Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks => Topic started by: elolaugesen on July 05, 2011, 07:33:17 am
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With the introduction of OSX 7 Lion Apple is dropping Rosetta (the emulation mode program for PowerPC code) and I have found so far that on my Epson 3800 some of the support code is PowerPC code only. The utilities in the LFP Remote panel is an example. An Epson support person said we just have to stay on Snow Leopard if we need to use the code. It can also be done with the panel on the printer but it is an example of what we will be up against again. I am not sure of firmware upgrades but then who expects one.
I would check all production programs/code needed for printing before converting. you can do a basic check by going into About this Mac - then More Info - Then go down to software - select applications. wait and wait and wait while it checks all your apps.... look in the column "Kind" click on it and all the apps will be sorted by kind then scroll down and all apps still with Power Pc code will show up...
I do not know about 3880 and all the others nor anything about HP or Canon printers...
good luck
cheers elo (if I am wrong please let me know - Epson Agreed with me)
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With the introduction of OSX 7 Lion Apple is dropping Rosetta (the emulation mode program for PowerPC code) and I have found so far that on my Epson 3800 some of the support code is PowerPC code only. The utilities in the LFP Remote panel is an example. An Epson support person said we just have to stay on Snow Leopard if we need to use the code. It can also be done with the panel on the printer but it is an example of what we will be up against again. I am not sure of firmware upgrades but then who expects one.
I would check all production programs/code needed for printing before converting. you can do a basic check by going into About this Mac - then More Info - Then go down to software - select applications. wait and wait and wait while it checks all your apps.... look in the column "Kind" click on it and all the apps will be sorted by kind then scroll down and all apps still with Power Pc code will show up...
I do not know about 3880 and all the others nor anything about HP or Canon printers...
good luck
cheers elo (if I am wrong please let me know - Epson Agreed with me)
I think you are raising an important generic issue that goes beyond printer software. There is other software that will face the same issues - or rather their users will. Apple has given software developers fair notice that Rosetta is disappearing, but recoding applications to be usable on the new version of the platform can be a time-consuming and costly undertaking, so it best for those of us contemplating an up-grade to be very careful about what functionality we may lose - or in the best of all worlds, what would be the correct time to upgrade in sync with the adaptation of the other affected software we are using. I think it would be highly irresponsible of any major software provider not to be fully functional on Mac OSX 7.0 within at most several months after its release, and Snow Leopard works well enough, so I'll take my time.
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With the introduction of OSX 7 Lion Apple is dropping Rosetta (the emulation mode program for PowerPC code) ...
Although this is widely believed to be true, is there any official word from Apple that indicates that Rosetta will not be supported in Lion?
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All the test versions of Lion appear not to have been shipped with Rosetta!!!!!
http://www.macrumors.com/2011/06/13/os-x-lion-to-drop-rosetta-support-for-powerpc-applications/
It would seem rather silly to send out versions to all developers to test all the various scenarious and then include it in its final release without testing Rosetta
I for one have a couple of other tools that will no longer work... AppleWorks still use it for a few things and old files that have been around for many many many years...Filemaker, Quicken....
hope myself it is not going to happen... but..
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Although this is widely believed to be true, is there any official word from Apple that indicates that Rosetta will not be supported in Lion?
http://www.google.ca/search?q=rosetta+in+Mac+Lion&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
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All the test versions of Lion appear not to have been shipped with Rosetta!!!!!
http://www.macrumors.com/2011/06/13/os-x-lion-to-drop-rosetta-support-for-powerpc-applications/
It would seem rather silly to send out versions to all developers to test all the various scenarious and then include it in its final release without testing Rosetta
I for one have a couple of other tools that will no longer work... AppleWorks still use it for a few things and old files that have been around for many many many years...Filemaker, Quicken....
hope myself it is not going to happen... but..
Rosetta is not included with Mac OS X 10.7 and there's no way to install it. An alternative solution would be to run Mac OS X 10.6 in a virtual machine (Virtual Box is free) and it looks like Apple is allowing to run a virtualized copy of Mac OS X.
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Hi. Yes I am aware of virtual machines. Installed the first one in 1975/6 when Ibm Released VM360... had Large IBM Main Frames running them for years....
I currently have copies of OSX 10.5.6 , 10.6.8 all set up to run compatible apps... also have my G4 powerbook ready to run Classic if needed....
there are always workarounds. but all so cumbersome..... Virtual Machines are definitely the way to go as apple keeps moving ahead faster and faster
The real issue for me ---- it is costly to keep buying new software to keep up for the occasional use ....
cheers elo
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…there are always workarounds. but all so cumbersome..... Virtual Machines are definitely the way to go as apple keeps moving ahead faster and faster
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Agreed 100%
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All of the links seem to be speculation.
Any developer who has Lion, is under non-disclosure.
I'm just trying to figure out when (or even if) Apple has made any sort of official announcement.
Although the rumors may be correct, Apple has surprised us before. Even when the rumor mill completely agrees on a prediction, it does not always come to pass.
I have trouble imagining that Apple would discontinue widely relied upon software (Rosetta) without any sort of official prior warning.
Now don't go mentioning the replacement of Final Cut Pro with a similarly named, but incompatible, replacement product. Final Cut is aimed at professionals who depend on their Mac for their lively hood. This is not Apple's target market.
Rosetta is used by the general public. This is the market that Apple wants.
Discontinuing Rosetta without a prior announcement is like Apple telling its customers "F**k you."
If Apple really intends to discontinue Rosetta, there must be notice somewhere in their "roadmap" of what consumers should expect in the future.
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Just because you may have trouble imagining, doesn't mean it isn't going to happen. You are best advised to believe it until any evidence to the contrary comes to the surface. I can't say more than that.
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Just because you may have trouble imagining, doesn't mean it isn't going to happen. You are best advised to believe it until any evidence to the contrary comes to the surface. I can't say more than that.
I'm just trying to track down the official Apple announcement.
I'm sort of getting tired of Apple pulling the rug out from under me without any warning.
Unfortunately, Apple's behavior seems to make Windows look better and better. If Rosetta goes, my best path seems to migrate my PPC software to the Windows equivalent (Quicken and GoLive CS2). Thankfully, Windows still supports old software. I am not looking forward to the day when I need Windows to run the majority of my software.
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I agree with you that Microsoft has a pretty good track record with backward compatibility. But there are other aspects of using Windows that one would prefer to not have to deal with if at all possible.
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I agree with you that Microsoft has a pretty good track record with backward compatibility. But there are other aspects of using Windows that one would prefer to not have to deal with if at all possible.
I 100% agree. My preference is to use a Mac. But I need to look at the big picture. If Apple ceases support for old hardware and software, I am left in a bind. I can keep an old computer around, but when it does, a new Mac won't run the old software. I currently have 10 years worth of Quicken data that I don't want to lose. It appears that my best bet is to get Quicken for Windows. I have some web projects in GoLive CS2. Again my best bet is to get the Windows version.
I won't be happy using Windows, but I don't see a choice if Rosetta goes away.
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I am a Windows user with little Mac experience. Wouldn't an Intel Mac with Windows OS installed be the 'least painful' way for Mac users to move on and be able to run things like Quicken, color management, profiling and printer drivers? I have considered moving to a Mac, but with no problems at all with Microsoft, I think I'll stay with Windows.
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I am a Windows user with little Mac experience. Wouldn't an Intel Mac with Windows OS installed be the 'least painful' way for Mac users to move on and be able to run things like Quicken, color management, profiling and printer drivers? I have considered moving to a Mac, but with no problems at all with Microsoft, I think I'll stay with Windows.
Yes, an Intel Mac can run Windows just fine. You have the option of installing Windows on a separate partition and having a dual boot system and/or running Windows in a virtual machine.
As the Mac doesn't come with Windows, you need to purchase a copy of Windows. If you want the virtual machine solution, you also need to purchase the virtual machine software.
If you are running both Mac and Windows, you need to maintain both. You need to keep your Windows OS up to date, and keep your Mac OS up to date. Obviously more work then only maintaining one or the other. A disadvantage of the Mac is that you don't get as many choices for your hardware configuration. Although the Mac hardware is quality stuff, and reasonably priced compared to a similarly configured Dell, you are stuck with three choice of desktop: Mac Mini, iMac, and Mac Pro. If you are only running Windows you have many more hardware options available.
Although I have not tested this, I believe that color management would be problematic printing from the Mac side to a Windows printer driver, or from the Windows side to a Mac printer driver. I would suggest installing a Windows driver for printing from Windows and a Mac driver for printing from the Mac. if you have an older printer, you may have a hard time finding a good Mac printer driver, and may need to print from the Windows side, or invest in third party software.
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Although I have not tested this, I believe that color management would be problematic printing from the Mac side to a Windows printer driver, or from the Windows side to a Mac printer driver. I would suggest installing a Windows driver for printing from Windows and a Mac driver for printing from the Mac.
You are absolutely correct. If you run a virtual Windows machine on a Mac (either through boot camp, or as a virtual machine), colour management is handled via Windows, and uses the Windows drivers. However, if you are sharing a Mac printer with your virtual machine, and print to it from the Windows VM, I think that you would need to be careful about colour management.
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Printing to a printer share, regardless of platform is no problem - in any case you are disabling all color management by the printer anyway. I've been using Oracles' free Virtual Box to host everything from OS X Leopard Server to Windows Server 2008r2 Domain Controllers on my Mac (curiously Windows 7 XP-Mode *cannot* host a 64bit O/S) - with USB device support - highly recommended.
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I'm just trying to track down the official Apple announcement.
I'm sort of getting tired of Apple pulling the rug out from under me without any warning.
Apple's behaviour has often irritated me as well, but that's hardly fair. We've all known since it was first introduced that Rosetta was a bridging measure, just as was Classic, and that, like Classic, it was going to disappear at some point. Nobody has pulled any rug from anyone: you're not forced to upgrade to Lion. It's for you to balance any potential benefits (of which those of us who don't have privileged access are, as yet, largely ignorant) with any disadvantages, such as being unable to run PPC software.
If previous experience is any guide, essential software for which Lion is a requirement will take a while to arrive and in the meantime there will be little downside to continuing to run Snow Leopard or even, as I still use on an old PPC-based tower, Leopard.
Jeremy
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As a former owner of two companies in the small computer business I can tell you from long and bitter experience that it is always a mistake to be an early adopter of an OS upgrade and this is just as true for Windows as it is for Mac. The most important aspect of using a computer as a tool (rather than a software development machine) is that it runs reliably and quickly enough to the job. Only when applications start to demand an OS upgrade to continue functioning should one consider it. We have quite a few Macs and have only recently upgraded them all to Snow Leopard. We have no intention of moving to Lion until printer drivers and graphic arts applications like Quark and CS5 demand it.
In addition to the possibility of applications and device drivers not functioning or at least not functioning correctly there is also the issue of possibly having to update printer and paper profiles as well.
In short if it ain't broke don't fix it!
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I'm just trying to track down the official Apple announcement.
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I believe that, in a reply to an e-mail, S. Jobs acknowledged the fact that Rosetta will be history when Lion ships. In the WWDC 2011 keynote video, available on Apple website to developers & non-developers, Rosetta is not mentioned as part of Lion so draw your conclusions. FWIW, I (and nobody except those involved in the decision) don't know whether Rosetta's absence is due to engineering, commercial or licensing issue.
Meanwhile, those interested in virtualizing Snow Leopard on Lion car read this article: http://tinyurl.com/6jsz4as
My personal experiences with Virtual Box are very positive and inline with John's comments above.
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I currently have 10 years worth of Quicken data that I don't want to lose. It appears that my best bet is to get Quicken for Windows.
Or do as I did, switch to iBank. It imported all the data fine. Its better in some respects to Quicken which has lost its shine years ago (but there are still areas I prefer in Quicken, namely Reporting). When I found out no Rosetta in Lion, very unlikely Intuit will not update or screw up Quicken, I moved to iBank a few months ago, its working quite well.
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Apple's behaviour has often irritated me as well, but that's hardly fair. We've all known since it was first introduced that Rosetta was a bridging measure, just as was Classic, and that, like Classic, it was going to disappear at some point. Nobody has pulled any rug from anyone: you're not forced to upgrade to Lion. It's for you to balance any potential benefits (of which those of us who don't have privileged access are, as yet, largely ignorant) with any disadvantages, such as being unable to run PPC software.
If previous experience is any guide, essential software for which Lion is a requirement will take a while to arrive and in the meantime there will be little downside to continuing to run Snow Leopard or even, as I still use on an old PPC-based tower, Leopard.
Jeremy
Computers are not bought in isolation. Like cameras, they are part of a system that is intended to last a long time.
We all knew that film SLRs were on their way out when Digital SLRs came along. Yet, the Canon 7D I just bought is 100% compatible with lenses that were purchased in the 1980's. Lens that I buy today have features that were not envisioned in 1980 (such as Image Stabilization), yet these lenses work with full functionality on a film SLR from the 1980's.
Imagine if one of the major camera manufacturers announced that new DSLRs would only work with lenses made in the last three years, and that new lenses would not work on old bodies. I suspect such an announcement would promote a switch to another brand.
As to being not forced to upgrade, that's not quite true. Apple doesn't support hardware more than a few years old. When the hardware dies you have to buy a newer model. Those newer models won't run Snow Leopard (even though they have the horsepower to do so).
