64-bit CS4 Not for Macs. Users to Wait for CS5

It has come to our attention that Adobe's Creative Suite 4 for Mac is going to launch as a 32-bit suite, not a 64-bit suite, like the one Windows users are getting at launch, but as a 32-bit app bundle. If you're so upset that you just need to blame someone for this (and fast), blame Apple for dropping Carbon 64-bit support.

"At the WWDC show last June, however, Adobe & other developers learned that Apple had decided to stop their Carbon 64 efforts. This means that 64-bit Mac apps need to be written to use Cocoa (as Lightroom is) instead of Carbon. This means that we'll need to rewrite large parts of Photoshop and its plug-ins (potentially affecting over a million lines of code) to move it from Carbon to Cocoa," Adobe's John Nack wrote on his blog ... We have to rewrite from scratch," he explains. "This makes the cost of the move considerably greater than for Windows. So we will ship 64-bit Windows version first."

So, Mac OS X users will only see a 32-bit version of Adobe's suite with the release of CS4, which is quite sad, since those who have invested in powerful Macs and depend on the suite will probably have to run it on Windows, through Boot Camp. Actually it's not just sad, but downright heartbreaking.

Nevertheless, Nack assures that a 64-bit Mac version will be available with the release of CS5, as the same blog post reveals: "We will get there, but not in CS4. (Our goal is to ship a 64-bit Mac version with Photoshop CS5, but we'll be better able to assess that goal as we get farther along in the development process.)"

Nack also tries to calm spirits down stating that "rewriting one's app in Cocoa doesn't somehow automatically improve its speed, usability, or feature set."

Lightroom, one of Adobe's Creative Suite 4 apps for Mac, is the only one in the bunch written in Cocoa.