It’s been a while since Apple introduced the first Mac model with an Intel CPU. Many Mac software titles have since been updated accordingly so that they can be used on both PPC and Intel-based Mac machines.
Some of the greatest forgotten Mac software titles for Universal Binaries were those of Adobe’s products. But Adobe Systems updated their Mac software titles for Universal Binaries several months ago when they introduced CS3 products. Are there more major Mac software titles that haven’t updated for Intel Macs?
Ahh, yeah… Microsoft Office products including MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint and MS Entourage aren’t updated yet. Microsoft’s Mac Business Unit announced at the beginning of August that the next version of Microsoft Office wouldn’t be available till January, 2008. Fortunately, Office products are not CPU-intensive and can be used under Rosetta. Another major product of Microsoft that will never be updated for Universal Binaries is Virtual PC.
Symantec has been a big supporter of Mac OS for quite a while. Its anti-virus software Norton AntiVirus or NAV for Mac has been around for at least 13 to 14 years. But NAV for Mac hasn’t had a major update for several years. That’s a shame. The current version is 10.1.2. Its anti-virus definition is constantly updated, though.
There are some other Mac software titles from Symantec that haven’t been updated for Universal Binaries. One is Norton Personal Firewall. Another one is Norton SystemWorks. Demand for utility software as a whole seems to have decreased as the Mac OS is quite stable compared with OS 9 and lower. So we don’t know if Norton SystemWorks will ever be updated for Universal Binaries.
We reviewed NTI’s Dragon Burn a few weeks ago. We like this Mac program, but it hasn’t been updated since June, 2005. When we contacted them, the developer wrote
“We are currently working on the next version, 4.1 has been a really stable build of the program, that’s why we haven’t been updating it as much.”
So we know that Dragon Burn is likely to be updated for Universal Binaries in the near future.
Another non-Universal major title is EI Technology Group’s Amorphium.
We have never used it because the current version doesn’t even run under OS 10.4 Tiger.
Not all Adobe products have been updated for Intel Macs. Former Macromedia’s Director was once popular. But this authoring tool hasn’t been updated for a long time.