OS X Lion and Localization

[efreet]

Since I have found such news: here
I wonder what are the plans of Lasersoft to make the software compatibile with Lion os x. Is there any roadmap?

At first I want to say that I am a long user of your software. Silverfast is what I use on a daily basis in my work scanning lots of pictures. However I have one issue with Silverfast on os x snow leopard at the moment. I am unable to luanch the application on a system that is set to other language than supported by your software. I understand that there are languages, which you do not support and it is resonable, but it is pointless to make your app not working at all in a system that is polish for instance. It would be convienient to make your app working in english in case where user has unsupported language. It is something that should be fixed very quickly.

regards

[LSI_Morales]

Dear efreet

Since I have found such news: here
I wonder what are the plans of Lasersoft to make the software compatibile with Lion os x. Is there any roadmap?

We are aware of the future release of OS X Lion for Mac.
It is a pre-release version of the operating system with no support for Rossetta applications, this was also the case with the pre-release version of Snow Leopard, however they made work with such applications possible in the final release of the OS.
The point is, it is still too early to tell which features and functionalities will or will not work with the future OS.

Not only big financial muscle companies like apple or adobe have been working on different things. We have been doing work of our own as well, LaserSoft Imaging will bring some great news this year.

Sorry, no roadmaps or further information here. PLEASE DO NOT INSIST ON THIS ONE, THIS SUBJECT IS NOT OPEN TO DISCUSSION.

I have one issue with Silverfast on os x snow leopard at the moment. I am unable to luanch the application on a system that is set to other language than supported by your software. I understand that there are languages, which you do not support and it is resonable, but it is pointless to make your app not working at all in a system that is polish for instance. It would be convienient to make your app working in english in case where user has unsupported language. It is something that should be fixed very quickly.

We are aware of this one too. Some things related to this issue are out of our hands by now, probably future versions of the software might handle languages better.

Cheers

[Offline]

I've heard rumors that Silverfast 6.x won't run on the new OS as support for PowerPC has been dropped.

Can you discuss your upgrade timetable?

[LSI_Morales]

Hi there,

As you can see, someone already posted the same question last week and it was already answered.

Cheers

[Dick W]

That was a pretty non-specific answer. If it had said "Lion will be supported, one way or the other, within X months after its release" or something similar, I might not be posting.

I'm getting ready to spend $600 on Silverfast product but am wondering if Lion will be supported and if I'm spending money this week on a product that will have a costly upgrade "this year". This will be the most expensive piece of software I've ever purchased. The thought that I'd be spending all that money buying software designed to run on PowerPC Macs that haven't shipped in almost five years is a little depressing.

You probably can't post a real answer, but I thought I'd give you a potential customer's reaction to what has been posted.

[LSI_Morales]

Dear Dick,

I wish I could give you a more detailed information. But at this point I would be lying to you.

Such cases as new operating systems release with deep changes are much more complex than: "will you or will you not support this...."
There are many things to be considered which can not be foreseen or predicted.

Just to mention:
If the scanner manufacturer does not release a compatible driver, then we can not tell you, it will work.

Like the previous example, there are many, many things which arise (and are discovered) only after the operating system has been released and intensively tested mostly by customers.

And that is one of the reason why the answer is not specific (and can not be).

I can understand your excitement and expectations but given the facts, it is not possible to tell exactly what will happen with every scanner model, program version, etc.

We appreciate your understanding.

Kind regards

[Dick W]

I build software intensive systems for a living, so I certainly understand the issues you face.

But: Lion is not an entirely unknown quantity at this point. Developers--I'd like to think Lasersoft included--have close-to-final code. And even that is beyond the point. The need to migrate away from PowerPC support on the Mac is not a newsflash nor is Lion the first opportunity to do so. In fact, Snow Leopard is appearing like the last chance to have not done so. If you wanted to, you could release code today--Snow Leopard code--that didn't need Rosetta and had a very high likelihood of running on Lion without any explicit new support from you to do so. Apparently the likelihood your existing 6.6 code will work on Lion is near zero.

Luckily (well, not really) my scanner is a Nikon and they long since abandoned even the slightest pretense of software support for their products, this scanner included. This, plus your Kodachrome support, is why I'm at your forum not theirs, why I'm targetting the Mac for this app and not Windows, and why I'm about to spend more than half as much for your software as the scanner cost in the first place.

Thanks for the reply. Enough said.

[LSI_Morales]

Dear Dick,

Thanks for your contribution.