Compare this to the Windows world. I can buy a computer today and install XP on it. Microsoft is still providing security patches for XP. In one of my jobs we have a dedicated hardware system that is run by a 20 year old DOS program. We recently bought new computers and they run DOS just fine (the BIOS even includes the code necessary to make the SATA drives look like ATA drives to DOS). Sure, we could spend tens of thousands of dollars re-writing the system to be more modern, but it's much more economical to just buy a new PC and install DOS.
The downside to continuing to use Leopard is that it prevents you from upgrading other parts of your system. Want a new iPhone or iPad? By December you will need Lion.
But the real issue is that Apple is phasing out the Mac. Lion is likely the last version of the Mac OS. Apple is moving towards the computer as an appliance. After Lion, the Mac will run iOS 6. Gone will be the days of a configurable computer. Most people don't need a color managed workflow, so Apple will drop that. Most people don't need to be able to work with RAW files, so that will be gone too.
If there is one thing that Apple has clearly demonstrated, they don't feel any need to support their high end customers. Their ultimate goal is an integrated system based on their cloud. The mass of non-techies is their audience. Apple will provide the solution that they think is best, and if it's not the solution that's right for you, then it is your tough luck.
To be fair, most people don't need these features and most will be happy with Apple's decisions. I just think it's a mistake for a high end user to plan a future based on Apple.
Take a look at what's been happening with Final Cut for a good example. Have a library of Final Cut projects? Sorry, you will no longer be able to edit or update them on any new computer. The old version of Final Cut has been discontinued and the new version cannot (and will not) open projects from the old version.
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Computers are not bought in isolation. Like cameras, they are part of a system that is intended to last a long time.
I didn't want to copy the whole post but would point out that it is an accurate presentation of Apple's corporate philosophy. Of course there is nothing wrong with this as Apple is first and foremost a marketing company that wants to attract the largest number of customers possible. However as was pointed out this leaves certain minor users out in the cold. Adobe shows no signs of supporting Linux and some other open source OS that are available. For most users those OS are not terribly user friendly and one would be hard pressed to find drivers for the printers we use. It may be that the photographic community that use a Mac OS may need to migrate back to a Win system in the long term particularly if Apple drop support of key tools that are required.
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But the real issue is that Apple is phasing out the Mac. Lion is likely the last version of the Mac OS. Apple is moving towards the computer as an appliance. After Lion, the Mac will run iOS 6. Gone will be the days of a configurable computer. Most people don't need a color managed workflow, so Apple will drop that. Most people don't need to be able to work with RAW files, so that will be gone too.
What evidence do you have for this rather startling proposition?
Jeremy
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What evidence do you have for this rather startling proposition?
Jeremy
Apple's history to this point.
Apple's track record.
Steve Job's vision of the computer as an appliance.
Remember, Lion is scheduled to ship this month. Rumor has it that it will drop support for PPC. Apple has not yet made an official announcement to this effect. This is not how you treat professional customers.
Apple has dropped its rack mount server product from their lineup.
Look at what Apple just did with Final Cut Pro. One day they were happily selling licenses, promising that the new version was about to come out and it would be wonderful. The next day they stopped selling the product, pulled it from the shelves, and the replacement product was incompatible, was missing features, and was geared to the prosumer. Not a way to treat professional customers who depend on your product for their business.
Do you have any evidence that suggests Apple is interested in the business market?
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Do you have any evidence that suggests Apple is interested in the business market?
No. That's why I've avoided pontificating on the point as if I had.
Jeremy
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No. That's why I've avoided pontificating on the point as if I had.
Jeremy
Well I guess we agree that the only thing we have to go on is Apple's past and current behavior.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I believe Apple's behavior speaks strongly as to the direction they are headed.
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Rumor has it that it will drop support for PPC.
Rumor? Fact: Apple dropped PPC support with Snow Leopard.....
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Rumor? Fact: Apple dropped PPC support with Snow Leopard.....
I believe that you are incorrect. Apple did not drop support for PPC code from Snow Leopard. PPC code (such as Quicken) runs just fine for millions of Mac Intel users using Snow Leopard.
One of Apple's strengths is being able to run non-native code.
The original Mac was based around a Motorola 68000 series CISC processor (Complex Instruction Set Computer).
When Apple moved to the incompatible RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) based Power PC architecture, they developed technology to not only allow an executable program to include code for multiple target machines, but also technology to allow one to run code targeted for another architecture. This technology worked so well, that parts of a program could be implemented in 68K code and parts in PPC code.
When Apple changed to the Intel CISC architecture, they used this technology to allow the existing base of PPC code to run on the Intel machines. Processor speed has dramatically improved, and PPC software runs faster on today's Intel processors then it did on the PPC processors of a few years ago.
Apple now has this technology down to an art. A typical user is not aware whether or not a program is native intel code, or emulated PPC code.
Apple calls the code that supports PPC "Rosetta". Starting with Snow Leopard, Rosetta is a separate install. This suggests that the code is an independent system that is not deeply intertwined in the operating system.
As the goal is to support existing software, there is no need for new system calls and libraries to implemented for Rosetta. All of the development is done.
So the facts are that Apple did not drop PPC support from Snow Leopard. They just made it an optional install. Many printer drivers are also optional installs, as is Apple's Xcode development environment. Clearly making something an optional install is not equivalent to dropping support.
The widely held belief is that Apple will not offer Rosetta for Lion. There has been no official announcement form Apple to confirm this.
Whether or not the technology is included with Lion, it is doubtful that Apple is discarding this technology. They will again put it into wide use when they upgrade the iPhone/iPad devices to a new processor type.
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Depends by what you mean when you say dropped support. You can't run Snow Leopard on a PPC machine:
http://support.apple.com/kb/SP575
You can run Leopard on one:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3759
When you can virtualise older code to run on the new architecture or not is a different question.
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Sorry your wrong:
http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/specs.html Please note the requirements.....
Also, you're confusing native architecture with an O/S presentation layer
Fact: Snow Leopard's distribution media was almost exactly half the size of the preceding Leopard distribution. Why? Because the compiled binaries for the PPC platform were missing. There is nothing "optional" to install - you *cannot* run Snow Leopard on a PPC platform - period.
Fact: Rosetta is *not* "PPC code" (whatever that means). It is dynamic (32-bit only) translation layer that allows existing code that was previously compiled for PPC to run on the Intel platform.
Question: Why would Apple introduce a translation layer for Ios? What would be the purpose?
It's fun to speculate or have an opinion - couching those as "facts" is at best, misleading.....
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I have trouble imagining that Apple would discontinue widely relied upon software (Rosetta) without any sort of official prior warning.
Apple's given plenty of warning, starting with the introduction of the Intel machines, the Rosetta layer has always been strictly a transitional tool. Snow Leopard does not automatically install Rosetta, but you can install it if necessary (hint hint).
Not sure what "widely relied upon software" you are speaking of, but widely relied upon means a fair amount of the user base relies on it. I know of no such software. Epson LFP panel is definitely not "widely relied" upon.
The real question is why LFP is still rosetta only software. The 3800 was introduced a full year after Apple moved to Intel. LFP seems to be an ancient piece of software that should have been updated years ago unless it has no future use in Epson's plans. Certainly at some point Epson will cease to support printers like the 3800, so the only choice will be maintaining legacy hardware to keep the legacy printer going.
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Rosetta in Lion is GONE.
However, the solution is simple for those who feel the need to migrate to Lion. Buy an external drive and clone the startup volume that has Snow Leopard. Install Lion on the internal drive and when you have a need to run a Rosetta required application, simply boot from the Snow Leopard volume. SuperDuper can easily make a bootable copy of your HD.
Gene
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Apple's given plenty of warning, starting with the introduction of the Intel machines, the Rosetta layer has always been strictly a transitional tool. Snow Leopard does not automatically install Rosetta, but you can install it if necessary (hint hint).
Not sure what "widely relied upon software" you are speaking of, but widely relied upon means a fair amount of the user base relies on it. I know of no such software. Epson LFP panel is definitely not "widely relied" upon.
The real question is why LFP is still rosetta only software. The 3800 was introduced a full year after Apple moved to Intel. LFP seems to be an ancient piece of software that should have been updated years ago unless it has no future use in Epson's plans. Certainly at some point Epson will cease to support printers like the 3800, so the only choice will be maintaining legacy hardware to keep the legacy printer going.
I think it would be preposterous for Epson to neglect up-dating drivers on equipment that's only been on the market for about five or six years and still performs superbly. Not saying it won't happen, but there should be laws...............
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Depends by what you mean when you say dropped support. You can't run Snow Leopard on a PPC machine:
http://support.apple.com/kb/SP575
You can run Leopard on one:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3759
When you can virtualise older code to run on the new architecture or not is a different question.
Sorry, I was caught off guard by the change of topic.
Yes, PPC machines don't meet the minimum requirements for Snow Leopard. Just as old machines don't meet the minimum requirements for Windows Vista.
On the other hand, newer PCs will run older versions of Windows, and older software. Newer Mac computers won't run older versions of the OS, and with Lion, they won't run older software.
If you buy a new model Mac next month (for instance one of the new MacBook Airs rumored to be released in the a few weeks) then you don't have the option of running Snow Leopard from an external disk because it won't boot.
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Apple's given plenty of warning, starting with the introduction of the Intel machines, the Rosetta layer has always been strictly a transitional tool. Snow Leopard does not automatically install Rosetta, but you can install it if necessary (hint hint).
Not sure what "widely relied upon software" you are speaking of, but widely relied upon means a fair amount of the user base relies on it. I know of no such software. Epson LFP panel is definitely not "widely relied" upon.
The real question is why LFP is still rosetta only software. The 3800 was introduced a full year after Apple moved to Intel. LFP seems to be an ancient piece of software that should have been updated years ago unless it has no future use in Epson's plans. Certainly at some point Epson will cease to support printers like the 3800, so the only choice will be maintaining legacy hardware to keep the legacy printer going.
I find it interested that you characterize Apple has given plenty of "Warning" that Rosetta is going away, when no one here has been able to find any official Apple announcement that it will be going away at all.
Yes, there has been lots of speculation, but nothing official. It is not at all unusual for speculation about Apple to be incorrect.
As to Apple "hinting" that Rosetta is going away by making it an optional install. Are you suggesting that Epson and HP print drivers are also going away because they are also an "optional" install in Lion?
There are lots of common software packages that still use PPC code. Quicken is perhaps one of the most noticeable. Various current software installers still use PPC code. Some people are still using CS2 as it meets their needs.
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Much of what's going on looks to me like forced obsolescence. Companies save themselves money by not updating drivers and let consumers bear the cost of always buying new equipment and new software to make everything cohere, as those same companies earn fresh revenues from the forced upgrades. Often it has nothing much to do with serious improvement of anything. I looked through a list of some 250 features of Lion that came across my screen, and frankly there was nothing on it that would tempt me to upgrade from Snow Leopard. I look at each new product and each new software upgrade with great circumspection before jumping, asking myself really whether the incremental feature set is worth the comprehensive incremental cost, all collateral damage accounted for. If all consumers were to do likewise we may start to see different behaviour from the industry. Right now it's just a jungle.
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Much of what's going on looks to me like forced obsolescence. Companies save themselves money by not updating drivers and let consumers bear the cost of always buying new equipment and new software to make everything cohere, as those same companies earn fresh revenues from the forced upgrades. Often it has nothing much to do with serious improvement of anything. I looked through a list of some 250 features of Lion that came across my screen, and frankly there was nothing on it that would tempt me to upgrade from Snow Leopard. I look at each new product and each new software upgrade with great circumspection before jumping, asking myself really whether the incremental feature set is worth the comprehensive incremental cost, all collateral damage accounted for. If all consumers were to do likewise we may start to see different behaviour from the industry. Right now it's just a jungle.
If you currently use Mobile Me to sync your calendars and contacts between your phone and your Mac, you will likely need Lion in order to continue that functionality with iCloud. Apple has announced that Mobile Me will be turned off next year.
So yes, if you don't upgrade, you will likely lose functionality. And yes, if you do upgrade, you will definitely lose functionality. Hence the reason why many are upset.
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I may be wrong - it's so complicated with so many variants and so much stuff out there, but I have an impression that on the whole, Microsoft has been much better on backward compatibility than Apple. If Apple Computer keeps pulling this kind of stuff, maybe there is a Windows future for many of us. It would be unfortunate. Having recently migrated from Windows to Mac and enjoying the experience, I would move back if it became more practical to do so.
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I think it would be preposterous for Epson to neglect up-dating drivers on equipment that's only been on the market for about five or six years and still performs superbly. Not saying it won't happen, but there should be laws...............
Not an issue with drivers ... the 3800 drivers are fine and Epson Printer utility is fine. the only thing that uses Rosetta is the LFP Remote Panel 2. The new LFP Remote Panel 3 for newer Epson printers doesn't require Rosetta and could probably be updated to handle the 3800, but it appears to be quite a bit different from the older LFP, indicating Epson doesn't think the features in the older LFP panel are necessary.
The only thing I've ever used the Remote Panel for is firmware updates ... doubtful we'll ever see another firmware update for the 3800, so not being able to use this utility doesn't appear to be a real issue.
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Yes, the current Mac version of the LFP is missing some functionality the older Windows XP version had, but I forget exactly what, as I no longer have it. I recall asking Epson last year whether they would be added in an update and they said "no".
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I find it interested that you characterize Apple has given plenty of "Warning" that Rosetta is going away, when no one here has been able to find any official Apple announcement that it will be going away at all.
Just because it isn't common knowledge to those that use macs doesn't mean Apple hasn't communicated it. Developers have always known Rosetta was a bridge between old and new and would someday no longer be supported and this has been discussed since that time. developers are reminded at every annual developer conference. Apple has been working on rewriting a huge number of programs and utilities as well, and I believe the original goal was to pull Rosetta by Snow Leopard, but things like installers broke so Rosetta was made optional.
