Weblog of a “Switcher”

At first read, Adobe had me thinking that they had decided to treat Macintosh as second class citizens for some strange reason. I recently read that Adobe was going to release it's next version of Creative Suite including Photoshop in 64-bit and for Windows only.

I was shocked since it seemed to me that the majority of sales for Creative Suite comes from the Macintosh side. I really was left scratching my head at such move.
Then I read this short little blurb from John Gruber's Daring Fireball and found out why.

What happened? In short, Apple cancelled 64-bit Carbon:

As we wrapped up Photoshop CS3, our plan was to ship 64-bit versions of the next version of Photoshop for both Mac and Windows. On the Mac Photoshop (like the rest of the Creative Suite, not to mention applications like Apple’s Final Cut Pro and iTunes) relies on Apple’s Carbon technology. Apple’s OS team was busy enabling a 64-bit version of Carbon, a prerequisite for letting Carbon-based apps run 64-bit-native.

At the WWDC show last June, however, Adobe and other developers learned that Apple had decided to stop their Carbon 64 efforts. This means that 64-bit Mac apps need to be written to use Cocoa (as Lightroom is) instead of Carbon. This means that we’ll need to rewrite large parts of Photoshop and its plug-ins (potentially affecting over a million lines of code) to move it from Carbon to Cocoa.

It’s a great post; Nack does a good job dispelling any potential notion that this is a sign that Adobe’s commitment to the Mac is any way flagging.

It's a shame that Photoshop and other Creative Suite products are written in Carbon for the Mac. It probably got them into OS X very quickly some 7 years back, but not it's biting them.

On the other hand, you really can't blame them. Apple still has quite a few products in Carbon including iTunes and Finder. If Apple expects others to switch to Cocoa, they really should shine a light on the path and make the move themselves. With the news that Apple has dropped 64-bit Carbon, I suspect that Apple will be making that move soon for iTunes, Finder and the rest of the software that is still Carbon.

written by Dave M. \\ tags: Adobe Creative Suite, Blurb, Carbon Technology, Class Citizens, Cocoa, Daring Fireball, Final Cut, Good Job, iTunes, John Gruber, Light On The Path, Lightroom, Macintosh Side, Nack, Os X, Plug Ins, Prerequisite, Scare, Strange Reason, Wwdc

Austin Heller: Promoters: "Austin Heller: Promoters

In December of 2006, John Gruber wrote a lengthy post last year questioning the ethics of the first MacHeist bundle, called The Iniquities of the Selfish. […] So, it does seem odd to see MacHeist advertising running on [Daring Fireball] - which makes me think the deal for the supporting developers might finally be fair.

John Gruber doesn’t seem like one to disregard his beliefs for sponsors, so I imagine they exchanged some emails about the treatment of developers with MacHeist II.

Edit: Gruber writes about his advertisers and sponsors:

Advertisements aren’t endorsements. They’re promotional messages from the sponsor, not me. In short, an ad is an ad, and what I write is what I write.

He goes on to day that the MacHeist is a good bundle for consumers, but not such a great deal for developers, although he has no information about this year’s MacHeist bundle.

(Via cameron i/o.)

To Cameron and others...
John Gruber is not God. He's just this guy, you know... (Sorry, couldn't resist the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy line)

He likes to post his opinion so that he can make money off his website. However, his posts are just "his opinion" and not fact.

MacHeist is a great way for developers to get their programs into users hands. Not to mention the fact that since the bundles probably have programs that the purchaser already owns, there is a good chance that the purchaser will give away the duplicate licenses to friends and family. I say this since I just purchased the MacHeist II bundle and I own just about half the software in the bundle. So I'll be giving the MacHeist bundle software I already own to friends and relatives.

If I truly use the software I have just purchased, I'll be upgrading the software when the next version comes out. That means more money for the developer. Plus there is the word of mouth thing. I'll be singing the praises of the software to others and giving the developers free advertising. Not to mention the advertising they are receiving by just being involved in the latest MacHeist.

Why John Gruber thinks this is bad for developers, I don't know. Maybe he was slighted by a bundle in the past or something. I can't say. All I can say is that, in "my humble opinion" he's completely wrong about these software bundles and folks reading his blog posts should not pay attention to such ramblings.

written by Dave M. \\ tags: Advertisements, Advertisers, Bundle Software, Cameron, Daring Fireball, Developers, Endorsements, Ethics, Galaxy Line, Good Chance, Guide To The Galaxy, Hitchhiker, Iniquities, John Gruber, Macheist, Promoters, Purchaser, Relatives, Singing The Praises, Word Of Mouth

Us users should be able to make ringtones out of our music without any concerns from the RIAA at all...

Slashdot | Apple, the RIAA, and Ringtones: "'Apple's interest in defending the rights of the consumer has cost them a lot of grief in the ringtone market.'John Gruber of the Daring Fireball cites Engadget, which reported that the RIAA wanted to be able to distribute ringtones of its artists without having to pay them big money to do so. It won a decision last year before the Copyright Office saying that ringtones weren't derivative works, meaning they didnt infringe on the copyright of the songwriter.' The piece goes on to explain the tense relationship between Apple content holders regarding ringtones and other pieces of IP, such as in the recent withdrawal of NBC.'"

So based on that decision, it sounds like we, the music loving public, should be able to make a ringtone out of any piece of music we purchased without paying any money at all.

I would think that such wording also means that the very talented people that make Mashups should be allowed to do so without any hassles of the RIAA as well.

Now, I'm sure that this really says that the RIAA isn't responsible for paying artists any amount of money. Which is what it has been doing for years.

written by Dave M. \\ tags: Amount Of Money, Apple, Content Holders, Copyright Office, Daring Fireball, Derivative Works, Engadget, Grief, Hassles, John Gruber, Loving Public, Nbc, Piece Of Music, Relationship, Riaa, Slashdot, Songwriter, Weren