I haven’t downloaded it or tried it yet, but Adobe yesterday released a free public beta of their new Soundbooth audio application. According to this Macworld article, “Soundbooth will target the same professional market as Apple’s SoundTrack Pro.”
“I think they are probably going after the same market, ” Hart Shafer, senior product manager for Adobe Audio products, told Macworld. “However, I think one of the key differences is that SoundTrack Pro is built for audio people — we think that we have a more focused product for the creative professional market.”
As a Mac user, I’m concerned that Adobe is stepping away from support for the PowerPC chip. Most new Mac software is “Universal” — it will run on both Intel- and PowerPC-based Macs. The multimedia software company said back in February (PDF) that “Adobe has plans to support both Intel and PowerPC microprocessors in the next versions of its creative applications for the Mac OS.” However, it looks like new products may be Intel-only. In their Soundbooth FAQ, Adobe answers the question “Will there be a PowerPC version?” this way:
No. Apple is quickly moving its focus towards Intel Macs, and no longer sells Power PC systems in many places. By focusing on Apple’s future, we have been able to bring this powerful application to the Mac platform much more rapidly, and with a stronger feature set.