I see a lot of concern about no rosetta... curious as to what software is an issue? Any software that has been unable to resolve this after six years is probably no longer supported, thus the only way to continue using it is keeping legacy hardware/operating systems going. Nothing new about that, just part of the evolution of hardware and Operating systems. Personally I can't think of any. ColorThink 3.0 uses Rosetta but 3.01 beta 24 doesn't. That's the closest thing I have to a program that might be an issue.
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I don't know if Apple has announced anything about Rosetta, but I got this from Quicken and they seem pretty sure Rosetta is going away:
http://quicken.intuit.com/support/articles/getting-started/upgrading-and-conversion/8207.html
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I don't know if Apple has announced anything about Rosetta, but I got this from Quicken and they seem pretty sure Rosetta is going away:
http://quicken.intuit.com/support/articles/getting-started/upgrading-and-conversion/8207.html
I see lots of third party predictions about Apple. I have trouble figuring out which announcements are official and can be relied upon, and which are merely speculation. I even remember times when Apple went out of their way to delay a product due to annoyance over of an unauthorized third-party announcement.
Do you have a list of other companies (aside from Intuit which you have already mentioned) that are authorized by Apple to make definitive statements about future Apple products?
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As has been stated Epson installer's use Rosetta. Xrite was still selling i1Match software up until a very short time ago and that uses Rosetta. Those are just a few but I'm sure there are plenty of other apps that use it. I'm just wondering how hard it would be to leave it as an optional install the way it was with Snow Leopard.
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Just because it isn't common knowledge to those that use macs doesn't mean Apple hasn't communicated it. Developers have always known Rosetta was a bridge between old and new and would someday no longer be supported and this has been discussed since that time. developers are reminded at every annual developer conference. ...........
I see a lot of concern about no rosetta... curious as to what software is an issue?
You're right. I'm not a software developer but people I've been assisting are, have known this for a long time, and been working feverishly to deal with it. Not a piece of cake may I add.
There's probably more problematic software out there than any one of us may realize. In fact just for example, XRite's ColorShop X, a very neat little application that shipped with their discontinued Pulse Elite profiling system does not even work on Snow Leopard, and X-Rite is another one of these companies that leaves their customers using legacy products high and dry after a rather short period of unplanned (read: chaotic) obsolescence. Some of this behaviour should really be illegal, but it isn't, so we have to deal with it. Keeping legacy hardware around to use perfectly good things that morons chose to render obsolete is one solution.
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Do you have a list of other companies (aside from Intuit which you have already mentioned) that are authorized by Apple to make definitive statements about future Apple products?
No. As I said, I know of nothing official from Apple.
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No. As I said, I know of nothing official from Apple.
Would you say that the lack of official announcement suggests that Apple Is, or Is Not the type of supplier a business shoudl rely on?
You may wish to consider Apple's treatment of the professional video market in determining your answer.
You don't need to consider Apple's requirement that one has to move to Lion in order to continue to use Apple's cloud sync services, as these services are primarily aimed at consumers. (Mobile Me sync services are being replaced by iCloud sync services, which requires Lion).
By the way, I'm not saying the Mac is good or bad. In fact, I love the Mac platform. The point I am trying to make is that Apple is aiming for the mass market (which Apple has every right to do). Apple's policies make it hard for a business to justify investing in, or relying on Apple products.
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Apple's policies make it hard for a business to justify investing in, or relying on Apple products.
Not sure I understand that last statement ... isn't this the nature of the game ... what makes Apple unique here? As an OS and software evolve, you adapt. Sometimes what seems worse turns out to be better.
I don't think Lion or FCP is going to kill anyones business ... FCP X is far better than the early pundits (many of which don't even use FCP) give it credit for. Since apple will sell 100's times more copies it will actually make money on the software and thus can justify spending money to improve it, unlike FCP which was only being used extensively by about 10,000 users and was a money pit for Apple to keep improving.
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I may be wrong - it's so complicated with so many variants and so much stuff out there, but I have an impression that on the whole, Microsoft has been much better on backward compatibility than Apple. If Apple Computer keeps pulling this kind of stuff, maybe there is a Windows future for many of us. It would be unfortunate. Having recently migrated from Windows to Mac and enjoying the experience, I would move back if it became more practical to do so.
I think- as an all time Apple user- that is very true.
Apple always was a relatively small computer company and still thinks it is small, although it is at this moment bigger than Microsoft .
While Microsoft sees there will be a loss of credibility ( and money) not supporting older architectures Apple seems to think - we do not need you anymore - because we found millions of other costumers.
They made radical changes in the past ( os9 to osX for one)- but that is what you can do when you are small. With FCP-X - and the now with Rosetta they are showing there lack of support to there old costumers, while there heads are in the iClouds trying to gain money from the information these costumers put in it. ( following Gooooogle trying not to be evil)
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Not sure I understand that last statement ... isn't this the nature of the game ... what makes Apple unique here? As an OS and software evolve, you adapt. Sometimes what seems worse turns out to be better.
I don't think Lion or FCP is going to kill anyones business ... FCP X is far better than the early pundits (many of which don't even use FCP) give it credit for. Since apple will sell 100's times more copies it will actually make money on the software and thus can justify spending money to improve it, unlike FCP which was only being used extensively by about 10,000 users and was a money pit for Apple to keep improving.
It's not an issue with change, it's an issue with compatibility.
Every year both Canon and Nikon come out with new camera bodies and lenses. They work very hard to make maintain compatibility with existing gear. Both Canon and Nikon are in the business to make money. They believe that they can make more money in the long term by offering compatibility. If they announced a body that was incompatible with old lenses, people would think twice before abandoning their old lenses to upgrade.
The problem with killing Rosetta is that you are tying the operating system upgrade to many other upgrades, both hardware and software. There are printers that will cease to work, Color calibration systems that will cease to work, and many software packages. For some of these packages, there are no easy alternatives. You are no longer asking people to invest a mere $29 for an upgrade, you are asking them to invest a lot more, perhaps thousands of dollars in some cases.
Some claim that no one is forced to upgrade, but this isn't quite true. As a business grows, I may want to add an additional workstation. If that workstation is a Mac, I will be forced to run Lion. If a 4 year old Mac workstation dies, Apple will not sell parts to repair it. Again I will be forced to buy a new Mac. Any Mac released after Lion ships will likely not be compatible with Snow Leopard. If I want to continue to use Apple's cloud sync services, I will be forced to upgrade to Lion. It turns out that there are all sorts of situations where Apple forces an upgrade.
As to Final Cut Pro, the question is not whether or not the new program is a better long term choice. The question is what are people going to do in the mean time? There is no question that the new program is missing functionality found in the old. If you have been working on a project, and need to add another person to the team, you are out of luck. The old version is no longer available, and the new version is incompatible. If you have a long term project that you have been developing in Final Cut, you are out of luck.
If you do decide to switch to the new program, you need to retrain your operators, the new program works nothing like the old. In today's economy, now might not be the best time to pull people off paying projects and spend time and money on training them on a new program.
By the way, there is no guarantee that the new program will ever regain some of the missing functionality. Apple has aimed the new program at prosumers. Features that are only needed by professionals may never be reimplemented.
I guess the bottom line is that as a business owner, I believe that I have a better feel than Apple for the ebb and flow of my business. I think I am in a better position of deciding when (and if) to transition to various new technologies. It is not helpful for Apple to force decisions on me.
I am not arguing that there was a business case for Apple to make the Final Cut transition. I am just pointing out that Apple's way of handling these transitions suggests that Apple computers & software may be a bad choice for businesses. Keep in mind that business are but a small percentage of Apple's sales, by your logic we should expect them to abandon business users in order to concentrate on the millions of consumers.
What makes Apple unique is that they seem to go out of their way to avoid compatibility. Other companies go out of their way to ensure compatibility.
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Fortunately I have a copy of Parallels on my MacBook Pro and it hosts Windows 7 Virtual Machine. This will soon come in useful for some work I'm about to be doing, because the version of Excel that Microsoft makes for Mac is missing important features - such as the Analysis Tool Pak, available in the Windows version. This is a necessary toolset for a range of routine analytic exercises, so those who need it must buy Excel for Adults and install it in Windows. It's indeed nice that Mac allows us this flexibility, so we can pick and chose between the best of both worlds. But this is just another little example of where Apple and Microsoft have contented themselves to make-do with prosumer software for the Mac, while the heavy-duty functions need to be triggered under Windows. One wonders why. Is there something about Mac users that make them have less professional needs than Windows users?
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It's indeed nice that Mac allows us this flexibility, so we can pick and chose between the best of both worlds.
I have to disagree with you slightly, Mark. Mac doesn't allow that at all. Parallels isn't produced by Apple (it's produced and licensed by Parallels) and Windows' licence (provided by Microsoft) is what allows you to run it on a Mac, whereas OS X's licence (provided by Apple) is what doesn't allow you to run OS X on a PC.
Virtualisation tools exist on the PC that could quite easily run OS X if not for Apple prohibiting it in their licensing terms.
Even if we take BootCamp into consideration, it is still the less restrictive licensing of Windows that effectively allows the flexibility and not the Mac hardware or the Apple operating system.
As to Excel for Adults on a Mac? Well, here's a snapshot from December 2009:
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/01/windows-7-growing-faster-than-vista-overtakes-mac-os.ars
And here's a snapshot from more recently (May 2011):
http://www.itsabhik.com/news/windows-7-joins-the-party.html
If anything, Windows is a tiny, tiny fraction more than it was in December 2009, but it's close enough to call it even. I'm sure that Microsoft could drop support for OS X and not miss the revenue (particularly given the frequently changing environment that is OS X and the costs associated with continued development), but they presumably have determined that it's profitable in some way.
Outside of the design world (photography, et al.), parts of education, and a few tiny fractions of the home market, OS X is only less trivial in numbers than Linux, a comment that will no doubt upset a lot of people on these forums, but it's a fact. Indeed, it's a very hard and significant fact that should easily answer every person who ever asks, "Why isn't Photoshop available for Linux" or "Why don't printer vendors make drivers for Linux" (they do, in some cases, but it's been a growing trend that doesn't encompass all of the vendors) and so on.
This isn't a reflection of which is better, friendlier, more stable, more fun, less this or more that or anything except market share, in which case the differences are actually an order of magnitude - when you're discussing percentages, that's pretty significant :-)
Personally, I hope that Apple does not abandon the personal computer/workstation/professional user market - competition is a wonderful thing and Apple has brought many excellent contributions to the market. So, even though I'm a Windows guy and not a Mac guy (but I use Macs at work alongside Windows every day), I'd see it as a huge negative to lose Apple/OS X from this segment of the market (just as I would see losing Linux as a downside, but less so).
At any rate, I would expect that printer vendors will provide driver updates in a pretty reasonable time after the release of Lion. I'd bet on current models receiving priority, then progressed in reverse by release date/model currency, as makes sense. Software such as Epson's LFP Remote Panel relied on Rosetta for the installer - not for the application itself. Once Lion is released, you might expect some official comment to be available from the 3 main vendors - relatively few comments are ever made regarding unreleased software or operating systems, particularly when the release is outside of the control of those vendors and/or covered under various agreements with Apple, Microsoft, etc., and Apple is infamous for not giving advanced notice of, well, much at all :-)
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Thanks for clarifying that Phil, and indeed very interesting data on the relative positioning of the operating systems. On a world-wide basis for all uses I'm not surprised, but I suspect that if those figures were parsed to include only the photography/graphics arts markets we'd find that between OSX and Windows its probably quite close to 50:50.
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I absolutely agree, Mark. In fact, I'd say it's not only closer to that level but moving in favour of OS X at the moment - it's just difficult to gain hard figures of such things. Most players who track it in that way don't share those numbers publically.
Ironically, the availability of Windows on the Mac platform (be it Parallels or BootCamp) has apparently contributed to performance of OS X (stable world-wide and growing in the arts/graphics sector), based on admittedly anecdotal evidence (but enough of it, from the right people, to convince me - plus it just makes sense :-)
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Fortunately I have a copy of Parallels on my MacBook Pro and it hosts Windows 7 Virtual Machine. This will soon come in useful for some work I'm about to be doing, because the version of Excel that Microsoft makes for Mac is missing important features - such as the Analysis Tool Pak, available in the Windows version. This is a necessary toolset for a range of routine analytic exercises, so those who need it must buy Excel for Adults and install it in Windows. It's indeed nice that Mac allows us this flexibility, so we can pick and chose between the best of both worlds. But this is just another little example of where Apple and Microsoft have contented themselves to make-do with prosumer software for the Mac, while the heavy-duty functions need to be triggered under Windows. One wonders why. Is there something about Mac users that make them have less professional needs than Windows users?
It's not a matter that Mac users have less of a professional need, it's that the majority of all users (Windows and Mac) don't have professional needs. Most users use a computer for email, web surfing, and some basic document preparation and/or basic spreadsheets. Usually there's one or two other simple apps (photo management, checkbook tracking, etc.). Meet these simple needs and you meet the needs the vast majority of users.
Apple is racing to capture this market. They believe that these users don't even need a full featured computer. Apple can almost meet the above listed needs with their iPad,. You can bet that in another year or two the iPad will more than meet the needs of 90% of the market. The Mac will transform into being just a larger iPad.