For the sake of clarity I must say. Yes, we will support OS X Lion.
Mac users are a big portion of our customers, they are as important as windows users for LaserSoft Imaging.

So, yeah, there will be support for the next Mac operating system and hopefully many more after that one!

Specific details as to when, why, how, can not yet be answered.

As I mentioned in my first answer

We have not been sleeping on our laurels. The entire LaserSoft Imaging team is (and have been) working very hard to bring you great things on 2011 and the years to come. More details can not be provided at this time.

Thanks for your understanding, again!

Cheers

[Guntis]

Few days ago I purchased brand new MacBook Pro 17" with Core i7 2.2GHz ("Sandy Bridge") CPU. So I decided not to use Time Machine, but make fresh install for all apps. I installed Canon CanoScan 8800F scanner driver, then installed SilverFast 6.6.r4 Ai Studio IT8. When I tried to launch it, launched launched, but when when I clicked on the application launcher button, app crashed with the error message. It looks like the second launcher is PowerPC application, not universal, as I was asked to install Rosetta. It downloaded automatically from the Apple web site. But when Mac OS X "Lion" will come out this summer it won't support Rosetta anymore, so you have to rewrite your app quickly to ensure your customers are not left with non-working application…

[LSI_Morales]

Dear Guntis,

Please read the previous posts

[tgphoto]

Hi,

I just read on the Silverfast blog you've announced support for the upcoming MacOS X 10.7 Lion operating system.

As a long-time user still running older hardware, what does this announcement mean for, or, does it have any affect on, PowerPC-based Mac users?

Thanks!

Tim

[LSI_Morales]

Hi Tim,

I can not provide you a very definitive answer.

In theory Lion will not work on power PC Macs (in fact snow leopard does not work on power pc). It means you will have to keep working with the product generation you are having right now.
Future product generations will be developed for newer platforms, I am guessing, if you want to use a future product generation, you will have to use it on newer equipment (but that is my guess, not an official opinion from LaserSoft Imaging).

Cheers

[tgphoto]

In theory Lion will not work on power PC Macs (in fact snow leopard does not work on power pc). It means you will have to keep working with the product generation you are having right now.
Future product generations will be developed for newer platforms, I am guessing, if you want to use a future product generation, you will have to use it on newer equipment (but that is my guess, not an official opinion from LaserSoft Imaging).

I'm not asking about Lion support on PPC Mac systems; I am asking about future Silverfast support on PPC Mac systems. The version I am running now, 6.6.2r2a, runs fine on PPC Macs. I am inquiring about future versions of SIlverfast, not MacOS. I understand some developers are dropping support for PPC Macs with the release of Lion (many did this for Snow Leopard). What is Silverfast/Lasersoft Imaging"s position?

As I understand it, Silverfast relies on driver support from the manufacturer (in my case, Epson), not the OS.

So, my question is, do you plan to continue supporting PPC Macs or is the plan to drop PPC support from Silverfast with the release of Lion?

Thanks!

Tim

[LSI_Morales]

Dear Tim,

I will quote myself again:

It means you will have to keep working with the product generation you are having right now.
Future product generations will be developed for newer platforms, I am guessing, if you want to use a future product generation, you will have to use it on newer equipment (but that is my guess, not an official opinion from LaserSoft Imaging).

Probably the SilverFast product generation you are using will keep working with your equipment after the new OS release. If a new SilverFast product generation has to be developed for the new operating system (as well as newer technology) we can not guarantee backwards compatibility. But at this point is only speculation, the operating system in question is not even out yet.

Besides, LaserSoft Imaging does not have any official statement about this concrete issue. Anything I write at this point is nothing but speculation based on previous similar experiences.

Kind regards

[Offline]

As a former manufacturer of corporate software that ran on multiple platforms, I can share our perspective at the time.

Internal resources are scarce and expensive -- that's always been true. We decided we could support the current major release and the prior major release and still develop the next major release.

Support means bug fixing and possible minor enhancements we were able to add because the relevant code was isolated (frankly - a rare event).

It does require that the users update their OS and hardware probably more frequently than they would like; however we were only keeping up with the OS manufacturers of Windows, OS X, Linux and etc.

At this point, it's unreasonable to expect LaserSoft to expend resources on a platform that was abandoned years ago by Apple, with a forced end-of-life with the release of Lion.

Looking at some of the specs, the early Intel buyers should also be considering upgrading their hardware within the next 12 - 18 months, as support may be dropped for the early processors. The average life of a PC is about 3 years.