of rushing out a major version release because your shareholders are expecting that big boost in the 2nd quarter, you get to increase incremental monthly revenue that makes it easier to plan… and pay bills.
Just my two cents!
I use Illustrator CS4 constantly and since I upgraded to Snow Leopard, Illustrator quits constantly time after time. I uninstalled all of CS4, clean scripted and fully reinstalled CS4, Updated to all latest
versions, restarted, trashed permissions and restarted and again,exporting, saving as pdf’s, jpegs etc crashes when you least need them. What I am forced to do is open an untitled folder and saving it before I start a job. Work for 5-10 minutes and save. Then when the job is saved I rename the file? What a palava!
I can not understand why Adobe nor Apple are addressing this, I am not the only one, I hear of many designers experiencing the same quitting in Photoshop. Any ideas?
What can Adobe do about it?
Snow Leopard causes all apps to crash, and Apple isn’t fixing their bugs. Apple wants to pretend that they’re perfect: they quickly delete any post on their forums hinting at crashes on Snow Leopard, and their tech support will blame everyone but Apple’s own code.
But it’s the same crash report in every app, from every company (even Apple’s own apps). That can’t be application bugs, that has to be an OS bug.
I’m with you. I bought a brand new Mac – installed Snow Leopard. Found issues with PDFs and even Word.
Guess what I rarely use the new laptop. Most of the time I use my older G4 – IT works.
I’m sadly disappointed & I REFUSE to spend $500 -$600 dollars to just make it function – I can’t do the housework without a dustpan and broom. This is a woeful situation that smacks of Microsoft mentality.
Do I think it can be fixed free of cost to the customers? Yes I do. Do I expect this to happen? No I don’t. Do I think $$$$ speak? Yes I do. BUT you have to have paying customers – and we may not be there. Treat us well and we will stay with you. Continue with this current farce and expect to lose us.
I will NOT be blackmailed into paying up. I’ll use my old machine and to hell with both Adobe & Apple.
I have recently just upgraded my MacBook Pro to Snow Leopard, when I installed CS4 on the mac, I cannot even launch the application. Instead, I get error code 150:30 about the license code for the application running out (this is a brand new disc). After over a month of frustrating conversations with tech support, running every possible cleaning script, uninstalling/ installing over and over again, modifying various folder names in the directory, the problem is still not solved. Not only did I just waste thousands of dollars buying the new CS, I have wasted more than countless of hours on the phone with both the incompetent adobe tech support and finger-pointing apple tech support.
If anyone out there has any ideas beyond what’s posted on the adobe support webpage (tried everything, nothing worked), any help would be greatly appreciated!
Both Photoshop CS3 and After Effects CS3 crash constantly in SL! I just purchased my first Intel Mac and migrated my copies of Adobe CS3 products to the new machine. I had to purchase CS3 because CS4 would not work on my older Power Mac… now CS3 isn’t working on the new Mac and there doesn’t seem to be any resolution from Adobe to officially support CS3 users. I used to be under the illusion that Adobe supported their customers, it was why I was such a loyal user of their products over the alternatives. I am sad to say I was mistaken… or the culture has changed so drastically that profit outweights all other concerns.
[Look, the bugs are in the OS, and we’re helping Apple test their fixes. That’s all we can do. –J.]
sciencegirl, send me your contact info and I’ll enter an escalation case for someone to call you. jtranber @t adobe dot. com
did adobe announced any solutions for these problems?
[We’re helping Apple test their bug fixes. There’s nothing else we can do at the moment. –J.]
maybe downgrade is the best solution, what do u think?
Plz visit my site to know more about this http://www.filmai.in/uzeik-6490.html
I want to try Adobe products, but to download a trial I need to have a download manager. Uhm, hello? Anybody home? The manager is cr*p, and besides, I don’t want to use it. So you effectively stopped me from trying out your software. You just lost a potentioal 700$ deal here.
Is Adobe just the most incompetent software company out there, or what?
The great thing is, the best download experience today for Adobe software, is torrents! Great job Adobe marketing driven management software development gurus.
Tried installing Illustrator CS3 multiple times on my Macbook Pro running OS X (10.5.8). Seems to install just fine, but when I click on the app icon after everything is said and done, it flashes to fool me into believing that the app is launhcing, but nothing happens. I have done this a few times (running disk util cleanups etc etc) but nothing changes. And it takes ~1/2 hr each time 🙁 Frustrating, to say the least. And this is not even on Snow Leopard! I have been a user of Illustrator since 2000, and have to say that each successive version gets more and more annoying, and it has finally reached a level that it just won’t launch. Wonderful work guys!
Well… there ARE major problems with Snow leopard & CS4! I am getting “The Licence for this product has expired”.
Seems like Adobe knows about this, though the “Tech Support” boys, a polite bunch of chaps in India, don’t seem to know about the issue.