Excel may be a spectacular program, but the vast majority of Excel users have no need (or understanding) of 95% of Excel's features. Most user's don't know how to use 95% of word. Even PhotoShop experts are not familiar with all of PhotoShop. Apple's iPad has basic programs that meet these needs, and are much easier to use.
Rather than try to win customers with more features, Apple is trying to win customers with ease of use. They have a big lead an Apple will soon own 90% of the market. People will use iOS devices and not need a computer.
You and I are advanced users, we need and use features, we don't need a simple interface. We are in the minority. Apple is moving to the mass market, and we need to be prepared to find an alternative.
Take a look at the car market. A manual transmission offers more options, but is harder to use. An automatic transmission is good enough for 95% of the market, and much easier to use. Many cars are no longer available with a manual transmission.
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They believe that these users don't even need a full featured computer. Apple can almost meet the above listed needs with their iPad,. You can bet that in another year or two the iPad will more than meet the needs of 90% of the market. The Mac will transform into being just a larger iPad.
I couldn't agree less! I appreciate your opinions, but they are simply based on speculation. Apple is working *hard* to capture developers, the tools available on the Mac platform are quite impressive. In addition - they are extending the Mac platform via Lion by embracing an entirely new class of users - those relying on mobile devices. Where was this market 5 years ago?
You seem insist on asserting that everyone is replacing their computers with devices running Ios - i have yet to meet this user (I'm an IT professional - I talk to a *lot* of users....).
Case in point, Apple's AV Foundation. A lot of people are sneering at this because Apple chose to debut it on devices running Ios before making it available on Mac Desktops. What gets left unsaid is that this is a true 64bit implementation of Quicktime and serves as the foundation of FCP-X. I know lot's of "pros" (that term with the utmost respect) are outraged at the lack of backword support / 3rd party tools - but it's a *new* platform that just happens to embrace both OS X *and* Ios. Change is *hard*. I'm running it on a relatively meager Macbook Pro and it's quite impressive handling 5D2 files.... The "pros" are left with Avid and to a lesser extent Premiere, having to transcode using 32-bit Quicktime. (I should let you know I've made my decision regarding a video NLE on a decent machine - it's purely economic -I'll be running Premiere on a 12 core dual Xeon Windows workstation built for 1/2 the cost of a Mac Pro.) I kinda wonder what the reaction will be when FCP X has native RED support? It's gonna happen .....
You mention Windows and it's backword compatibilty, and I would agree with you, impressive but also a source of continuing security vulnerablities. The original 16bit API's that Windows 3.0 were written to are still largely supported - the API's when written had *no* notion of security or trust relationships - Microsoft is doing a magnificent job of continuing to support these at the cost of complexity. What you didn't mention is that all 16bit Windows apps are no longer supported on 64bit version of Windows..... Memories tend to be short - remember the outrage when MS came out with Windows XP?
Microsoft's idea of a mobile device - "make it run Windows, the hardware will catch up". While a great idea on paper - it just doesn't cut it - mobile devices are inherently touch as Apple has so beautifully demonstrated. Windows isn't and neither is, for that matter OS X.
Apple *gets* this......
This isn't about abandoning an existing market as you assert, it's about embracing new ones and the future....
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I couldn't agree less! I appreciate your opinions, but they are simply based on speculation. Apple is working *hard* to capture developers, the tools available on the Mac platform are quite impressive. In addition - they are extending the Mac platform via Lion by embracing an entirely new class of users - those relying on mobile devices. Where was this market 5 years ago?
You seem insist on asserting that everyone is replacing their computers with devices running Ios - i have yet to meet this user (I'm an IT professional - I talk to a *lot* of users....).
Case in point, Apple's AV Foundation. A lot of people are sneering at this because Apple chose to debut in on devices running Ios before making it available on Mac Desktops. What gets left unsaid is that this is a true 64bit implementation of Quicktime and serves as the foundation of FCP-X. I know lot's of "pros" are outraged at the lack of backword support / 3rd party tools - but it's a *new* platform that just happens to embrace both OS X *and* Ios. I'm running it on a relatively meager Macbook Pro and it's quite impressive handling 5D2 files.... The "pros" are left with Avid and to a lesser extent Premiere, having to manually transcode using 32-bit Quicktime. (I should let you know I've made my decision regarding a video NLE on a decent machine - it's purely economic -I'll be running Premiere on a 12 core dual Xeon Windows workstation built for 1/2 the cost of a Mac Pro.)
You mention Windows and it's backword compatibilty, and I would agree with you, impressive but also a source of continuing security vulnerablities. The original 16bit API's that Windows 3.0 were written to are still largely supported - the API's when written had *no* notion of security or trust relationships - Microsoft is doing a magnificent job of continuing to support these at the cost of complexity. What you didn't mention is that all 16bit Windows apps are no longer supported on 64bit version of Windows..... Memories tend to be short - remember the outrage when MS came out with Windows XP?
Microsoft's idea of a mobile device - "make it run Windows, the hardware will catch up". While a great idea on paper - it just does'nt cut it - mobile devices are inherently touch as Apple has so beautifully demonstrated. Windows "ain't" and neither is, for that matter OS X.
Apple *gets* this......
This isn't about abandoning an existing market as you assert, it's about embracing new ones and the future....
Apple does have quite an impressive development environment. It needs one because the smarts are in the environment, not the programs. Apple loves developers, but Apple wants those developers building Apps that neatly fit into Apple's idea of a good system. For a while it was a violation of the Apple developer agreement to use any other development environment for iOS development.
Yes, I did mention Windows and their backwards compatibility. You are correct that the original 16bit Windows 3.0 APIs were developed without serious thought to security. Contrast this to Apple's OS-X PPC APIs. They were developed much more recently. Apple's PPC API's were built on a Unix foundation, and are far more secure than the Windows 3.0 APIs. Yet, somehow Apple doesn't support these APIs while Windows still supports the 3.0 APIs.
We certainly agree here. Windows provides compatibility, and Apple doesn't. You seem to be saying that this lack of compatibility is a good thing for the platform, and you may be correct. My point is that from a business perspective this lack of compatibility dramatically increases the cost of the platform. This means that from a long term financial perspective, Apple may not be a good choice for a business computer.
If Lion included Rosetta I could upgrade for about $30. Over time I could slowly upgrade various PPC software as budgets allow. I might choose to never update some software. If a particular and seldom used ppc program is meeting my needs, I would rather spend my money on software that gives me new functionality, or perhaps a faster computer. Without Rosetta, I need to spend hundreds, perhaps thousands, of dollars just to retain existing functionality. This doesn't include the tens or hundreds of man hours it will take to convert projects to new software systems. This is time that I could otherwise be billing to clients.
Your claim that Window's mobile platform isn't as good as iOS, isn't relevant. We are not talking about allowing PPC code to run on iPads, or other mobile devices. This code was not designed for that environment, we are talking about allowing OS-X PPC programs like Quicken to run on OS-X computers like an iMac.
I don't deny that Apple is dedicated to embracing new technologies, I am just pointing out that they also seem to be dedicated to eradicating old technology.
I am not trying to suggest that this abandonment of old technology is somehow bad or evil, I am just pointing out that it is not a good match for the needs of businesses.
Remember, Apple is a company that should make decisions that are in the best long term interests of Apple. It appears that Apple is going after the volume market. This is a reasonable business decision. However as a small business owner, one should not base a choice of platform on how profitable you think Apple will be. You should invest in the platform that will be best for your business.
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P.S.
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You seem insist on asserting that everyone is replacing their computers with devices running Ios - i have yet to meet this user (I'm an IT professional - I talk to a *lot* of users....).
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I believe that the vast majority of users don't have access to IT professionals. These users are the market Apple is going after. The market that you serve and are familiar with is not the market that Apple is interested in.
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Sorry - my phone number is on my site - I get calls from regular users all day. Still have yet to talk to one thats replacing their PC (or Mac) with a mobile device..... :)
But to respond to your previous post - dead code is dead code isn't it? I mean, if it isn't being actively developed (as opposed to being relied upon), it's eventually going to die at some point?
COBOL anybody?
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Sorry - my phone number is on my site - I get calls from regular users all day. Still have yet to talk to one thats replacing their PC (or Mac) with a mobile device..... :)
But to respond to your previous post - dead code is dead code isn't it? I mean, if it isn't being actively developed (as opposed to being relied upon), it's eventually going to die at some point?
COBOL anybody?
You mean I should quit programming on a DEC PDP-11 with its nifty paper tape reader? I thought this was a huge advance over punch cards!
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Sorry - my phone number is on my site - I get calls from regular users all day. Still have yet to talk to one thats replacing their PC (or Mac) with a mobile device..... :)
But to respond to your previous post - dead code is dead code isn't it? I mean, if it isn't being actively developed (as opposed to being relied upon), it's eventually going to die at some point?
COBOL anybody?
You are correct that all things die, but why kill them off while they are still healthy?
There is a difference between something no longer being actively developed and it no longer being useful.
I drive a 21 year old car. It runs fine even though this model has had 3 or 4 major upgrades since I bought it. Parts are still available. It's true that it doesn't have a factory GPS, nor a factory installed iPod charger. In fact it doesn't even have power locks or remote monitoring of tire pressure. It does get me where I want to go.
I do not have unlimited resources. If I were to buy a new car, this would divert resources that could be used elsewhere.
I have a Canon EF 17-35 f/2.8 L lens. This lens gets occasional use. It was long ago discontinued and replaced by a better lens, which itself was discontinued and replaced. For my needs my old lens works fine.
If Canon's new camera bodies refused to work with lenses older than 3 years, few would say that was a good thing because it forced everyone to upgrade to newer and better lenses. Most would simply point out that this made the other brand a better alternative for professionals.
Why should I spend money, time and effort replacing something that meets my needs? For instance, the most recent version of Quicken (Quicken 2007) meets 100% of my needs. Switching to a new program requires time to learn a new system, time to convert the data, and time to manually check and correct the problems introduced by the conversion. After expending all of this effort, the best case scenario is that the replacement software also meets 100% of my needs, and I break even. Worst case, it omits some functionality and I am worse off. Why would I want to expend resources on a project that at best won't leave me better off?
I have a few customers that have legacy web sites that were developed by others in GoLive CS2. They use a fancy GoLive plugin to build a fancy graphical navigation menu that they love. Neither GoLive nor the menu plugin are being developed. The customer calls me every few months and requests a minor change or two to the web site. I fire up GoLive CS2, make their change, and 5 minutes later everyone is happy. Eventually this customer will want to sped the money on a new web site. They want to be the ones who decide when that expenditure will occur.
Explain to me the business rationale as to why I should spend time and effort in moving development of this web site to a current development environment? I could tell the customer that I will no longer maintain his site as GoLive had been discontinued. What the customer would hear is that I use old tools, and I won't upgrade. I can't just blow this customer off as I get a lot of other work from this customer. So for my business, the loss of being able to occasionally run GoLive CS2 (a power PPC program) would be quite expensive.
After examining my options, it appears that my best course of action is to try to find a Windows version of GoLive CS2, and move my accounting to Quicken for Windows.
This is my point. From a business point of view, it appears that choosing Windows makes more financial sense than choosing Mac. This has little to do with which platform is better, it has to do with which platform can be relied on for many years.
I am not against upgrading when there is a reason to do so. I had an Epson 2200 printer that was in perfect shape. I upgraded to an Epson 3880 because it gives me better prints, costs less to operate, and allows me to reduce the number of prints I have to have done by an outside lab. The Epson 3880 has made my customers happier, and increased my profits. There was a sound business reason for replacing a perfectly functioning 2200.
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You are correct that all things die, but why kill them off while they are still healthy?
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Explain to me the business rationale as to why I should spend time and effort in moving development of this web site to a current development environment?
What you are saying makes a lot of sense to me. I too am in favour of up-grading stuff when there are strong substantive reasons for doing so. I also like using "legacy" materials when they are still serving their purposes just fine and the incremental value of up-grading them is much less than the incremental cost of doing so. But that's my perspective as a consumer. It's not the only perspective at play. The other perspective at play is that of the providers. They have a business rationale for implementing aggressive planned obsolescence be it the OS or host software, or not committing resources to up-grading host software just because it is needed for an OS up-grade, and some of them are simply more shameless about it than others.
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What you are saying makes a lot of sense to me. I too am in favour of up-grading stuff when there are strong substantive reasons for doing so. I also like using "legacy" materials when they are still serving their purposes just fine and the incremental value of up-grading them is much less than the incremental cost of doing so. But that's my perspective as a consumer. It's not the only perspective at play. The other perspective at play is that of the providers. They have a business rationale for implementing aggressive planned obsolescence be it the OS or host software, or not committing resources to up-grading host software just because it is needed for an OS up-grade, and some of them are simply more shameless about it than others.
There are two separate questions which should not be confused.
The first question is it reasonable for Apple to aggressively enforce planned obsolescence? There are pros and cons either way. There are both long term and short term issues that should be examined.
However whether or not Apple is justified in their decision is not what I was talking about.
My position is that given Apple's choice to aggressively enforce planned obsolescence, is it reasonable for a business to invest in buying Apple hardware?
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It depends on the relative quality of the hardware. Also recall we can install Parallels and Windows on a Mac and it works fine, so a combination of Apple hardware and Windows accessibility is feasible. But if you want to use Windows and you find a PC brand you like as well as or more than Apple, go for that. Some of this is personal preference, and some objective.
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It depends on the relative quality of the hardware. Also recall we can install Parallels and Windows on a Mac and it works fine, so a combination of Apple hardware and Windows accessibility is feasible. But if you want to use Windows and you find a PC brand you like as well as or more than Apple, go for that. Some of this is personal preference, and some objective.
