Apple OS X Lion bites Adobe apps

Adobe has published a long list of known issues affecting many of its most popular applications when running Apple's newly released OS X Lion platform, potentially reigniting the long-running feud between the two firms.

OS X 10.7 Lion, which was officially released on 20 July, adds many new features but also introduces changes that seem to have had an especially severe impact on Adobe's applications (see Known Issues with Adobe products on Mac OS 10.7 Lion).

Two changes in particular seem to have caused the most problems: the dropping of Rosetta, and Apple's decision not to install the Java runtime environment with OS X Lion by default.

Rosetta was a compatibility layer to enable applications designed for older Power-based Macs to continue to run following Apple's switch to Intel chips in 2006.

Adobe said that Creative Suite 2 or earlier versions of Adobe products require Rosetta, and will not function on OS X Lion.

Meanwhile, the lack of Java support as standard means that users need to manually install this, otherwise applications may behave inconsistently, Adobe has warned.

"Since current Adobe installers and applications were built before these changes by Apple, our software anticipates that Java is installed," Adobe's online notes state.

Adobe users are advised to check the box to include Java when installing OS X Lion, or to ensure that it has been installed before running their applications.

Other problems include issues with Flash Player, which may cause higher CPU activity when playing video content.

This was initially ascribed to Apple's disabling of hardware acceleration support for Flash in OS X Lion, but Adobe has now found that it provides the same support for Flash hardware video acceleration as OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.

"We continue to work closely with Apple to provide Flash Player users with a high quality experience on Mac computers," Adobe states.

These developments are puzzling because of the historically close relationship between Apple and Adobe, the latter providing many of the applications that have driven adoption of the Mac among the creative professional community.

However, the companies have had a less than rosy relationship in recent years, having been involved in a very public spat over Adobe's Flash player for multimedia content, which Apple has refused to allow onto its iPhone or iPad devices.