It is to be seen here: Look for “cpsid_51260” in the Knowledgebase.
The horror is that I have been told to delete all my CS3 installs (this was an upgrade to CS4) and now I am unable to work. These programs are my daily tools. I can just close up shop if this doesn’t work.
HELP, someone!!
Send me your contact info and I’ll put you in contact with someone who can help you. (jtranber @t adobe .dot com)
Here two solutions to CS4 crashes on SL.
Hope that helps. For us was frustrating.
Bye, Matt
Finally solved the issue “Licencing has expired for this product”
Used the Tech Note “cpsid_49485”.
Solution 1 worked for me, but not as described.
Setting the clock back to May 31, 2009 did not help.
After a series of earlier increments, a date of October 10, 2008 allowed me to open the program, deactivate it, delete the saved serial number. I then reset the date of the computer to today, and all programs in CS4 started perfectly.
Obviously there were several trial licences, and mine ended earlier.
Thank you to the 10 Tech support ladies & gents in India (including Aditi, Sumit – 2 different ones, and Arun).
I agree. It isn’t adobe. its a system wide thing for me… no matter what App i’m in. if i try to save i have to cross my fingers that the app wont crash.
Ever since I installed Snow Leopard last week, PDF files don’t open in English. Instead I get pages of symbols that look like programming language. I updated to Adobe Reader 9.2.0 and Flash Player 10, but neither helped. I need to be able to read PDFs on my iMac for work. Is there anything I can do except uninstall Snow Leopard?
yes, use Preview. I never use Reader. It is often slow.
I just tried it though and it works fine for me.
In order to access Preview I have to open the PDF (in its symbols), click Print, open the PDF arrow and select “Open PDF in Preview.” Since it’s already in the symbol state, I just get the same symbol page in Preview. Since you say it works fine for you, I wonder if something is wrong with my iMac.
I set Preview to be the default application for pdf’s and when I click on the pdf it just opens in preview.
You can also open the Preview app and the use ‘file/open’ hopefully avoiding the symbol state?
However, I have to admit that I don’t understand your “symbol problem”. I would definitely say that something is wrong though.
Am starting to feel guilty about using the blog for correspondence, so if you want to I am at scott@dnasilicon.com
Then don’t upgrade to Snow Leopard. It’s a simple cost-benefit scenario. What’s more important to you: running Snow Leopard, or using CS?
Save your money and your upgrade until you can do both at the same time. Nobody’s forcing you to upgrade to 10.6 right this minute. You just *want* to, even though you don’t *need* to, and indeed *shouldn’t*, because of your application needs.
Then don’t upgrade to Snow Leopard. It’s a simple cost-benefit scenario. What’s more important to you: running Snow Leopard, or using CS?
Save your money and your upgrade until you can do both at the same time. Nobody’s forcing you to upgrade to 10.6 right this minute. You just *want* to, even though you don’t *need* to, and indeed *shouldn’t*, because of your application needs.
Why are you people so determined that you simply *MUST* upgrade to Snow Leopard, when you have hundreds of dollars invested in software? You’re putting your investment at risk for the sake of a $129 update and right to brag about being cutting edge. This is nonsense logic.
What is more important to you? Being able to do the things you expect to, or going through a period of pain and money just so you can be running 10.6 for no discernible justification. None of my users have yet provided a valid justification for me to upgrade them to 10.6. Until they do, I’m holding off, so that it can be done right.
Tell me exactly what it is in Snow Leopard that you *require* (does not equal *want*) that justifies you knowingly breaking your CS (and thus descending into whining complaining mode)?
this misses the point. Adobe software is not cheap and they owe it to their users to provide more that a couple of years before refusing to support a new OS. this happened with CS2 which came out in 2005 but had problems with Leopard in 2007 (and Vista on PC). It worked but needed some fixes. However, Adobe simply refused thus railroading more users into an upgrade. I don’t know any other major software developer that leaves their users in the shit after so little time. It may not be the same level of software, but even microsoft are still releasing patches for Office 2004 to keep it compatible. Even a paid-for fix would be better than forking out for an upgrade…
All well and good to say – my mac died and they gave me a new one – Snow Leopard. Now I cannot install CS3 – I’ve been 5 hellish weeks with Adobe “Tech Support” trying to get my programs to work. They don’t know how to fix this but they keep stringing me on.
Kathy, send me you info and case number and I’ll find someone who can get you straightened out. jtranber at adobe dot com.
I own CS2 and an old Mac G4. I would love to buy a new iMac 27″, but it looks like I will need to buy all new software. Is that the case?