My personal preference would be to use Apple hardware and OS-X.
Given Apple's track record of dropping products without prior warning, and dropping compatibility with existing software, I a trying to find a justification for spending the additional time and effort required to keep using Apple gear.
Yes, ease of use is a factor, and so is personal preference. Do you really think that these justify the increased time, effort and expense of upgrading to Lion and opposed to switching to Windows?
Nothing would make me happier than Apple including Rosetta with Lion. Although they have not officially announced this, it appears that Lion will not support PPC applications. If Apple follows past practice, then I will need to either abandon old software, or switch to windows in order to maintain compatibility with new hardware. If I don't switch to Lion now, Apple will force me to upgrade (or switch to Windows) on my next iPad, or iPhone purchase.
I'm not saying Apple isn't justified. Like the Apple TV, Mac is now just a niche product for them (although the Apple TV has a future). Apple makes far more revenue from iTunes, iPods, and iPhones than it ever has with the Mac.
And yes, we can install Windows on a Mac. Maintaining both is more work than maintaining one. Yet another increased cost.
I would love to hear your suggestions on how to solve the issue that all PPC legacy software will cease to work with Lion.
What would you suggest as the best path to continue using Apple hardware/software while trying to control costs?
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I would love to hear your suggestions on how to solve the issue that all PPC legacy software will cease to work with Lion.
What would you suggest as the best path to continue using Apple hardware/software while trying to control costs?
Keep a bootable version of OSX on a separate drive that continues to support the legacy applications and use it when necessary.
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Keep a bootable version of OSX on a separate drive that continues to support the legacy applications and use it when necessary.
Unlike the windows world, new Mac hardware won't boot old operating systems. Any Mac sold after next month won't boot snow leopard.
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Is there no virtualization software that would get around this?
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Is there no virtualization software that would get around this?
Correct.
Apple's license for Snow Leopard does not allow it to be virtualized.
Most virtualization software for the Mac passes the actual hardware model to the guest operating system. Snow Leopard refuses to run if the hardware is not specifically supported, and new hardware is now specifically supported.
It might be possible to get around these issues, but to do so legally would require Apple's cooperation. If Appe had any interest in preserving the functionality of legacy software, we wouldn't need to expend effort on finding work arounds.
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Is there no virtualization software that would get around this?
On a Mac, yes - you can run previous versions of Intel Supported OS X using Oracle's Virtual Box.
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On a Mac, yes - you can run previous versions of Intel Supported OS X using Oracle's Virtual Box.
According to the documentation at Virtualbox.org, VirtualBox will not let you run OS-X on a Mac unless that build of OS-X would run natively on that Mac.
Only CPUs known and tested by Apple are supported. As a result, if your Intel CPU is newer than the build of Mac OS X Server, or if you have a non-Intel CPU, it will most likely panic during bootup with an "Unsupported CPU" exception. It is generally best to use the Mac OS X Server DVD that came with your Apple hardware.
Even if it would work, isn't this a violation of Apple's licensing agreement?
I though only the $500 to $1,000 server version was allowed to run under virtualization.
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That quote is for Mac OSX Server. What about Mac OSX for home use on a desktop?
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That quote is for Mac OSX Server. What about Mac OSX for home use on a desktop?
The non-server version is not supported at all. If it were supported, it would be a violation of Apple's license.
I for one don't feel like getting into a legal fight with Apple, particularly in a situation where the law is on their side.
This is what the manual has to say about installing Mac OS X as a "guest" operating system:
3.1.1 Mac OS X Server guests
Starting with version 3.2, VirtualBox has experimental support for Mac OS X Server guests. This allows you to install and execute unmodified versions of Mac OS X Server on supported host hardware.
There is no mention of any support for the non-server version.
Apple is very good at getting the details right. When Apple doesn't want you running your legacy software, there are few choices.
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It's the same restriction that stops you from legalling running OS X on a generic PC - a so-called Hackintosh, for example.
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That quote is for Mac OSX Server. What about Mac OSX for home use on a desktop?
Apple allows OS X Lion virtualization (http://www.macrumors.com/2011/07/01/os-x-lion-allows-running-multiple-copies-on-the-same-machine-virtualization/). Quote: "... users can run up to two additional instances of OS X Lion on their same machine without a need for extra licenses."
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Apple allows OS X Lion virtualization (http://www.macrumors.com/2011/07/01/os-x-lion-allows-running-multiple-copies-on-the-same-machine-virtualization/). "... users can run up to two additional instances of OS X Lion on their same machine without a need for extra licenses."
But Lion doesn't include Rosetta so this doesn't help with the issue of running Legacy PPC software.
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With the introduction of OSX 7 Lion Apple is dropping Rosetta (the emulation mode program for PowerPC code) and I have found so far that on my Epson 3800 some of the support code is PowerPC code only. The utilities in the LFP Remote panel is an example. An Epson support person said we just have to stay on Snow Leopard if we need to use the code.
No, I won't let a printer dictate which OS version I'm going to use. I'll rather sell the printer and switch printer brand (forever) instead.
If I (as a prosumer) am buying a professional printer like the Epson 3800 (which I own) I intend to use it for 5-6 years and I expect the company to stand behind and support the product during this time - yes even on new OS releases. I wouldn't even mind paying a fair price for a driver update. Still relying on PPC code (and thereby Rosetta) on the Apple platform in 2011 is not acceptable for a professional and expensive product. This is no $50 printer.
Why are new OS releases always is such a big surprise for some companies? The Apple developer program exists for a reason and IMHO it's not unreasonable to expect working drivers soon after the launch of a new OS version. At least that is what I expect from the brand of my next photo printer.
Given the fact the the OS X Lion update will be so easy (by using the OS X App Store online update) I'm wondering if Epson will really maintain this point of view and disappoint many of their customers.
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I'm wondering if Epson will really maintain this point of view and disappoint many of their customers.
If they do, the customers can always migrate to other printer manufacturers who will upgrade their drivers. Canon is giving Epson a good run for its money these days. I think you can expect Epson to maintain current drivers for current models, but not necessarily for legacy models. The 3880 is not a legacy model.
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I think you can expect Epson to maintain current drivers for current models, but not necessarily for legacy models. The 3880 is not a legacy model.
As I wrote: I expect to be able to use a prof printer for 5-6 years (on a current OS version). A prof printer should become obsolete after 5-6 years and not by the release of its successor.
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But Lion doesn't include Rosetta so this doesn't help with the issue of running Legacy PPC software.
Correct, this was just a general answer to Mark's question. However, I hope that Apple will change the EULA for older OS X versions, too, now that they allow virtualization on 10.7 (Lion). IMHO it makes sense and helps a lot.
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As I wrote: I expect to be able to use a prof printer for 5-6 years (on a current OS version). A prof printer should become obsolete after 5-6 years and not by the release of its successor.
The 3800 will be five years old this coming November. But I agree with you - and I would go further - I think an eight to ten year life cycle of support would be reasonable in terms of the physical life and quality of these machines, but the manufacturers may be simply unwilling to spend the money on updating the software. Beyond some time period it would be reasonable for them to do this work and ask people to pay for the updates. But then they wouldn't be selling as many new printers.
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Why are new OS releases always is such a big surprise for some companies? The Apple developer program exists for a reason and IMHO it's not unreasonable to expect working drivers soon after the launch of a new OS version. At least that is what I expect from the brand of my next photo printer.
Given the plethora of complaints about Apple OS system upgrades over the pas two years on this forum do you think the problem is with manufacturers of printers and other hardware or is it with Apple's less than transparent policy of how upgrades are to be handled? I you ask me it is the latter (but then I've been using Win7 and it's predecessors where there is backward compatibility).
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Alan, frankly it's a plague on all their houses. Coordination in this industry can be pretty dismal and the blame can be distributed all around. But much grief could be avoided if there were a standards group to which all the major players belonged having rules or guidelines about upgrade processes, information sharing and the duration of support to legacy items. Right now it's a jungle with each company doing as they see fit to maximize their own commercial interests.
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Alan, frankly it's a plague on all their houses. Coordination in this industry can be pretty dismal and the blame can be distributed all around. But much grief could be avoided if there were a standards group to which all the major players belonged having rules or guidelines about upgrade processes, information sharing and the duration of support to legacy items. Right now it's a jungle with each company doing as they see fit to maximize their own commercial interests.
Companies need to balance their short term interests (make people upgrade) with long term interests (not pissing off their customers enough to get them to switch brands).
In the Windows world there are roadmaps for future development, and their is compatibility with legacy software.
With Apple, there has been no official announcement of when Rosetta will be going away, although everyone believes it will be next week.
With Windows, it's generally a safe bet that you have many years to recoup your investment in a printer or software package.
With the Mac you'd better be able to justify that investment in just a few years, as it may no longer work after that.
It's quite true that there is some software or hardware that you expect to replace every year. When the core technology for your business is rapidly changing, it makes sense to upgrade frequently to stay on top. It does not make sense to replace working support infrastructure (there is no need for me to replace my office chair every year in order to get the new model).
We don't need standards groups, or regulations to solve this problem. We merely need to alter our purchase patterns so that it is in the financial interest of these companies to maintain support.
If legacy support is important to you, then when Lion comes out, don't buy it, and fill out a comment form on Apple's web site letting them know why.
If you want printer driver support for older printers, then tell Epson that you won't buy a new printer form them, unless they show their commitment by providing drivers for older hardware. An Epson 7900 or 4900 printer isn't cheap. You might want it to last a few years. If you think the changes in Lion are big, you haven't seen anything yet. Mac OS-X is converging with iOS. I think it's a pretty safe bet that after Lion, all printer drivers will need to be re-written and a lot of printers are going to be left out (unless you are happy with generic GIMP print drivers).
Remember, Microsoft and Apple are businesses. If we reward good behavior by buying their products, and penalize bad behavior by shunning those products, they will get the idea pretty quickly.
Keep in mind that the underlying root of this discussion is that Apple, a company with tens of Billions of dollars of cash in the bank, is likely to drop support for Rosetta. A move that will annoy and inconvenience millions of customers. Some have defended this as a licensing issue. I find this difficult to believe as Apple could likely buy the division that owns Rosetta, license itself the technology, and then sell off that division.
This is not a technical decision on Apple's part, it is a market decision. They believe that consumers are better off junking old software and buying new. If you agree with Apple, you should upgrade to Lion. If you don't agree with Apple, then perhaps you shouldn't buy the upgrade.
For me, I want to be the one who decides when the time is right to upgrade my software. I don't want an outside company (like Apple) making that decision for me.
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Alan, frankly it's a plague on all their houses. Coordination in this industry can be pretty dismal and the blame can be distributed all around. But much grief could be avoided if there were a standards group to which all the major players belonged having rules or guidelines about upgrade processes, information sharing and the duration of support to legacy items. Right now it's a jungle with each company doing as they see fit to maximize their own commercial interests.
Mark, for a number of years I was a member of one of the larger standards organization and such organizations mainly rely on expert volunteers to get the work done. It is usually slow and tedious work best suited to standards on items that won't be obsolete in a short period of time (industrial materials are a good example). In the software arena most of the work that I am familiar with is programming languages (I followed the 'C' to 'C++' standards activity for some time). In fast moving areas such as what we are discussing here things are not straight forward and customers, both potential and actual must rule the day. The reason Win is accepted in the business world is that Microsoft enforces backward compatibility and support of older operating systems (a lot of corporations still run WinXP and Office 2002 like my former employer). Microsoft supports these well and there are lots of certified IT professionals who know how to troubleshoot things (we had four on staff of a 240 person organization). Apple will not make a dent into this market unless they radically change their business strategy.
I have never considered migrating to Apple (I only have an i-Pod) since the hardware is more expensive and I see no real advantage in terms of running either PS or LR which are platform agnostic. If something goes wrong with my computer, I'm savvy enough to trouble shoot and correct the problem and I have a lot of peripherals that I can add or upgrade myself with little effort.
Both Apple and Microsoft have viable business strategies and have profited greatly. They will continue to do so. As customers, we need to evaluate which best suits our needs.
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We don't need standards groups, or regulations to solve this problem. We merely need to alter our purchase patterns so that it is in the financial interest of these companies to maintain support
Your talking about millions of amorphous and unorganized consumers. Yes, if each and every person behaved the way you suggest, it would add up to clout. Otherwise not. Sometimes ones needs a coordinated, institutionalized approach to address abusive issues.
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Your talking about millions of amorphous and unorganized consumers. Yes, if each and every person behaved the way you suggest, it would add up to clout. Otherwise not. Sometimes ones needs a coordinated, institutionalized approach to address abusive issues.
Unless that institution can influence the buying habits of the masses, what influence would it have over a company like Apple, which is targeting the consumer market?
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Standards organizations and regulatory institutions are put in place to negotiate, arbitrate, or regulate for competing interests in society, so that - one hopes - generally livable solutions emerge to address problems that the market operating on its own does not succeed in dealing with adequately. In the course of performing these functions they also can and sometimes do educate public expectations, which influence behaviour. Alan is correct that this approach is often time consuming and resource-intensive, but we have them for a reason. Sometimes just having them there can incite companies to behave more responsibly if only to avoid dealing with them. I'm not saying this is a panacea of any kind - but it may be part of an approach to a generic problem in these high tech industries. There needs to be some kind of balance and reasonableness in the way technical progress and consumer interests are managed. The market on its own hasn't been particularly brilliant at handling this, (and I agree that Apple is probably more at fault than Microsoft) but it's a pretty broadly based set of issues, hence much of the discussion we are now having.
