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Adobe Universal Binaries... in 2007
bo peterberg writes "According to a pdf on Adobe's website, they remain committed to supporting Intel-based Macs. However, Intel-based Macs will not be supported until the next upgrade of all creative products. The current version will not be re-released."
So much for LightTable destroying Aperture!
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
... Quark Inc. has announced the will create a universal binary of their flagship product QuarkXpress sometime before in 2070.
Meaning, of course, you only get to move your already-bought licenses for photoshop to the new macs if you buy all new software. Lovely.
This is kind of a deal breaker for me, as I make my living using Photoshop to a VERY large degree. Using it with Rosetta may be "passable"...it's just not going to cut it in the long run. I was hoping that Adobe would have an upgrade for existing customers, but I guess not.
Though they may change their minds, who knows. So much for upgrading this year. I suppose this will work out better in the end, as the Intel Macs will get a chance to mature a little more.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
How many companies are going to use the Intel transition to force paid upgrades? I can see some companies offering a 'special deal', pay $X for the universal binary edition, so it'll actually run on your new computer. Sort of a variation on the DVD re-release double-dip, except with a gun to the (figurative) head. (and no, I know they don't force you to buy their software, but if you're a graphics artist in a Mac only shop, your IT department will have to buy you Photoshop for Intel Mac, whenever your machine gets upgraded).
Looks like windfall time for Mac software vendors.
Stasis is death. Embrace change.
The first IntelMacs use 32 bit CPUs, but Intel will release 64 bit version of the CPU later this year. Will these first IntelMacs be obsoleted? OS X for the Intel CPUs will obviously go to 64 bit --- need it for the PowerMacs as their power users won't want to lower memory capacity. Maybe Adobe and other third party software vendors see this situation and prefer to just wait and do only 64 bit Intel native binaries?
There are no real surprises here. This is very similar to how they transitioned Photoshop and Illustrator to Mac OS X several years ago. My main hopes are that CS3 is not living half in two worlds like they did with Illustrator 10 and Photoshop 7.
On the bright side, if Adobe keeps up the status quo on Creative Suite 3 then we will see all of the Apps that ship in Creative Suite, ship together. Acrobat 5 was horrible on Mac OS X, the Acrobat application ran natively in OS X, but the distiller ran in Classic and suffered severe performance penalties as a result. Hopefully all of the apps tranistioning around the same time will leave a better taste in their customers mouths.
I am glad to see them attempting to show off their xCode developemtn prowess by delivering the LightRoom beta earlier than their other software packages.
We better get used to this!
I think most major applications will end up not going universal until their next major revisions. Office and Adobe are already announcing it, and I bet you there are lots more to follow with this news.
Mozilla/Firefox: TargetAlert.
CSS3 compliant browser: a[href$=".pdf"]:after {content: "[PDF]"; font-size:smaller} in your user style sheet. Modify as needed for other types of "annoying" links.
Constitutionally Correct
Quit whining and install one of the plugins that labels non-HTML links for you.
Or uninstall the Acrobat plug-in from your browser, so the browser will ask you whether you want to open the PDF, download it, or cancel.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Better yet, maybe someone could make a browser plugin that automatically adds these warnings based on the file extension within the link.
Unknown host pong.
Adobe isn't updating until 2007, we can probably assume the same for the Macromedia apps. Native Instruments (Reaktor, Absynth, Kontakt) is going to be rolling out products starting at the end of Q2 2006 to Q1 2007. Cycling '74 (Max/MSP, pluggo, Jitter) is estimating "the end of 2006" but they haven't even come close to meeting a deadline in many years, so that'll probably be mid-2007. Steinberg (Cubase) has said they'll update "sometime" in 2006.
So... exactly who is the market for the new Intel products? The swarms of iPod owners that own Apple products for reasons of fashion more than functionality? It seems like none of the apps that high-end Apple users actually use aren't going to be out for quite some time.
But they sorta had to release the Intel products so soon, though didn't they? All the hardcore Apple guys I knew said they wouldn't be buying any new stuff until the transition to Intel. Oh well...
sig.
What Would Macromedia Have Done?
You really have to wonder whether they would've decided to update their apps sooner. Though given that Intel Macs for developers have been available for at least 6 months, maybe they weren't far enough along on the transition at the time of the merger.
