Not to be a thread-hijacker, but in a similar vein, it will be interesting to see how Adobe, ImagePrint, CaptureOne, iView Multimedia, and other software vendors treat Mac customers transitioning between today's PowerPC Macs and tomorrow's Intel Macs. My Dual 1.42 GHz PowerMac G4 is really showing its age with >1 GB photoshop files; the RAM is maxed out and I'm getting a lot of spinning beach balls, so a wife-approved new PowerMac is in my future this year, I hope.
Will there be some sort of "side-grade" or will one have to run my old programs in emulation mode on the new Intel Mac until the universal-binary version comes out (likely with the next version upgrade)?
Seems like a one-time license transfer for a nominal fee would be a fair way to encourage the transition. Anyone here heard any discussion about how the major vendors might handle the situation?
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I don't think it's fair in any regard to charge a customer unless there is an improvement or addition to a program. Period. Charging a customer an extra fee to use the software on a Intel Mac when nothing else has changed is the equivalent of charging the customer a fee for the privilege of continued use of the software when upgrading their computer.
That being said, I read that Adobe is considering charging a fee for the universal binary (UB) version of the current Photoshop CS2. The article that stated so was way back when the intel chips were first announced (perhaps Adobe's attitude about this has changed since) so I've lost the link. I think that's a load of crap personally.
I've recently purchased my PowerMac and have a good 12-months left in life on it so I'm not terribly concerned about any rip-off charges. By the time I upgrade, Revision B Intel PowerMacs (MacMacs?) will be certainly be available and I'm sure CS3 will be out by then too. But for those who are in the need of an upgrade, you'd better start voicing concerns about unjustified upgrade fees to Adobe unless you want to pay an additional $50-100 (I'm guessing) for what you already have.
For me, emulation mode will be the way to go if I do end up with a MacMac before CS3 is released. Hopefully any loss in performance through emulation will be negated by the added umph of the upcoming Intel chips (which are by far going to be more powerful than what's in the current MacBook/iMac; the next Intel desktop chips are true dual-cores unlike the hacked-together junk Intel currently sells).
A vast majority of developers across the board (not just in photography) so far seem to agree with my opinion and are offering free updates to UB.