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Standards organizations and regulatory institutions are put in place to negotiate, arbitrate, or regulate for competing interests in society, so that - one hopes - generally livable solutions emerge to address problems that the market operating on its own does not succeed in dealing with adequately. In the course of performing these functions they also can and sometimes do educate public expectations, which influence behaviour. Alan is correct that this approach is often time consuming and resource-intensive, but we have them for a reason. Sometimes just having them there can incite companies to behave more responsibly if only to avoid dealing with them. I'm not saying this is a panacea of any kind - but it may be part of an approach to a generic problem in these high tech industries. There needs to be some kind of balance and reasonableness in the way technical progress and consumer interests are managed. The market on its own hasn't been particularly brilliant at handling this, (and I agree that Apple is probably more at fault than Microsoft) but it's a pretty broadly based set of issues, hence much of the discussion we are now having.
I agree that standards organizations are a good thing.
Apple has shown they have little interest in maintaining compatibility. I don't see how the existence of a standard would somehow magically change their mind.
Why do you think a standards organization would change Apple's behavior?
I can imagine businesses requiring adherence as a pre-purchase requirement, but Apple isn't interested in the business market.
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I agree that standards organizations are a good thing.
Apple has shown they have little interest in maintaining compatibility. I don't see how the existence of a standard would somehow magically change their mind.
Why do you think a standards organization would change Apple's behavior?
I can imagine businesses requiring adherence as a pre-purchase requirement, but Apple isn't interested in the business market.
Hard to know exactly what would incite Apple to become more mindful of sustaining certain areas of backward compatibility. They'd have to decide what they'd need to do, whether it is worth it, not worth it. Note, their market for computer systems is not confined to prosumers. Many educational institutions and research organizations use Apple computers, so there is an interest beyond individual private consumers. Whether there is much interest in sustaining stuff like the MacPro and MacBook Pro line altogether of course is another question. When they're making gazillions from iPhones, iPads and iTunes, maybe the incentive isn't there and Windows is in all our futures. :-(
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Note, their market for computer systems is not confined to prosumers. Many educational institutions and research organizations use Apple computers, so there is an interest beyond individual private consumers.
It's a drop in the bucket compared to the corporate installation of Win machines. In addition, I think much of the use in education is a result of the Apple cachet (ill defined, I know) rather than anything that Macs can do that Win machines cannot. The real problem in the corporate world is the absolute need in certain applications for regulatory compliance. I spent 27 years in the biopharmaceutical industry and chaired an industry task force that was focused on US Food and Drug Administration regulation of computer system. There is an absolute need to insure that any computer used in a laboratory or manufacturing site be compliant and be compliant over a significant number of years. To go through validation of a new computer OS every two years (or whatever the time frame is for Apple switch overs) takes a lot of time and money. Once a system and associate programs are validated, companies are not going to change things unless there is a very good reason. Apple's current business model is not compatible with this.
As an aside, when my daughter entered University of Rochester several years ago she asked if she could get a Mac notebook. I said as long as the university IT department supported it, that was fine with me. They did and I ended up paying $600 more for the Mac than a comparable Win notebook (I'm a soft touch).
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There's no such thing as a comparable Windows laptop. I checked-out ALL of the key makes before I bought a MacBook Pro. Pricey yes, but I've never owned a better laptop be it terms of design, features or security.
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There's no such thing as a comparable Windows laptop. I checked-out ALL of the key makes before I bought a MacBook Pro. Pricey yes, but I've never owned a better laptop be it terms of design, features or security.
And there in lies Apple's ability to dictate the terms of using a ac. It's an integrated system of hardware and OS. If you want to use a Mac you must adapt to Apple's way of thinking and working. As you may recall, they decided to eliminate a floppy drive. People were aghast...but they were right...who uses a floppy drive now? Apple is known for driving innovation...one of the things that innovation causes is the loss of backwards compatibility. This is Apple's core nature and you ain't gonna change it (nor do I really want it changed).
There is always a bit of pain involved if you want to go the Apple way...Photoshop didn't get 64 bit processing till after Windows because, well, Apple decided to kill 64 bit Carbon (after Adobe based their road map on having it). They told Motorola to take a hike and went Intel for the processors causing developers to switch from a robust CodeWarrior version 12 to a puny Xcode 3.x. It took Adobe a long time to get MacIntel native cause 4 millions lines of code couldn't be compiled in Xcode.
You may not like the way Apple operates...but innovation is a fact of life if you want to use Apple products. MSFT would actually be in better shape if they had the guts to pull the trigger on killing off some of their backwards compatibility. They had high hope for "Longhorn" when they started laying out the future of Windows, but what they settled for with Vista was a piece of crap. Windows 7 "sucks less™" (which should be a trademark of MSFT).
You guys can get all bent out of shape if you want...on the other hand, updating software, hardware and OS's is a fact of life if you wanna be "digital". It's the price we pay to do what we want to do. Doesn't mean we have to be "happy" about it, but be realistic and practical...otherwise, get a Windows box.
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And there in lies Apple's ability to dictate the terms of using a ac. It's an integrated system of hardware and OS. If you want to use a Mac you must adapt to Apple's way of thinking and working. As you may recall, they decided to eliminate a floppy drive. People were aghast...but they were right...who uses a floppy drive now? Apple is known for driving innovation...one of the things that innovation causes is the loss of backwards compatibility. This is Apple's core nature and you ain't gonna change it (nor do I really want it changed).
There is always a bit of pain involved if you want to go the Apple way...Photoshop didn't get 64 bit processing till after Windows because, well, Apple decided to kill 64 bit Carbon (after Adobe based their road map on having it). They told Motorola to take a hike and went Intel for the processors causing developers to switch from a robust CodeWarrior version 12 to a puny Xcode 3.x. It took Adobe a long time to get MacIntel native cause 4 millions lines of code couldn't be compiled in Xcode.
You may not like the way Apple operates...but innovation is a fact of life if you want to use Apple products. MSFT would actually be in better shape if they had the guts to pull the trigger on killing off some of their backwards compatibility. They had high hope for "Longhorn" when they started laying out the future of Windows, but what they settled for with Vista was a piece of crap. Windows 7 "sucks less™" (which should be a trademark of MSFT).
You guys can get all bent out of shape if you want...on the other hand, updating software, hardware and OS's is a fact of life if you wanna be "digital". It's the price we pay to do what we want to do. Doesn't mean we have to be "happy" about it, but be realistic and practical...otherwise, get a Windows box.
Apple did not eliminate the floppy. Apple merely removed the floppy as standard equipment. Floppy drives were available from third parties. I have a USB floppy that should work on the Mac I bought a few months ago.
There is a huge difference between discouraging new development in a technology, an abruptly terminating it. No one is asking that Apple make new software interfaces available for PPC. No one is asking that Rosetta be included in the standard install. What we are asking is that Apple not pull the plug on an already developed technology that is used by millions.
There are third parties who have created a Mac Classic emulator, allowing legacy OS-9 applications to run on modern hardware. I don't see anyone complaining that the existence of a way to run Classic programs on modern hardware is somehow holding Apple back.
As to forced upgrades being a fact of digital life - that's clearly untrue. It's true for the Mac, but not for windows. It's certainly not true for my Canon 7D digital SLR, which happily works perfectly and with full functionality, mated to lenses that I bought in the 1980's
The new MacBook Airs that will be announced next week won't run Snow Leopard. This means that they will run software for DOS, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and even the classic OS-9. Why should PPC code be singled out as incompatible?
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The new MacBook Airs that will be announced next week won't run Snow Leopard. This means that they will run software for DOS, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and even the classic OS-9. Why should PPC code be singled out as incompatible?
Because, that is Apple's nature...not sure why you are surprised or shocked...it's Apple's nature. So either deal with it or move to Windows but I can pretty much assure you that NOTHING you post here will modify Apple's behavior. So, what do you hope to accomplish? Idle use of bandwidth? That's all it amounts to. It's useful for users to know where they stand regarding OS X 10.7, it's foolish to think any amount of complaining will change the future.
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Because, that is Apple's nature...not sure why you are surprised or shocked...it's Apple's nature. So either deal with it or move to Windows but I can pretty much assure you that NOTHING you post here will modify Apple's behavior. So, what do you hope to accomplish? Idle use of bandwidth? That's all it amounts to. It's useful for users to know where they stand regarding OS X 10.7, it's foolish to think any amount of complaining will change the future.
Nothing any of us posts here will directly change Apple's, or Epson's or HP's behavior.
We post here to give each other advice and insights so that we can all make more informed decisions.
Some people are of the belief that one platform is the best and should be used by everyone. I disagree. Each of us has different needs, and the solution that's right for one, may not be right for another.
I was pointing out Apple's unannounced move to concentrate on the consumer market at the expense of the business market.
If you're someone who upgrades as fast as you can, this might not be an issue for you. If you are someone who buys a computer or printer and expects to get many years of use out of it, this may be a significant policy.
Some people are at a point where they are trying to decide which platform to go with. I just think they are better off making an informed decision.
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OK
Here is one lever.
They're marketing strategy has a big hole.
Apple have made a great song and dance about going green.
Battery tech, packaging, materials used, I could go on and on and you get the point. Apple is using this as a marketing plus while being responsible (hmmmm).
Abandoning old tech early and when there is no reason, especially with no international recycle policy is NOT green. I have just bought Snow Leopard. I run it on my Macbook and saw no reason to install this OS on my MacPro desktop until now.
I will not buy any OS unless there is a real reason other than shallow GUI updates.
Lion will be as SL was, a cheap OS dumb-down. I wanted SL now for ram/64 bit reasons only.
I vote for a price increase version of Lion with real professional user kudos! So say I.
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Until someone can definitively show me that the OS has an impact on the end result of the program (e.g., 2+2 =5, or that an image renders differently because of the OS and not LR/PS), then the decision becomes one of personal preference. I pretty much agree with Jeff, that we've beaten this poor horse into submission.
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There is a huge difference between discouraging new development in a technology, an abruptly terminating it.
Considering dropping PPC support, I really don't think there's much abruptness at all. Apple's transition to the Intel platform was "complete" August 6, 2006, five years to you and me, much longer in the digital world. I have no idea what Apple told or has been telling developers regarding continuing to support programs written for a chipset that hasn't been in Apple computers for nearly five years, but the proverbial handwriting has been on the wall, IMO, for quite some time--even more so with the release of SL and having to separately install Rosetta. Of course, Apple should have told devs if they haven't but surely the devs have known.
While it makes it a bit painful if I want to upgrade to Lion while maintaining PPC programs, in the end I don't mind Apple's dropping support for the older programs. It's unfortunate for programs that are no longer being produced, but I have little sympathy for current programs that developers just haven't migrated (e.g., Intuit). Anyone remember Word 6 for mac? Awful piece of software that finally got rewritten. In some way, perhaps re-writing the software makes for a less-bloated, more efficient program that delivers a better user experience. Yes, it takes resources for companies to re-write their software, but, then again, their updates aren't free. Perhaps I'm living in my own happy little world, but, I think in the end dropping legacy support and forcing devs. to update their programs is going to be a good thing for me, as a user. Now, where is my hypercard. . .
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In your "happy little world" what do you think of the failure of certain device manufacturers to up-date their drivers, rendering their devices unusable within four to five years of purchase?
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Until someone can definitively show me that the OS has an impact on the end result of the program (e.g., 2+2 =5, or that an image renders differently because of the OS and not LR/PS), then the decision becomes one of personal preference. I pretty much agree with Jeff, that we've beaten this poor horse into submission.
If only it was that simple.
Pretty much every car will get you to your destination, yet there are difference in how much cargo you can carry, reliability and comfort. Some of the factors are personal preference and some are monetary.
Let's look at something closer to topic. If I save a photo to a hard drive, I will read back the same bits whether that hard drive is a simple consumer disk, or a fancy hardware RIAD. Even though I get the same results, the RAID has advantages (increased reliability & speed) over the vanilla disk (which costs less). The choice of consumer disk vs. RAID is not simply a personal preference choice, there are business consequences (for some the reliability of the RAID justifies the increased cost).
When it comes to Mac vs. Windows, Photoshop and Epson will both give you the same results today.
For some of us, we are also concerned with the costs to maintain the system (repair failed hardware, fix corrupt software, etc.). Some of us don't have the resources to dedicate a machine to Photoshop and printing, and would like to use the machine for other purposes as well. A machine that can run new software as well as old software has advantages in situations where resources are limited and flexibility is needed.
I'm not trying to tell people which platform to use, I'm not trying to tell people which platform is best. I'm just trying to have a rational discussion about one of the differences between Apple's and MicroSoft's policies. Knowing these differences helps people make informed decisions.
Saying the only difference between Mac and Windows is "personal preference" is clearly wrong. There are many differences, some of which don't matter and some of which do.
Trying to justify the differences may be interesting, but irrelevant. If Apple abandons legacy software and MicroSoft doesn't, the difference itself is far more important than the reasons why.
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Considering dropping PPC support, I really don't think there's much abruptness at all...
Here's where we have a difference of opinion. Let's look at how much time elapsed between Apple announcing that PPC support would be dropped, and that drop occurring.
Sorry. Trick question. Apple has not yet announced that PPC software support will be discontinued.
Regardless of whether or not it is reasonable for Apple to discontinue such support, the lack of any warning, or published timetable is appalling.
The proper thing would be to announce in advance that PPC software will be going away, and to give a time table.
Software developers have limited resources. I would rather they spend those resources fixing bugs and improving the software, than rewriting the installer to be Intel native. If Apple had a timetable, then Software developers could intelligently allocate their limited resources.
