This has been quiet too long...
I am very disappointed to see that nearly 7 weeks after this was publicised ( and it was known about for months prior that! ) that the manufacturers have still not addressed this problem. My faith in printing from my Mac is basically zero right now, I simply don't trust it. Before you start, yes I know I *could* print from it, but my confidence that it's all actually working correctly is destroyed. To think I upgraded to my 7880 specifically to take advantage of the 16 bit drivers on the Mac, and now my only reliable option is to use Windows and it's 8 bit printing paths. I've a 7880 here which has never been used, I do not use Epson papers, I use 3rd party papers, which means I have to profile them, and yet I cannot do so reliably, not without "workarounds" which I do not consider to be a proper solution.
Epson - I've supported for many years, had great faith in their products which I've recommended to others without reservation, but they've literally left their customers hung out to dry here. They sell you a Pro printer, which you would use for business, and then cut you off with no drivers or drivers which don't work properly. Not only the problems for printers officially supporting Snow Leopard, but the printers ( including Pro models ) they've disinherited. I've seen many posts from people with printers for which Epson have said they're just not going to release Snow Leopard compatible drivers for, e.g. Pro 4000. If anyone asked me right now for a recommendation, I honestly think I would suggest they avoid Epson.
Apple - As secretive as ever, will acknowledge nothing, totally non-committal and won't help you for fear of admitting something. The user here who received some help from Apple Support to try to fix this had to sign a non-disclosure agreement before they would help! I never thought I'd say it, but Apple is now Microsoft in all but name. My opinion of Snow Leopard printing is currently "it's broken" anyone asking me will be given a recommendation to print from something else.
Adobe - The most responsive of the three, but other than pointing out it's "not their fault" seem to have done little to get this resolved ( Eric Chan's personal efforts notwithstanding ). I still think there's more than meets the eye here, but at least they have publicly acknowledged something.
Am I whinging and moaning? Sure I am, but I think it's justified, to me this is utterly unprofessional and the epitome of poor customer support, clearly from the posts I've seen I'm not the only one who feels slightly aggrieved at this situation. Do I expect these companies to drop everything they're doing an devote all their attention to me? Of course not, but this isn't just me is it? These are current products, which they're still selling, which do not work as they are supposed to. When will somebody do something to fix this?
