OSX

x-rite do the right thing for potential OSX Lion users

It looks like x-rite have decided to include support for their older hardware (such as the i1 display 2) in i1profiler software (specifically i1Basic) which is designed to run on  OSX 10.7 (Lion).

They have done this after an outcry from users and suppliers who have rightly pointed out to them that not supporting their recent hardware is not the behaviour of a company that cares about its users.

So all very positive, though according the the table in the following link there will be a “nominal” fee if you bought your i1 display 2 before 2011, lets hope they drop the fee and just do the right thing.

http://www.xrite.com/custom_page.aspx?PageID=264

September is still some way off so don’t update to Lion till they release this, – a calibrated screen is far more important than sliding icons and App store jiggery pokery.

Stephen

i1 display 2 support under Lion

There wont be any.

Well that’s the short version. Since i1match software relies on the software transition layer called “Rosetta” to run on Intel Macs and “Rosetta” is dropped from OSX 10.7 (Lion) it is not possible to directly run the program on a machine running Lion without some very faffy workarounds.
The new i1Publish software does not support the older hardware but it does (surprise) support the new Xrite monitor calibrators they have just released.
Since there really is no compelling imaging reason to upgrade to Lion then I strongly advise that you don’t, you will save money and be able to easily calibrate your screen for a colour correct workflow.
However! at some point an upgrade will become important (newly released software/patches etc) that need Lion or one of its successors; I will therefore be testing out the new screen calibrators in the near future and report back.
In the meantime you can read some detail here from Rob Griffith with a very kind offer if you bought your i1 display 2 from them recently:
Xrite are not kind, they could easily have supported the older hardware on the new i1 software if they wanted to, its the kind of rough behaviour that comes from dominating the market by buying your biggest competitor (Gretag Mackbeth)….

Apple have condescended to update their tired Mac Pros

No USB3 support, a bit so so, but at least they now have some current standard processors:

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/07/27macpro.html

Its been a long long time since Apple thought of Creative professionals as an important market, guess making billions of dollars from the general public can turn your head like that.

Bitter? not at all 🙂 – just to confirm that in the Mac/PC wars I take the side of a disinterested party, they are both a pain!

Purchasing a Mac Pro workstation?

You may want to hold back a while as a refresh is long overdue and there are rumblings that something new in this line could be launched at the WWDC conference June 7- 11.

The current quad core Mac Pros are getting a little long in the tooth and the rumored new 6 core processors would improve Photoshop performance…

http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#Mac_Pro

Photoshop 9.0.1 Mac bug update

Looks like the printing problem when using Photoshop 9.0.1 on OSX is not down to poor programming at Adobe but is due instead to a failure at some level of Apples operating system. Apple have released a patch that solves this (and quite a few other problems) here:

Apple Patch

Operating systems are complex things.