My prediction is that in the next week or two, Apple will start selling Macs that don't support PPC, without any prior official warning or announcement. To me, that's a very abrupt transition.
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Looking over what you and Jeff are saying, my take on it is there should be less destructive ways of achieving technical progress than that exhibited by some of the behaviour we are seeing in the industry. At some point everything changes and people need to "get with the program"; I think what we're discussing are matters of degree and pacing. When it's aggressively forced, one begins to think that commercial motives excessively over-ride technical merit, thought the two are always intimately related - again the issue being one of balance and degree.
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In your "happy little world" what do you think of the failure of certain device manufacturers to up-date their drivers, rendering their devices unusable within four to five years of purchase?
Oh, don't get me wrong, my happy little world has its fissures (I, of course, meant happy little world in jest, though not the part about ultimately better end user experiences). If the product came out after Apple transitioned to Intel, the drivers and other software for that printer should have at least been Universal and not PPC. I know it isn't for some and I think it's a failing on the manufacturer's part. Regarding general hardware lifespan, I agree with what has been previously said, and that is that I don't think it's unreasonable, as consumers, to expect a certain lifespan for hardware. What that expected lifespan is varies amongst users and hardware. I expect a longer period of support for a "pro" printer than from a $79 inkjet printer. However, even with a "pro" printer, it's going to have a set software update lifespan. I may not be fond of that, but that's just how it is. For me, I think printers should have driver updates for the reasonable life of the printer as measured from the date the printer was discontinued. I think five years of support for a pro printer is not an unreasonable expectation (then again, we recently had to purchase a new version of quickbooks for windows because, one day, Intuit no longer allowed QB 2008 to download banking transactions or properly calculate employment taxes even though the file structure did not change--and that was only three years after we purchased the previous version--and we had to purchase it for the same reason).
Ultimately, forced obsolescence due to operating system advances or hardware advances is going to be a way of life if I want to use the latest and greatest Apple gadgets and operating systems. Because there has historically been a seeming lack of communication between Apple and hardware/software providers regarding its new architecture or print pipelines, I wait to purchase a new operating system for my "critical" machines until a .1 release. If by upgrading I lose functionality that I currently enjoy (as with Lion, even with a .1 release), I'll either install it on a new partition or install it on another machine and decide whether the improvements are worth any frustrations that may ensue. I already know I'm going to have to partition or run in emulation because I want to continue using PMP, Monaco profiler, and other PPC software. It really doesn't make me angry because I can still use them by partitioning or I can choose not to upgrade (will I get frustrated and tire of booting from one to the other--probably so get your "I told you so" ready). I'm much more bothered by waking up one morning and not being able to use a product when nothing has changed with my system and I'm forced to buy a new product through no action on my part--and that's not happening here.
Mark--I had to re-log after typing this and I agree with your last post.
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Keep a bootable version of OSX on a separate drive that continues to support the legacy applications and use it when necessary.
Forgive me for going back to “what do we do” (maybe we need a new posting). Seems that the options above would work for occasional work. That is, one would have to decide to ‘move forward’ and upgrade to Lion but have a boot drive of Snow Leopard or earlier for occasional work with PPC software. But it seems that you are now forcing the new OS onto your daily work. If you use Address Book, Mail and so forth, that data will likely be updated, it will be unavailable on the older boot disk which may have legacy data and as such cause syncing issues. You’d certainly have to setup this boot disk for non syncing on MobileMe (iCloud) or for having Time Machine active. Since MobileMe is going away, seems those of us using it will have to move forward to Lion. So the configuration of the boot disk for PPC work needs to be somewhat carefully considered and constructed.
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Well said Andrew!!
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And there in lies Apple's ability to dictate the terms of using a ac. It's an integrated system of hardware and OS. If you want to use a Mac you must adapt to Apple's way of thinking and working.
Personally, I don't blame Apple for dropping Rosetta. All their systems are Intel-only for several years now. However, why does Epson still require Rosetta? Shouldn't all the code be ported by now? For me this is the more important question.
And let me repeat: I wouldn't mind paying a fair price for a decent Lion-compatibly Intel-native driver instead of dumping/selling my Epson 3800 printer.
MSFT would actually be in better shape if they had the guts to pull the trigger on killing off some of their backwards compatibility.
I agree 100%!
Anyway, let's wait and see what happens later this month when Lion finally hits the App Store.
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It's a good perspective and a good question. Have you asked Epson and gotten a reply from them?
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My prediction is that in the next week or two, Apple will start selling Macs that don't
support PPC, without any prior official warning or announcement. To me, that's a very
abrupt transition.
Even Snow Leopard is not available for PPC. Yes, SL contains Rosetta but it is not installed by default.
It is know at least since February 2011 that Rosetta won't ship with Lion. Also the Mac App Store is Intel-only since its launch. I would be very surprised if there was no clear roadmap for these features for registered Apple developers (which I am not).
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Personally, I don't blame Apple for dropping Rosetta. All their systems are Intel-only for several years now. However, why does Epson still require Rosetta? Shouldn't all the code be ported by now? For me this is the more important question.
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Apple has not made any announcement that Rosetta is going away.
Why would you expect Epson (or any software developer) to spend resources on updating perfectly working utility programs when those resources could be spent on improving existing or future products?
Do you really care it a software installation takes a few extra seconds because the installer contains PPC code?
Resources are not infinite. When a developer expends resources to update old software it takes away from development of new software.
Once Apple announces a timeline for Rosetta to go away, then developers like Epson can make informed decision about which products need to be updated.
It would be silly to suggest that Epson, or any other developer devote resources to head off a rumored change that may or may not happen.
The great thing about Rosetta is that it already exists. It's far less work fro Apple to release Rosetta for Lion than for every other software vendor to update their occasional use utilities and installers.
A few people have suggested that it would be a lot of work for Apple to maintain Rosetta because it would require Apple to maintain and test many old system calls. The flaw in this logic is that all of the PPC system calls also exist natively. Apple has to maintain these system calls and keep them working or native Intel programs will stop working.
Apple also has to maintain their infrastructure for supporting multiple platforms as the underlying OS code is the same for both Intel and the A4 processor used in iPads and iPhones. At some point, Apple will abandon Intel (probably for a new version of the A4). Apple needs to keep it's multiple architecture infrastructure in place for that expected move.
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Even Snow Leopard is not available for PPC. Yes, SL contains Rosetta but it is not installed by default.
It is know at least since February 2011 that Rosetta won't ship with Lion. Also the Mac App Store is Intel-only since its launch. I would be very surprised if there was no clear roadmap for these features for registered Apple developers (which I am not).
Like many printer drivers, Rosetta is not installed by default. This suggests that these pieces of software are not needed by everyone. It does not necessarily suggest that support for HP/Epson/etc. printers and Rosetta are going away.
Software must be changed and recompiled to include various DRM features before it can be sold through the Mac App Store. By definition, legacy software does not have these DRM features, and therefore cannot be sold through the App Store. Also, the Mac App Store is not available on PPC platforms, so it's not a good choice for distributing PPC software.
As to being very surprised if Apple did not have a clear roadmap for registered developers - consider yourself very surprised.
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Keep a bootable version of OSX on a separate drive that continues to support the legacy applications and use it when necessary.
True, agree with that, and something that I also do. I use Mac, Windows, and Linux simultaneously, including software development environments and toolchains, on all three of them. I like to stay away from some native OS programs (such as Mac's Address Book, Mail, etc.) and try to find equivalent setups that will work on all 3 OSes. With some careful planning I have found out that it is possible to have a presence on all of these OSes at the same time. I like to work on a Mac and would like to boot in Linux or Windows via VmWare. I have found out that it is most difficult to maintain my stuff on Mac OS (as much as I like to stay on a Mac) as Apple changes stuff frequently, sometimes with utter disregard, and have some strange frameworks, bundles, and library notions that are not needed IMHO, but cause a lot of trouble when compiling, open source software in particular.
What I have found strange is that while it is understandable that Apple might want to deprecate older stuff and introduce new features, however, sometimes I get a feeling that there is a deliberate attempt on sabotaging certain workflows ;D. Somebody here mentioned that software developers don't have all the time in the world to wrestle with such issues and I fully agree with that. IMHO, Apple could have certainly made things more manageable if they wanted to, or had the sincere desire to.
Joofa
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It's far less work fro Apple to release Rosetta for Lion than for every other software vendor to update their occasional use utilities and installers.
What makes you so sure of this? Do you know the code for both Lion and Rosetta and how they would cohere to produce the result you are looking for?
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Software must be changed and recompiled to include various DRM features before it can be sold through the Mac App Store. By definition, legacy software does not have these DRM features, and therefore cannot be sold through the App Store. Also, the Mac App Store is not available on PPC platforms, so it's not a good choice for distributing PPC software.
I was mentioning the App Store only as another strong indicator that PPC times are over.
However, yes, I would love to get Epson's software via the App Store in the future. The auto-updates alone would be worth it. And it would be easier for Epson to collect some bucks for the extended driver support. But if I remember correctly 3rd-party drivers can't be distributed on the App Store so far.
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Since MobileMe is going away, seems those of us using it will have to move forward to Lion. So the configuration of the boot disk for PPC work needs to be somewhat carefully considered and constructed.
Greatly agree with your last sentence and the only thing I would add is that per the fine print, Apple states "some features of iCloud require. . . OS X Lion." I've not heard or found anything that clarifies which features require Lion and which features don't (what are the "some" features). It may be the syncing portions of iCloud will be backwards compatible, but not the pushing of files automatically from one registered device to another. We'll just have to wait and see (or did they mean "all" though I think they would have just said iCloud will require OS X Lion if that's how it is but that's not what they said). In any event, your last sentence is very, very true.
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What makes you so sure of this? Do you know the code for both Lion and Rosetta and how they would cohere to produce the result you are looking for?
It's informed speculation.
I've been a software developer for quite a long time. In the 1980's I taught computer science at Carnegie-Mellon University. I used to travel around the country teaching short courses on Unix and Unix system administration. I spent a number of years working for a company that provided automated translation of computer software from one computer language to another. I was manager of programming for a software company where we maintained a single code base for a product that ran on DEC PDP-20's, DEC VAX, Pr1me computers, Perq computers, IBM mainframes, and Macintosh. I've been an Apple Developer since the late 1980's. I used to write Mac printer drivers for third party printers. I've had pre-released versions of Apple hardware in order to write software that would be available at the product's announcement.
I think it's fair to say that I have a reasonable familiarity with what's required in order for Rosetta to work.
Remember, Rosetta doesn't implement arbitrary system calls, Most of the PPC system calls implemented by Rosetta are also available as Intel native calls. Apple has to maintain the Intel native versions on order to allow older intel native programs to continue to run. There is no need to implement any new system calls for PPC, as no one is asking for support of new PPC software. PPC support is frozen at those system calls available in the PPC version of 10.4.
Apple also has to maintain their multi-architecture infrastructure to support both the Intel and A4 platforms, as well as whatever processor replaces the Intel CPU.
The key technology of Rosetta is the ability to run PPC software, and that obviously exists, as it runs under Snow Leopard.
Taken as a whole, I suspect the effort involved in keeping Rosetta running under Lion, is less than the effort involved in making Quicken 2007 Intel native.
Again, this is just informed speculation from someone who has been in this business a very long time.
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Thanks for clarifying.
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This will be the first time I haven't upgraded an OS in years. But, I just can't see doing it with the color management tools needing rosetta and a number of other installers and programs. That being said, I don't think Apple owns Rosetta. As I recall IBM bought it from the original company a few years ago. So, maybe it can still be an optional install like it was with Snow Leopard. Only time will tell, after the beast (Lion) is released.
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I'll be in no panic to install Lion either. From what's been revealed about it so far, no big deal in terms of what I need. I think it's a good policy in general: "upgrade when necessary but don't necessarily upgrade.
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I take heart that EpsonNet was recently updated to a Universal application (updated 6/29/11). I'll be contacting Epson today to see if there are plans to update the Epson LFP Remote Panel to a Universal app. I will be sure to post what I find out from my query. Keep the faith!
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All of the discussion about Apple and how it handles change in interesting.
But, let's get back to the basic issue.
Which, if any, printer manufacturers have announced they will provide update drivers for LION? Quality, professional printers are an expensive device, often costing more than the computers they are attached to. The drivers need to be updated for all current printers and those sold in the past 5 years or so. Older printers? Well, I guess that is a matter for discussion.
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For what it is worth, if the manufacturer of my less-than-two-years-old printer does NOT provide a LION driver I will do two things:
1. Keep running Snow Leopard on my computer.
2. Take an oath to never buy another printer from the manufacturer again.
Fool me once........
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For what it is worth, if the manufacturer of my less-than-two-years-old printer does NOT provide a LION driver I will do two things:
1. Keep running Snow Leopard on my computer.
2. Take an oath to never buy another printer from the manufacturer again.
Fool me once........
...or how about #3, I will buy a Win7 computer and never by from Apple again. Why do you think the printer manufacturer should be at fault when it is clearly the vendor of your computer that is making it difficult?
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Alan,
My thoughts exactly. I was considering a Mac laptop to replace my Windows laptop. I'm no longer considering it. I have yet to see a Mac that can offer me the value of my i7 powered Windows box.
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...or how about #3, I will buy a Win7 computer and never by from Apple again.