I also run Quark 6.5 and an older version of suitcase
thank you very much for good commants
Bathmate
Hallo everybody, I´ve spent at least one hour reading all your questions/comments on SL and CS3. HERE is my problem:
I MOST buy a new imac. The 27″ i5 quad is my choice and is only being solled in Germany with SL. Has annybody the latest news of bugs on PS-CS3 and Dreamweaver 9(CS3)…or is it possible to install the “old” leopard?
I´m thankfull for any usefull comment! bent
I really, really want to upgrade both SL and CS, but even now, I read about instability in CS4. I’m in a production environment, and getting busier by the day. I have Fireworks CS4 on Leopard, and it is buggier than an entymologist’s lab. Soon, I’ll be able to afford the whole suite, but I need stability more than anything else.
Here’s the thing. When I build websites, all by my little self, I am building using standards-compliant and accessible code. With every single website I build, even with standards-compliant code, I have to check it on a PC and a Mac. On the PC, I have to make sure the site displays correctly on IE6, IE7, IE8, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Opera. On the Mac, I have to check it on Safari, Firefox, Opera, and soon, Chrome. If it doesn’t work on ALL of those, then I have to make it work, even with hacks, remembering and understanding older code, because I have to look at browser usage and platform usage and the needs of the client. A lot of companies are still using IE6. They should not. It’s a security risk. But that’s reality. That means I have to buy expensive software (Parallels and the Windows operating system disk) or pay for a subscription to Browserlabs so I can check it in virtual machines set up for each version of IE (because they don’t play well with each other).
In other words, why are web designers expected to design and develop to *some* degree of legacy software, because the reality is that people use legacy software (and our clients are trying to sell to them, too), but Adobe is immune from it?
In the meantime, I won’t upgrade to SL, and I won’t upgrade to CS4. I’ll keep my ear to the ground about SL playing well with a (hopefully) non buggy CS5, and then check my bank account to see if I can afford it. Since I’m not a first adopter, I foresee using Leopard and CS3 for a long time.
I really, really want to upgrade both SL and CS, but even now, I read about instability in CS4. I’m in a production environment, and getting busier by the day. I have Fireworks CS4 on Leopard, and it is buggier than an entymologist’s lab. Soon, I’ll be able to afford the whole suite, but I need stability more than anything else.
Here’s the thing. When I build websites, all by my little self, I am building using standards-compliant and accessible code. With every single website I build, even with standards-compliant code, I have to check it on a PC and a Mac. On the PC, I have to make sure the site displays correctly on IE6, IE7, IE8, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Opera. On the Mac, I have to check it on Safari, Firefox, Opera, and soon, Chrome. If it doesn’t work on ALL of those, then I have to make it work, even with hacks, remembering and understanding older code, because I have to look at browser usage and platform usage and the needs of the client. A lot of companies are still using IE6. They should not. It’s a security risk. But that’s reality. That means I have to buy expensive software (Parallels and the Windows operating system disk) or pay for a subscription to Browserlabs so I can check it in virtual machines set up for each version of IE (because they don’t play well with each other).
In other words, why are web designers expected to design and develop to *some* degree of legacy software, because the reality is that people use legacy software (and our clients are trying to sell to them, too), but Adobe is immune from it?
In the meantime, I won’t upgrade to SL, and I won’t upgrade to CS4. I’ll keep my ear to the ground about SL playing well with a (hopefully) non buggy CS5, and then check my bank account to see if I can afford it. Since I’m not a first adopter, I foresee using Leopard and CS3 for a long time.
does anyone have experience trying to install Acrobat 9 Pro on an iMac or Apple laptop with Snow Leopard. I have tried unsuccessfully despite several hours on the phone with Adobe’s tech support on multiple occasions
The problem isn’t the the lack of testing for a so-called legacy product.
The problem is the inflexibility and disdain Adobe exhibits to it’s loyal customer base by pricing the upgrade paths way to high.
The solution is simple.
Offer loyal customers a reasonable discount on upgrades. If I buy CS4 this year and CS5 comes out next year give me a frigg’n reasonable 40-60% discount to upgrade with in a certain period. Especially since I have a purchase history of over a decade with Abobe products. If I purchase more than two copies of the CS suite give me an additional proportional discount of a few percents off the price. If I buy 5+ — give me a site license deal.
It’s called negotiating and it’s respecting your customers.
As it is Adobe is just throwing it’s weight around and exploiting it’s monopoly. Which, as Quark learned, will not end well for the company.
Adobe seriously needs more competition.
I hope CS5 will come this year in spring or early summer, not in october (as John said in a previous post that CS5 will be shiped when the youngest PPC-Mac would be about four years old).
This blog is remarkable; thanks to John for his honest discussions here.
Raph
I hope CS5 will come this year in spring or early summer, not in october (as John said in a previous post that CS5 will be shiped when the youngest PPC-Mac would be about four years old).
This blog is remarkable; thanks to John for his honest discussions here.
Raph
Sorry for the double post, my browser crashed during the first post.