So they're covering up their move to Java? :)
Did the beginning of the article:
"According to a pdf on Adobe's website..."
not give it away? I thought it was quite obvious. But I guess complaining is easier than reading.
"We need a fourth law of Robotics: Stop Fingering My Wife"
SOMEBODY CALL 9-11!
It's basic web accessibility: any link that goes to something other than another web page -- an email, a video clip, an archive... or a PDF -- should be labeled or should at least be obvious from the text of the link itself. Remeber, Acrobat Reader takes time to load.
I don't know about you, but when I look at the status bar to see what the link is (and I've gotten to the point where I rarely click on a link without doing that, just in case), I can usually tell if the file is a PDF. Those are the ones that have '.pdf' at the end of 'em.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Except the Apple Pro applications (Final Cut, DVD Studio, Motion, Logic, Shake, Soundtrack etc. They are going to be released as Universal in Feb / March
Ummm from the first line of TFS: "According to a pdf on Adobe's website, t..."
I am pro-lifechoice.
Maybe the editor's a Mac user and forgot about Acrobat? (The one definite benefit of using Safari or other Webkit based browsers - native PDF)>
'Capitalists of the world, unite! Oh
Photoshop is too high-demand of an application for that to really be an option. Heck, even in the Stevenote Jobs specifically said that Rosetta would run Photoshop "good enough for people like me who only use Photoshop once in awhile, but not good enough for professionals who use it every day".
This is the EXACT same bullshit they pulled when OS 9 went to OS X, sept worse, since there really isnt nearly as much to translate between the packages. Honestly it almost seems Adobe does this to screw with Apple, since they know no production houses (Apples bread and butter) will go over to the new systems unless they update these programs and even they it will take a while.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
So... exactly who is the market for the new Intel products? The swarms of iPod owners that own Apple products for reasons of fashion more than functionality? It seems like none of the apps that high-end Apple users actually use aren't going to be out for quite some time.
You seem to be extrapolating Adobe products as being the only things anyone uses.
Other people have mentioned the other Pro apps that will be universal in March. But one app that will help a specific group of professional users is Aperture.
Photographers will be able to mainly use Aperture for simple edits and then use Photoshop more occasionally than they do today, making Photoshops sluggish non-native performance acceptable for light use - especially on the new MacBook Pro. Photographers really demand fast laptops and will start using them without Photoshop if they can do most things they need to do with other apps.
It's funny, but when you posted "they have shot themselves in the foot" I thought you were talking about Adobe for letting competitors of all shapes and sizes have a year to gain marketshare over Adobe! Photoshop is far from being unthroned but do they really want people to find out they don't need Photoshop as much as they think they do? Or let Bridge fall out of the mindshare of users who use other Universal apps (like iView Media Pro) for a whole year to manage applications instead? Seems like a really bad strategic plan to me. Lightroom is the only app to be released soon as a Universal Binary, but that is still really an Alpha version as it is a LONG way from being a complete applciation.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I think that is a major error. Due to the late switch from QuarkXPress to Mac OSX, lots of customers migrated to InDesign. They are easily convinced to switch back.
Is it "about time" Apple transitioned to Intel... in mid 2005 at WWDC?
or will 2007 be "about time" when we'll see some Adobe products written to take advantage of the computers YOU SNARKLY demanded from Jobs with your little jab at him at WWDC last year?
I was ready to understand the difficulty in the undertaking - but you guys were first to Mac OS X, and now, you're going to be stupid late to Intel, despite your grumblings that Apple wasn't there all along... and i was even ready to forget that we saw Wolfram have their shit togther in short order...
or is this some play to get Mac users to run Codeweaver's stuff to run your stuff - saving you from having to make Mac OS X versions of things? Or some other random conspiracy.
Don't be snotty AND late... be one or the other.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
I scanned through the document, and the only thing they said was the it'll be in the next major release, and that they typically do releases every 18-24 months. So, if CS2 came out in April or May of 2005, the next version could be out anytime between this November and next May.
Of course, that's only their "typical" release schedule. If there are other factors in play (like, for example, new Pro Macs being released), they might very well do an atypical release schedule for CS3.
