Universal Binary - Universal Applications

Universal Applications

Many software developers have provided universal binary updates for their products since the 2005 WWDC. As of December 2008, Apple's website now lists more than 7,500 Universal applications.

On April 16, 2007, Adobe announced the release of Adobe Creative Suite 3, the first version of the application suite in a Universal Binary format.

As of March 2008, many applications for Mac OS X have been ported to Universal binary, including QuarkXPress, Apple's own Final Cut Studio, Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office 2008, and Shockwave Player beginning with version 11. Non-Universal programs will run on Intel Macs running Mac OS X 10.4, 10.5, and 10.6 (in most cases), but with non-optimal performance, since they must be translated on-the-fly by Rosetta. Non-Universal PowerPC programs will not run on Mac OS X 10.7 Lion and later as Rosetta is no longer part of the OS.