Kind regards
Raph
CS4, 10.6.2 and the iMac 27″ do have serious issues.
Screen redraw is a pain, sometimes it garbles, sometimes it doesn´t refresh at all.Worst case it pulls out older history steps and layers them.
Masks vanish,paths move.
Please look into this ASAP
When Apple comes to shove.
I´m shure they wiill take You down, and develop a better, Pixelmator like Photoshop.
You´re lazy and You don´t deserve future.
Wow, it’s a good thing I decided to start digging around the Adobe site. I can’t afford to upgrade Photoshop CS2 or Dreamweaver 8 – so I might as well throw my Snow Leopard disk away. I knew there was a reason I didn’t want to upgrade…but this really stinks.
Fireworks CS4 keeps crashing on my 2.66 GHz MacBook Pro running MacOS X 10.6.3. I’ve got all the latest updates, but still crashes.
When is the fix coming?
Does anyone experince laggyness when drop shadows are switched on in layer effects? There’s also a laggyness in moving around highlighted text?
I just bought the latest 27 imac and am really disspointed with it. My main tools are CS4 and for some processes, such as the above, I revert back to my Pentium 4 3.2ghz.
2 hours on Apple support (who are in fairness very professional and great to work with), 2 hours with Aode support (who are absolutley awful), and no wiser.
So where does one go from here?
Your’s truly dissapointed!
NK
The same thing has happened to me – upgraded to Snow Leopard because my old iMac died and I bought a new one. CS3 will not install – the iMac won’t even see any content on the damned disc!
Yet our MacPro using Leopard does so, and my daughter with a new MacBookPro and SL installed OK using her own disc.
Clearly “SL and CS3 are compatible” needs a little qualifying Jeffrey.
Strange thing is – I am trying to install CS3 on a new iMac 21.5″ with SL – won’t go! My daughter tried same with a new MacBookPro and SL – thats OK?
Somewhere between Apple and Adobe we are not getting good service.
Acrobat and Indesign CS3 crash with OSX 10.6.3
Any help?
Apple changed the way that it handles system serial numbers in 10.6.3:
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/834/cpsid_83499.html
Is CS5 compatible with OS 10.6.3?
Yes. CS5 is compatible with 10.6.3. We also support 10.5.8.
I have an iMac i5 27″ running SL 10.6.2 and so far runs pretty well with CS3.
Sounds like a pain but maybe you could go back to 10.6.2?
After all the negative reports I’ve heard about SL on 10.6.3 Im not game to upgrade!
Adobe [We’re helping Apple test their bug fixes. There’s nothing else we can do at the moment. –J.]
Translation: We’re helping Apple test their bug fixes. We don’t want to spend any more time or money on resolving these issues for CS3. We have decided to do nothing more about it and we’ve put it on the back burner. Like it or lump it.
End result for Adobe: a good percentage of your user base gets incredibly pissed off at having unsupported software that was bought new as recently as 1 year or 18 months ago! (in my case with CS3).
———————————————————-
Adobe probably thinks it has an unassailable market position just as Quark thought it did in the 90’s. Adobe, don’t rest on your laurels, or take us – the people who pay good money for your software – for granted. People will start looking for alternative software suppliers.
———————————————————-
This is crazy! Yes, we don’t HAVE to upgrade to Snow Leopard. Stick with CS3/4. So what Adobe is saying is, “save your money, avoid frustration, don’t buy our products.” What kind of a business strategy is that to steer your customers away? So why even develop products at all if you aren’t going to pimp them appropriately? How is alienating your customer base putting cash in your investors portfolios. Customer retention is key.
I am working with CS4 and OS 10.6.4 and having problems. Sometimes I am getting complete crashes, but frequently the program freezes. When I go to force quit, it shows that the application is not responding. If I wait—often for a few minutes—the application becomes live again. VERY FRUSTRATING!
Sorry to bug you, but in searching for a solution to my problem, I found that you posted the same problem:
“I am working with CS4 and OS 10.6.4 and having problems. Sometimes I am getting complete crashes, but frequently the program freezes. When I go to force quit, it shows that the application is not responding.”
I was wondering if you had any leads for a solution.
Thanks very much in advance.
Chris
I recently got an update message from Adobe saying that I needed to upgrade flash player to 10.1 version, I did this and now I can’t get anything with flash to run on Safari SnowLeopard 10.6.4.
I phoned Apple support and they told me its an adobe problem and to call Adobe tech support. Im really pissed as I have tried the uninstall adobe suite and reinstalling but still every time flash tries to load the app tells me to upgrade to 10.1 flash version, so its not being recognised or supported. Well I can’t even watch BBC Iplayer any more, or youtube or in fact pretty much any video content…
Any ideas what I should do?
Photoshopcs5 update, is working, if i do not have upgrated the photoshopcs4?