I've been considering the upgrade to the new Intel Macs since they were released. I've been paying special attention to the software/hardware issues, particularly for the line you happened to mention (Macromedia/Adobe, Native Instruments, Cubase, Reason, etc.) because, naturally, I'd like to have the Universal Binary versions. At first, I also thought that the release was premature, but I think they may have coincided the release with the tax season, ie. refund time. When my refund comes in, I intend to put it toward a new Mac mostly because it's the only time I'm really going to have that kind of cash (I don't purchase things on credit, especially computers.) It might be pre-mature to buy one, and I've considered this possibility, but it's certainly not a bad time to bring it to market.
As for reasons, yes, I can admit part of the motivation behind the purchase is "fashion." I want to work in a more "public" space, and I feel that presentation is part of the marketing plan for my intended use, but I also wanted something not Windows, and something that performs very well in the music production/graphic production arena. My past experience with Macs has proven that it does both very well. My point is that the market for these new Macs aren't just the fanboi's (Lawrd knows they'll buy anything Mac puts out.)
Hades, PoD: Official Advocate
I have an iPod because it's a very good mp3 player for audio books. First Apple product I've bought since the Apple //e, and I didn't buy it because it was fashionable. I'm planning to buy a Mac now because I appreciate the design (technical, not looks) of the iPod and also like what I see in Macs.
;)
The iPod was the first Apple purchase for a lot of people because it is good, not because it is fashionable. The iPod is also a "gateway product" for many of us. More Apple sales is good for you, too, right? Better than Apple without an iPod line and struggling?
Yes, I might get a Mac with an Intel chip because I don't have a library of software to consider and expect to use the stuff that comes with it. Don't you benefit from me using an Intel based Mac for my puttering about before you have to depend on it? I might find a few firmware or OS bugs for you. Maybe first time buyers are the ideal people to market the Intel based Macs to, that might be why the iMac is being replaced before the G5.
Show some respect for iPod owners who are now buying Macs. Maybe we aren't fashion bimbos. Maybe we've even used Apple products longer than you have? Or do you remember "CALL -151", "F666G", and "6 Control-P"?
Plus, Apple has a low-end publishing competition: Pages.
--T
you had me at #!
So... exactly who is the market for the new Intel products? ...It seems like none of the apps that high-end Apple users actually use aren't going to be out for quite some time.
You mean somebody still believes the hype that Apple users are mostly graphic artists these days? I know a lot of people including a few who are artists that use macs. Most mac users I know, however, are programmers and scientists. Another large number are non-power users who basically use the Web, e-mail, and some word processing. More people I know are concerned about Mathematica or their personal favorite terminal application running nicely than photoshop. I'm sure there are a lot of graphics people who are pissed about the delay, but I doubt they are a significant number to affect the sales results. I've seen this exact same thing happen several times on the Mac platform and developers never learn. A major niche application developer announces they won't be supporting new hardware for a year or more. Two years later they actually get a version out the door and find half their customers have moved on to a more nimble competitor's application and they just aren't all that interested in switching back. Adobe just announced, "hey anyone who can throw together something nice that actually uses all the built in CoreImage technology that already does half what our product does is free to muscle in and steal our customers." Brilliant!
This isn't too surprising. Don't forget that they outright dropped FrameMaker for Mac.
This was after they claimed that the market for it had shrunk. This was after they had released a non OS X native version about a year after the release of OS X. How many Mac users do you think were waiting for the OS X native version to upgrade?
I think the only chance of us seeing a true OS X version of FrameMaker is if some other company out there comes out with something that's actually competitive with it...
Good time to buy a Quad processor PowerMac G5!!!
- Apple has ALWAYS made it clear their move to Intel would be in stages.
- Apple has ALWAYS said it would be done from their lower-end products to their upper-end.
- The iMac is Apple's entry-level product.
- Therefore the iMac being iNtelicized first is in line with Apple's announced plans.
- With the iMac being Apple's entry-level consumer product it doesn't have a large professional user base.
- Therefore professionals, who have large investments in hardware and software, are unlikely to be affected by the Intel transition until it reaches the products they use: The Professional-level Macs like the G5 line.
- So Adobe not shipping Universal Binary products for their professional level until the professional grade hardware is ready is surprising to who?
