After years of waiting, Shockwave Player plugin finally goes Universal

Seems like I've always had two copies of Safari on my Intel iMac at home — one vanilla, and one with the "Open using Rosetta" checkbox flagged. Why would I need to keep a legacy browser on hand? Well, when you have young children, the Shockwave-based games at nickjr.com and other kid sites depend on the Adobe plugin for animation and interactivity, and there wasn't any Intel version. "Be patient," I told myself, as the plodding launches of the Safari Rosetta copy drove me and my kids nuts. "Adobe's going to release the Universal Binary soon. Surely, by the end of 2006, they'll do it."

Now, a full two years since the introduction of the original Intel Macs, we finally have the last big-ticket plugin recompiled and rewritten as Shockwave Player 11, all ready for the no-longer-new machines. Phew. I don't know about you all, but I've got a copy of Safari that's just begging to be thrown in the trash. Note that Adobe's Shockwave badge on the front page still redirects to a "how to run Shockwave on Intel Macs" instruction sheet. Go straight to the download and skip the static.

Thanks Andrew & Alan