It sounds as if this comes as a surprise. Assuming you are a follower of Apple you should know Apple has always supported hardware and software on a "sliding scale". The new Mac you buy today will be obsolete and not supported in June 2018. This allows Apple to move their product forward adding new features and functionalities without dragging a too huge tail of old out of date code along. This is one of the reasons Apple can consistently turn a new released of OS X in 18 months while it takes Microsoft 3 to 5 years. It also helps keeps the OS X footprint at a reasonable size and in general contributes to a system that is cleaner, faster, and more efficient. I am only plagerizing a little when I add, "I pass over the fact this contributes to Apple's ability to sell OS X 10.7 for $29.99"
Rosetta was provided in Leopard to allow developers time to rewrite and optimize their code to run on the Intel platform. Rosetta is an optional install in Snow Leopard to ease users pain in updating and modernizing their software. AFIK Apple has not made any secret of their plans to do away with Rosetta and just as support for the PPC was dropped in Snow Leopard, the time has come to drop that support for the applications as well.
If, in fact, there is PPC code embedded in Adobe CS5 applications, that has to be Adobe's problem. Apple has given them plenty of notice of their intentions and if the PPC code is there it is because Adobe chose to leave it there. As far as Adobe's offerings go there are credible alternatives to many of their products in the App Store at a fraction of the cost.
As to what is to happen to all the applications that require PPC code, I can offer some suggestions:
- Choose not to uprade to Lion or to purchase a new Mac becauese it will have to run Lion
- Lean on the developer to get on the stick and upgrade the app to 21st centgury technology
- Replace the app with a newer app from the App Store -- there are literally thousands of them there. For me the hard part is deciding which one to choose and generally at very reasonable prices