Seriously, if you're appalled that Adobe et al aren't shipping Universal Binaries right away only means you haven't been paying attention. If you really are a professional photographer or someone who honestly depends on these type products you'd have to have been comatose the past year not to be well aware of all of this.Instead what I hear are a buncha wannebe-geeks who went out 'n bought the newest and shiniest and are now whining because they chose to ignore what anyone with half a clue woulda and most likely did tell 'em. You shelled out over a grand for a new product and couldn't be bothered to find out if the software you want to run on it actually would anytime soon.
Get the hell off /., I'm sure there's some support chat group out there for you on AOL somewhere. Try keyword "12:00-Flasher"
Frankly I just hope there is someone out there clubbing you monkeys over the head with instructions on how to use a contraceptive.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Just what do you think Apple is doing?
By going Intel they almost guarantee that a lot of their users will feel compelled to upgrade. While in the laptop range the upgrade issue can almost be moot, those with desktops may feel less pressure now but companies may end up forcing the issue on them by not having non-universal editions in the future.
This change does Apple very well, at the expense of many of their users. Hopefully they will be able garner new users as well. If it were easier to run *nix/Windows I bet the sales would be much higher.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I work on plugins for Adobe's applications occasionally, and let me say that the [apparent] "maybe in 2007" statement from Adobe is not a big surprise to me. The applications in their creative suite and plugin software development kits rely on CodeWarrior, which is [effectively] a dead product. AFAIK, it could never support development of universal binaries, and I would speculate that they have known this for a while.
Adobe's plugin Software Development Kits (SDKs) are based on C++ object models, which will mean that plugins and their host applications will need to be built with the same tools for everything to work. To move on, I think Adobe is going to have to move all their products and SDKs to XCode (gcc), and though I do not work for Adobe, I would wager that it will be a fairly tough job. IMO, Q2 or Q3 2007 seems a fairly realistic goal.
The problems the Intel transition will pose for both Adobe and the third-party plugin developers will be daunting. Quark and its associates have similar troubles, but I have personally seen some decent progress on the Quark side, though I think NDA prevents me from saying anything specific. Though I have seen little progress from Adobe as yet, I am confident they will deliver.
Adobe has a lot of work ahead of them, so I would encourage users of Adobe's creative apps to be patient, and realize how much work Adobe has ahead of them and that it involves more than just moving the applications to Intel. SDKs often offer as many if not more challenges than their host applications. I will part with a criticism: Everybody has known that CodeWarrior is dead for a long time. I think Adobe should have started putting more resources into jumping ship right when the writing went on the wall. Now we are all going to have to wait a while because Adobe was so shiftless about getting off the dead branch.
Photoshop CS2 is a 32-bit application.
AFAIK, Adobe never got beyond carbonization... (when Photoship 'thinks,' you still see the wristwatch (when launched, for example, you'll see the wristwatch unless you mouse over the photoshop launch window). I suppose a carbonized app is technically a native application on G3, G4, &G5 PowerPC's, but it was supposed to be a temporary solution for developers. We were expecting them to completely re-write their application (like Quark did). But they didn't. Bums.
I think this could be the opportunity for a Photoshop killer to arise. Photoshop, while I do not deny its power to do whatever I may need to do to an image, is getting long in the tooth. Yes, still a valid contender (obviously), but at this late version, hasn't anyone else noticed that it could use a re-design of its interface (which I think is almost clumsy now)? When I got CS2, the first thing I noticed, and applauded, was a key combo for "Image Size...". I've wanted that since v4!!! WTF took them so long?
The Admin and the Engineer
> 2. Apple has ALWAYS said it would be done from their lower-end products to their upper-end.
Where was this?
Don't mod this post, mod its child informative.
AC's modded -6. I don't see you, I don't mod you, anything you say is lost. Don't like it? Don't be a coward.
Or just hover over the link with your mouse and see the URL in your status bar. You DID learn from the pre [domain] label days not to click on goatse links, didn't you?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Does Adobe allow you to migrate your Photoshop license from Windows to Mac?
We apologize for the inconvenience.
I've used test builds of MacGIMP working on MacOSX for Intel. Works perfectly. If there was ever a time to eat Adobe's lunch with an open source alternative, this is it.
http://tinyurl.com/4ny52
That's not quite what happened...
