Universal Adobe CS3

While Adobe was on stage with Steve Jobs and Apple last year, this year they were notably absent. Speculation is that it has to do with Apple’s release of Aperture, something Adobe has moved to counter by posting the Lighthouse beta online and asking for feedback.

More important to me is the fact that Adobe is saying nothing about when they’re going to be releasing Universal Binaries for their current line of professional applications. I believe we will not see Universal Binaries until Adobe releases its next version of its Creative Suite. I am naming that CS3, and I don’t have a clue whether that’s what Adobe is really doing.

I’d be happy if they would release CS2 packages with Universal Binaries. Indeed, even though I just coughed up approximately $150 each for upgrades to two of my CS applications to CS2, I’d do it again to get CS2 with Universal Binaries. I have a narrow reason for saying that. I’m trying to learn CS2 versions fully and don’t want to have to start over with CS3 or buy CS3 books. I’d really like to lock my Adobe software at CS2 versions and use them until they won’t do what I need and a newer version will. But, for Adobe, releasing CS2 versions makes little business sense. Developers that could be working on CS3 would be pulled off to work on a CS2 version that has already been released and marketed and probably bought. Better to put those resources to work on CS3. That moves customers to the newer package and helps standardize development for a while.

My bet is that we’re a year away from seeing Adobe applications released with Universal Binaries. I hope I’m wrong. While my finances would like the time to recover, that also means I’m at least a year away from buying a MacIntel, and perhaps even two.