Well as someone on a Mac since 1988 and who just purchased his first Windows machine, I’ll pass and stick with Snow Leopard. Less painful <g>
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Well as someone on a Mac since 1988 and who just purchased his first Windows machine, I’ll pass and stick with Snow Leopard. Less painful <g>
Do Photoshop and Lightroom run differently (aside from the one control key difference)? ;) This has always been weird to me that folks will pay a significant premium for a computer that really doesn't do anything any differently. I've always been agnostic about the OS and my bottom line is that I was able to save $1000 when I last upgraded computers which allowed me to buy two new lenses for my Nikon.
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Do Photoshop and Lightroom run differently (aside from the one control key difference)? ;)
Once in both app’s a tiny bit but that’s not the issue or point.
Its a lot like someone who’s worked in Aperture and switches to Lightroom (or vise versa). The process of doing all kinds of stuff other than working in the app;s themselves is just different and not as easy/expected/logical as I want simply because I’m used to a fixed way of working. This isn’t to say going the opposite direction (PC to Mac) wouldn’t be just as disagreeable. My point is, given the option to work with a Windows OS or stick with Snow Leopard (instead of upgrading to Lion), its an easy choice for me, I’ll stick with Snow Leopard.
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Why do you think the printer manufacturer should be at fault when it is clearly the vendor of your computer that is making it difficult?
If the printer is less than two years old, the printer manufacturer is at fault, IMO, because they released a product with software not native to the chipset contained with the then-shipping Apple computers (and had not been shipping in Macs for at least three years when the printer shipped).
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Once in both app’s a tiny bit but that’s not the issue or point.
Its a lot like someone who’s worked in Aperture and switches to Lightroom (or vise versa). The process of doing all kinds of stuff other than working in the app;s themselves is just different and not as easy/expected/logical as I want simply because I’m used to a fixed way of working. This isn’t to say going the opposite direction (PC to Mac) wouldn’t be just as disagreeable. My point is, given the option to work with a Windows OS or stick with Snow Leopard (instead of upgrading to Lion), its an easy choice for me, I’ll stick with Snow Leopard.
That's a fair point if you are doing a lot of other stuff that may involve native Apple OS applications designed for that machine. 99% of my work is on LR, PS, Excel, Word, Outlook for e-mail, and Firefox for Internet. I'm pretty sure all of these programs work on a Mac OS with the same functionality as on a Win machine (at least they do on my daughter's Macbook Pro (or what ever it's called). I had no problem using her computer at all so for me the value proposition is not the design features of the OS (which are easy to learn in about 1 hour for either system) but the price of the hardware. Anyway, I doubt that Win users will convince Mac users to switch and vice versa. Bottom line is for both Apple and Microsoft to behave like good corporate citizens and not neglect we the customer.
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Which, if any, printer manufacturers have announced they will provide update drivers for LION? Quality, professional printers are an expensive device, often costing more than the computers they are attached to. The drivers need to be updated for all current printers and those sold in the past 5 years or so. Older printers? Well, I guess that is a matter for discussion.
Let me start by saying, I think they all will. Perhaps not five years (I'll get into that in a moment), but certainly all current and immediately past models are likely from the main 3 vendors at least.
Now let me ask something. Why would you expect a printer vendor to provide an update, for free, for a previously unannounced/unavailable/unknown operating system for a model that is more than 2 generations old when the OS vendor won't even provide spare parts or hardware compatability for their upgraded OS with their older hardware? You expect Epson, Canon and HP to support the older hardware on the newer OS, but not Apple?
Again, I think the reality is that they will support all current and immediately previous models and quite possibly back a little further. 5 years, though, is a long time and many generations of product. They will end up providing more backward compatability than Apple itself. The pritner vendors can not know Apple's (or Microsoft's) 5 year road map but you expect them to support it?
You don't have to upgrade your OS (unless your mac fails and you have to buy a new one, but then who is creating the onus of upgrade then - Apple) to continue doing what you're doing right now. If you choose to upgrade, then you may need to upgrade other components.
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Just got off the phone with tech support at Epson. The drivers for the Epson 3880 will work in Lion. The EPSON LFP Remote Panel will not work and currently there are no plans to update that software so that it works in Lion. It may be updated if there are enough support calls but the functionality of that software can also be found on the top panel of the printer according to Epson tech support. Hope that helps folks who use the 3880 and are thinking of moving to Lion at some point.
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Now let me ask something. Why would you expect a printer vendor to provide an update, for free, for a previously unannounced/unavailable/unknown operating system for a model that is more than 2 generations old when the OS vendor won't even provide spare parts or hardware compatability for their upgraded OS with their older hardware? You expect Epson, Canon and HP to support the older hardware on the newer OS, but not Apple?
I would answer your questions in two ways. First, the printer vendors you mention have been at this for a long time and know / plan for period updates driven by operating system changes. Planning for this would likely have been taken into account in the initial product costing model. Second, I do expect Apple to behave in the same manner, and I'm disappointed with some of what I've read in this thread.
Just got off the phone with tech support at Epson. The drivers for the Epson 3880 will work in Lion. The EPSON LFP Remote Panel will not work and currently there are no plans to update that software so that it works in Lion. It may be updated if there are enough support calls but the functionality of that software can also be found on the top panel of the printer according to Epson tech support. Hope that helps folks who use the 3880 and are thinking of moving to Lion at some point.
That's good to know, and encouraging. I have a 3800 that has been cascaded from doing general colour work to doing dedicated b/w printing. My old 2200 is still working fine as a b/w test bed under Snow Leopard, and it would boggle my mind if I were to find out that my 3800 was not supported under Lion.
Terry.
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Farmer,
I would expect both the printer vendor and the computer vendor to realize that I am its customer, that I have spent a good amount of my monehy to purchase their products, and that it is not unreasonable to expect to be able to use them for more than a year or two. I would expect them to work together to ensure that reasonably current products are supported (0-5 years old), and more if possible.
If they don't want to provide new drivers then I would expect them to give the specs to some 3rd party operation that would be willing to write the drivers. i would pay the 3rd party for the drivers. But, I would also be very disspointed that the manufacturer chose to not provide the support.
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Yes, I have been raising in various threads for years now the dismal state of cooperation and coordination in this industry. One can go back and forth blaming Apple or blaming Epson or blaming Adobe, but it all boils down to a major state of disconnect affecting the performance of the whole industry. I don't know whether there is a solution to it, but the ways things (don't) work as well as they should now, customers are being under-served in serious ways and somehow it should be cleaned-up. The technical and commercial aspects of it are difficult, but that makes it all the more a useful challenge.
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Farmer,
I would expect both the printer vendor and the computer vendor to realize that I am its customer, that I have spent a good amount of my monehy to purchase their products, and that it is not unreasonable to expect to be able to use them for more than a year or two. I would expect them to work together to ensure that reasonably current products are supported (0-5 years old), and more if possible.
If they don't want to provide new drivers then I would expect them to give the specs to some 3rd party operation that would be willing to write the drivers. i would pay the 3rd party for the drivers. But, I would also be very disspointed that the manufacturer chose to not provide the support.
If you want your computer investment to last a long time, you should consider this when choosing your platform.
If you always upgrade your computers at every opportunity, and always upgrade to the latest and greatest, than either Mac or Windows will work.
Perhaps you have some software that you use rarely, and don't need the latest version. Perhaps you have a very expensive printer and want it to last five or ten years. If you fall into this category, you should research the policies and track histories of the platform before investing.
With Apple, there are no published policies. Apple has been issuing security updates for both the current and one previous version of the OS. They have made no commitment to continue this. Apple has no published policy on how long software or hardware will be supported, and has been known to discontinue technology without any advance official notice. Apple also has a history of aggressively eliminating outdated technology and embracing new technology. New Macs won't run older OS versions. When you replace a Mac, you may be forced to upgrade a large percentage of your software.
For many people, Apple's behavior is a good fit. Others find that they need to update hardware and software far more frequently than they like.
The Windows platform has a different history. Modern computers can run old operating systems, and new operating systems can run old software. If you want to run old software, the Windows platform is more likely to allow this.
Again, for some this is a disadvantage, and for some it's an advantage.
Of course, this isn't the only difference between the two platforms. Any rational decision should take the other factors into account as well.
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To be honest, Mark, you don't see this issue on Windows. I think it's a little obvious, therefore, to draw some conclusions about where the problem lies...
That said, it's not a problem for a lot of users, so it shouldn't be blown up to be more than it is, but for those for whom it is an issue, they are not Windows users.
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Yes, I have been raising in various threads for years now the dismal state of cooperation and coordination in this industry. One can go back and forth blaming Apple or blaming Epson or blaming Adobe, but it all boils down to a major state of disconnect affecting the performance of the whole industry. I don't know whether there is a solution to it, but the ways things (don't) work as well as they should now, customers are being under-served in serious ways and somehow it should be cleaned-up. The technical and commercial aspects of it are difficult, but that makes it all the more a useful challenge.
Mark, we photographers with our special needs are a drop in the bucket (maybe more like a single grain of sand on the beach) in terms of ultimate market size. Apple does have Aperture as it's photo processing software and may also believe that most of its Mac users just want to do snapshots or at most letter size prints. This can be accomplished by small multi-purpose printers using glossy dye based inkjet printers (that are cheap and can be replaced as necessary if the OS requires it). Niche markets are always a difficult place to operate particularly when one party is dependent on another to insure things work. The behemoths may not care much for cooperation particularly if it diverts resources for a minimal financial gain. Too bad really.
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About 50% of the graphics arts market including photography is on Apple computer systems and the total number of people world-wide is not small. I don't know what fraction of it needs to know or care about colour management, but I'll bet a very high proportion want and expect consistent colour from their displays to their printers. I agree that much of the grief can be laid at the door of Apple Computer Inc., but all that does is add emphasis in their direction to the general point I was making.
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About 50% of the graphics arts market including photography is on Apple computer systems and the total number of people world-wide is not small. I don't know what fraction of it needs to know or care about colour management, but I'll bet a very high proportion want and expect consistent colour from their displays to their printers. I agree that much of the grief can be laid at the door of Apple Computer Inc., but all that does is add emphasis in their direction to the general point I was making.
I know that a lot of design people use Photoshop and other Adobe tools for non-photographic purposes and maybe they are in corporate environments where these incremental costs are more easily handled than by a sole practitioner photographer. I don't have a good feeling about how the Mac sales break down regarding the different sectors. I know the Apple store near me is always crowded whenever I am in the neighborhood but this is mostly a student/individual crowd.
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I asume that some of you would have already read this regarding Adobe products and issues with 10.7 (Lion)
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/905/cpsid_90508.html#main_Photoshop
The below appears about a third to half way doen the page:
"Rosetta support no longer included with Lion
CS2 or earlier versions of Adobe products required Rosetta to run on newer Intel based mac systems. These older versions will no longer be supported as Apple removed Rosetta support with the 10.7 release."
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Don't see it mentioned in this thread (apologies if I'm duplicating), but found this today on Epson UK site
http://www.epson.co.uk/Printers-and-All-In-Ones/Large-Format/Epson-Stylus-Pro-3800/Drivers-Support;jsessionid=A4D69ACE74BB3A97600B71250DF931AC.acc3-new?target=article&extn=.html&articleId=4894
Scroll down to near bottom for Large Format printer stuff : it says new drivers for these will come mid-August. I think I can wait til then for Lion - it's always fun to watch the stramash as the early adopters test stuff out (my favourite was the "PSCS3 killed my car" thread on Adobe Forums)
BTW, anyone here know if PKS2 is Lion-proof?
Cheers
Jim
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Mark, we photographers with our special needs are a drop in the bucket (maybe more like a single grain of sand on the beach) in terms of ultimate market size.
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According to Apple's latest financials, the Mac platform itself is only a small portion of Apple's revenue. Total Mac sales are growing at about 14% per year but
iPhone and iPad revenues growing at rates of over %140 each year. Every year the Mac is becoming a smaller and smaller portion of Apple's revenue.
It's not that photographers are a drop in the bucket in terms of market size, it's that the entire Mac line is a drop in the bucket compared to the millions of consumers who buy iPhones, iPads, iPods, etc.
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According to Apple's latest financials, the Mac platform itself is only a small portion of Apple's revenue. Total Mac sales are growing at about 14% per year but
iPhone and iPad revenues growing at rates of over %140 each year. Every year the Mac is becoming a smaller and smaller portion of Apple's revenue.
It's not that photographers are a drop in the bucket in terms of market size, it's that the entire Mac line is a drop in the bucket compared to the millions of consumers who buy iPhones, iPads, iPods, etc.
Quite right, though iPod sales are taking a big hit right now since smart-phones (and I include Androids) can do everything the iPod does. I suspect the iPod will go the way of a lot of other hardware advances over the next several years (e.g. disappear from the marketplace in the same way the Walkman and Discman did). As has been discussed to death on several other threads, Apple's strategy is linking all of their devices through the OS. In the long run the company is going to have to really increase earnings on the content side since the hardware side will approach the saturation point (though I'm unsure about when that will happen and Apple really doesn't break these earnings out in their quarterly reports). You can already see growth starting to slow with iPhone sales and that's a far more competitive marketplace than tablets right now. I suspect they will retain an advantage in the tablet space for at least another year. Big question is what is the "next great thing" to come from Apple, other than cloud service (which will be more difficult to compete in with everyone else gearing up in a way that is OS independent; if Apple tries to lock down their cloud service via the OS, this could give rise to antitrust action which would turn out to be very nasty given the financial strength of the opponents). Interesting company indeed.
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While it does not speak to print driver compatibility, here is a table that reports Lion compatibility for a lot of color management apps:
http://www.colorwiki.com/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Lion_Color_Management_Migration_Tool
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Thanks for putting that together even if its a sad read.