Adobe revises Snow Leopard FAQ re: CS3, Flash

Adobe has posted a revised FAQ (PDF) concerning application testing & compatibility with Snow Leopard. Notably:

Q. Do Adobe Creative Suite 3 products support Mac OS X Snow Leopard (v10.6)?

A. Adobe has worked closely with Apple throughout the Snow Leopard development and testing process. Adobe has conducted its own additional testing of our Adobe CS3 software on Mac OS X Snow Leopard, and is confident that our CS3 applications will function as expected with Mac OS X Snow Leopard. Adobe did uncover some non‐critical issues, which are documented for our customers to review*.

Additionally:

The initial release of Mac OS X Snow Leopard (v10.6) includes an earlier version of Adobe Flash Player than what is currently available from Adobe. Adobe recommends all users update to the latest version of Flash Player (10.0.32.18) which supports Snow Leopard and is available for download from Adobe.com.

* Same technote as referenced in my previous entry

10 thoughts on “Adobe revises Snow Leopard FAQ re: CS3, Flash

  1. It amazes me that one little mention of how a version of Photoshop that shipped in 2007 hasn’t been rigorously tested on an OS released last week has caused so much furor. 3 blog posts just to ease the mac-minds! You’ve done more than a fair share.
    What amazes me is that nobody seems concerned that a certain OS routinely drops its entire codebase or modifies it substantialy, breaking all applications , and then, as one of your commenters put it, aggressively pushes users to upgrade.
    Instead, those users blame Adobe for…not predicting what Apple would make obsolete? Not spending the resources to remake a 2-year old version of software? I mean, if Apple doesn’t bother making sure that it’s older stuff continues to work, why do Apple users expect Adobe to? It’s a major double standard.
    Perhaps you guys should market Photoshop as “hip” and “trendy” so that you can just pass off old versions as “uncool.” Then, your users will feel compelled to buy the latest versions, no questions asked, in order to have the best product on the market.
    Am I missing something? Am I alone in perceiving that expectations from the 6.5%-marketshare Apple crowd are beyond reason and hypocritical? Adobe software does have its problems on *both* platforms…but isn’t this nonsense a bit thick-headed?
    -Jim

  2. I’m just as amazed at how many people are surprised by the uproar. CS3 was retired less than a year ago, and Adobe knows that a significant percentage of their customers are still running it. It’s reasonable to expect them to have done a full regression test of CS3 under Snow Leopard if only so they could be adequately prepared for the support calls it might trigger.

  3. Jim Monaco,
    I excpect to more or less KNOW what to expect if I’m upgrading my production computers to Snow Leopard BEFOREHAND, so I can make some decisions. It’s OK to CS3 have problems with Snow Leopard, but Adobe’s answers a’la “we don’t know” are unacceptable.
    [That’s why teams have gone back and done more testing. –J.]

  4. I think adobe is sorta lying. It’s either they are too lazy to test or don’t even test at all before/after snow leopard relase. It all happened after users report many bugs. They better provide sw update for it soon!
    [Is that going to be your litmus test for whether Adobe did the right thing here? What if the bugs aren’t Adobe’s to fix? –J.]
    Or they won’t get my money for cs5 relase since I paid $$$ for cs3!