Premiere was not discontinued for Mac until well after Final Cut's launch. Apple basically stole the entire market from them. When sales fell through the floor, Adobe discontinued the Mac version of Premiere, and also announced that basically all of their software should be run on PCs for best results, a historical first. This was essentially the beginnings of the major Apple/Adobe rivalry. (They were really pissed about iPhoto as well.)
It doesn't get mentioned a lot around here, but Premiere was hardly the only Apple casualty in that space; they have virtually eaten the nonlinear editing space in a very short span of time. Remember Avid? They are still around but not nearly the force they once were, a name pretty much synonymous with high end / cinema nonlinear editing. Media 100 also. Final Cut is a juggernaut, a totally killer app. And Apple has Final Cut Express to compete with as well. And then they picked up Shake and RAYZ and a few others to eat a piece of what SGI used to totally dominate.
The really funny part is, Final Cut started its life (as I know the story) at Adobe, as a radical new verison of Premiere after v4. Premiere 4 was super popular, but people who know it and used it will all tell you that v5 sucked big time. The reason for this is, the Premiere team had this great new interface but Adobe didn't want to deviate so radically from the old Premiere look and feel. In frustration a large number of them quit and went over to Macromedia, who started developing their own editing app called Final Cut. It evolved for a bit there, but Macromedia got cold feet and had a sort of had a truce with Adobe at the time, so they sold the unreleased codebase... to Apple.
(This is hearsay I received from a high mucketymuck at Adobe who was bombed on Bailey's at the time, so take as you will.)
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Steve will ask paraphrasing Chizen's words (WWDC 2005)
The only question I have for you Bruce is what took you so long?
If they rebuild it, people will repurchase it.
Well, i'm buying one for one.
Why?
Because it's a computer i can use at home for "home use" type stuff without worrying about dealing with the shit you have to deal with running windows.
Plus, it's just plain nice to sit on a desk by itself - has everything I want in a single monitor-sized box...
Also, it has a complete development environment, I like the fact that it's objective C based, and *this is the big one* ... the intel switch will make porting games trivial compared to the work involved porting from Intel to PPC...
Also, it will make apple's life in deploying higher-speed chipsets (as intel develop them) a walk in the park...
I'm seriously expecting the Mac games market to really ramp up in the next couple of years.
If it doesn't, no big deal, i'm switching anyway... but I really reckon a lot of the bigger barriers have been lifted...
smash.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Excellent. I just read that someone's brother's coworker's cousin's friend of a friend of an Anonymous Coward posting on Slashdot has *** CONFIRMED *** this new Mac. I'm phoning Drudge.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Crap. Max is being talked about in the same breath as Reaktor and Kontakt and Macromedia. I need to switch to something more advanced. This is embarrassing.
Adobe is relatively cold to the Mac Community for some reason or an other. They seem much more willing to bend over for Microsoft then for Apple. Photoshop 7 was released after about a year or so after OS X 10.1. While the company it self supports Apple mac, I think many of the developers were Windows Programmers who were pushed to to the Mac Unit and are not happy about it, so they really drag their feet to get development done, for OS X.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Let's pretend Adobe dropped everything to focus on a transition to Universal binaries right after WWDC last year. Realistically, it would be another 12-18 months from now before a release is ready. This would coincide with when Jobs told developers professional Macs would ship.
But that isn't how it happens. Developers will continue with the development cycle they have committed to, and tackle the next challenge in the next development cycle. Development on this scale is like steering an oil tanker. The fact that they're saying 2007 at all is a miracle.
iMacs and laptops are not Adobe's core professional market. Professionals who rely on Adobe's products will continue to do what they have always done, use what works reliably and upgrade when it makes sense to do so. In other words, have some patience until the tools you rely on are ready, then upgrade your hardware.
Ah, Steve said it's true, it must be so.