  5. Jim asks: Instead, those users blame Adobe for…not predicting what Apple would make obsolete? Not spending the resources to remake a 2-year old version of software?
    Adobe’s customers expect it to test recent releases of its software against new releases of supported operating systems, and advise them of issues, which it has always done before. (Google CS2 and Vista, if you want proof.)
    [CS2 was the currently shipping version in February 2006, when Vista shipped. If folks are going to keep throwing past history in my face (cf. the guy who kept “correcting” me about when I personally had posted the G5 update for PS7), I’d like it if they did a bit more research. –J.]
    And although Adobe has been on an 18-month product cycle of late, versus 3 years for other software companies, CS4 has been on sale less than 1 year, so there are plenty of CS3 users who bought it a lot less than 2 years ago.
    In the case of a fine-tuning and performance release of an OS, most things that worked before still do – Apple clearly didn’t “obsolete” anything that was critical specifically to CS3.
    In fact, Adobe probably could have just put out a statement saying that they didn’t expect any major issues, and then when a few minor ones cropped up, no biggie.
    The “we haven’t tested it at all” statement was taken the wrong way by customers – but perhaps justifiably, since as a major Mac ISV, Adobe should have had pre-release copies of 10.6 in-house for many months already.
    What Apple has done is state conclusively that the Carbon framework Adobe uses (which, by the way, is itself backward compatible to OS versions 11 years old) is not going 64-bit.
    And Adobe is doing the right thing by moving CS5 to the Cocoa framework – which everyone who develops for the Mac has known was the way forward since at least 2001.
    [Yes, though of course the fact that in all those years Apple has never moved iTunes of Final Cut Pro to Cocoa, and now consequently hasn’t been able to ship a 64-bit FCP (including the brand new version), might tell you something about the cost/benefit of making that move. In any event, the quality & usefulness of Cocoa are irrelevant: Apple has made it clear that this is the one way forward, and I’ve thanked them for that clarity. –J.]

  6. Get your act together Adobe. What a joke. I own CS3 and can’t use Finder in any of the programs’ menu boxes to find a file. If I do, it freezes up. How did you miss THAT when reviewing Snow Leopard.
    [I don’t know how the bug got missed, and I’m sorry it did, but why do you think the bug is in Adobe software? If everything worked fine on Leopard & now it doesn’t, this must be… well, obviously Adobe’s fault. –J.]
    I won’t ever buy CS4 until I know you’ve fixed this. I own the Master Collection and shouldn’t have to upgrade based on such a silly oversight by your “testers”. I would expect this from Microsoft, not Adobe.

  7. it is not double standard. Mac OS upgrade cost 30 bucks, Adobe software upgrade cost much more.
    Apple cannot be taken reliable for all the bugs in all the software running on their OS, that’s just not realistic. software developers have to deal with their software. And even if Apple could and should, as a software developer, I wouldn’t be doing a good job if I didn’t check this for myself (which is exactly what Adobe did in the matter).
    If the software is free or cheap, that’s not a big deal, if it does cost a lot, it does become a problem for everyone, including Adobe and Apple.
    Put this into perspective : as a Flex developer, I’m probably a 0,1% market share, but I’m still a customer. As a developer I have to buy Mac OS X upgrade in order to check that my products do work on this platform.
    It’s not a matter of hype or coolness, it’s a matter of doing your job right, period.
    In the big picture, by not even testing the thing, what Adobe does is actually forcing the over software company to keep support older version of an Operating system, pissing off not only their customers but a lot of other companies as well in the process.
    As for bugs, I don’t care who’s fault it is, all I care is who’s going to fix it. And Adobe comment on that is : “we won’t”. Actively giving them the image of the unreliable company.
    This whole story is at least probably one of the best lessons on bad communication I’ve seen in a while.

  8. Bang, Bang, Bang…..goes my head against the wall. I upgraded to snow Leopard and now CS3 is dead. It keeps telling me my licence is out of date. Yes I know there are tech articles on Adobes web site to deal with this problem but to dat they have not worked and yes I have tried to completely uninstall and start again..still no good. So I called adobe customer support (somewhere in India) They listened and then told me…..THAT CS3 DOES NOT WORK ON SNOW LEOPARD!! I COULD UPGRADE TO CS4 OR REVERT TO LEOPARD OS!! At the time I made a few I’m disgusted noises and took the news on the chin. Then i started searching the internet only to find this and many other items saying that CS3 should work just fine. I have reopened the case only to have it closed again by someone who obviously still thinks that they have resolved my case with the rubbish described above. I have again opened the case..maybe I can politely ask John Nack to find me someone wiling to help. I believe Adobe have stated that their customer has been failing lately…well I can only agree.

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