Except...it's not true. Rosetta on a dual-core iMac G5 runs core "pro" apps just fine, and as fast as a dual-core G5 2ghz. Oops:
"The big question at this point is how well third-party applications will run on the new machines, particularly pro-level applications. I had a chance to spend some time on one of the new 2.0 GHz versions of the Intel-based iMac in Apple's booth on the show floor this morning. While it was far from fully loaded with third-party software, it did have Adobe Photoshop CS2 running on it. Several quick tests showed that the software, running in emulation via Apple's Rosetta technology, performed adequately in processor-intensive tasks. For example, resizing a 4,000 x 4,000-pixel image to 16,000 x 16,000 took fewer than 10 seconds to complete, and resizing back down to 4,000 x 4,000 took fewer than five seconds. Various filters performed pretty much the way they perform on dual G5 CPUs. On a 4,000 x 4,000 image, Filter Gallery filters operated without any lag, as did various blur and render filters (Lighting Effects , Fibers and the like). We will, of course, perform much more extensive tests when we have the new hardware in our own hands. But the limited Photoshop tests showed that, at least for 2D graphics, the Intel-based iMacs seem to be a match for pro-level PowerPC hardware, even when the test software is running in emulation mode."
Please help metamoderate.
Let's pretend Adobe dropped everything to focus on a transition to Universal binaries right after WWDC last year.
Let's pretend that somewhere in Adobe's management structure there exists a decision maker who is capable of rational thought. Even without the Intel switch, Codewarrior has been a lame duck since 1997. That's when Apple first tried to switch to the NeXT codebase and relegate the classic Mac OS API to "Blue Box". Carbon was explicitly a transition API, at first, and Adobe seems to have decided that Apple's subsequent use of Carbon internally meant that Codewarrior was safe. Carbon no longer means OS 9, and Carbon support shouldn't be assumed to mean support for an OS 9 compatible execution environment... whether that's via Classic or just via a compatible binary format. And that's the only reason for sticking with Codewarrior.
Adobe should have had a Project Builder transition strategy underway for at least 5 years now.
Logic is universal now.
the intel switch will make porting games trivial compared to the work involved porting from Intel to PPC
Bull. Shit.
The vast majority of work in porting any app, game or not, comes from having to use different system APIs to get the same things done. Yeah, some games have a little hand-optimized assembly, but I still contend that's a much smaller piece of the job than moving from the Windows Way to the Mac Way. Anything written in C or a higher level language will require zero porting related to CPU architecture as long as you handled your endianness in a transparent manner from the start.
THANKS
Nah.. If there were no Apple, Microsoft would be copying Sun. (shudder)
:-D
Hilarious!
(But if Microsoft was copying CDE, Windows would still end up looking like OS X...)
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
I ordered mine for the OS and the graphics card. I'm a video game developer. It's a good setup.
Oh, wee. Apple's own apps are supported. Well, that's 50% of the "high end" software manufacturers that support the Mac.
I too have felt the cold finger of injustice.
On Windows and X11 I typically keep a notepad window open, and use it for all non-english text-entry. The fact that you don't need to do this with Cocoa and many Carbon apps (Carbon apps, particularly the ones based on ports from UNIX or Windows, don't always seem to hook in to OS X as well as Cocoa) is great.
But...
You should be able to copy and paste from TextEdit into the GIMP no matter what the character set. This isn't a real solution, but it's a workaround that should be acceptable for an application where text input is (or should be) a relatively rare operation.
At WWDC 2005 (June 2005) both Adobe and Microsoft pledged support for the new Intel-based Macs. However, in the discussions that followed the initial announcment, both companies warned users not to look for native apps from them until 2007. This is because both Adobe and Microsoft use CodeWarrior, and CodeWarrior cannot compile Mac OS X for Intel apps.
If you remember the initial Mac-Intel announcement, Steve Jobs pointed out that if developers are using Xcode (Apple development tools) then all they will have to do to make Intel apps is upgrade to v2.1.0 of Xcode and check "Intel" in addition to "PowerPC" before they compile their app. However, if a developer is using CodeWarrior (the "other" Mac development environment) then they first have to move their whole app to Xcode, and then when that is finished they can check "Intel". It is a much longer process.
If you have a v2.0.0 PowerPC app from a vendor that uses Xcode, then it may be a very simple matter for them to ship a v2.0.1 with Intel support. It may be easy to make a patch that just places the additional executable file in the application's bundle. However, if you have a v2.0.0 PowerPC app from a vendor that uses CodeWarrior, you are going to have to wait for v3.0.0 and that is all there is to it. They are not going to move their v2.0.0 codebase into Xcode and ship v2 again just to please a handful of Mac OS X Intel users who want native software NOW instead of a year from now. For CodeWarrior-based developers Intel support is major-version work.