That's a bit harsh . Bridge has its place in the Adobe family but frankly speeking CS5 looks more like a patch to CS4 than a complete new version .
Been expecting more from CS5 , all the fuss around the making of the tacky new icons and splash design should've been revelatory - lot of effort in cosmetics , little ground work . Been using CS5 for a month , my opinion is that people with CS4 shouldn't bother to upgrade

RUBAIYAT -To begin with, Bridge is not a Finder replacement. That said, it can do a great deal more than the Finder, with many more ways to organize and display your data, including search and customization options well beyond the power of the Finder. To judge from your remarks you just haven't bothered to learn how to use it effectively. This says more about you than it does about Adobe or Bridge.

EGGSHELL - CS5 is a huge suite of applications. When you say you've been using it, you don't indicate which apps have disappointed you, rather offering blanket condemnation of everything. Admittedly the upgrade is uneven, with some apps getting more attention than others, but that is normal in the course of things - some apps need more attention. I suspect your experience is limited and suggest you be more specific in your criticism. Otherwise it's meaningless and misleading.

Among the biggest improvements across the entire suite is 64 bit capability in both the Windows and Mac versions. In addition, CS5 is, on the Mac, entirely OS X and Intel native, meaning all legacy code has been stripped out. These changes go beyond mere feature additions and enhancements to offer significant improvements in performance. Of course you will need OS X 10.6.x to take full advantage of these changes. A complete rebuild of the application code base is not merely cosmetic but, being "under the hood" is not immediately obvious to the uninformed user.

I'm not an uncritical fan of Adobe. But I believe they should be evaluated on the specifics of their programs. Broad brush criticism is intrinsically useless.

B. JEFFERSON LE BLANC I learn and use an enormous amount of software. Some of that is far more rewarding and better designed than others. I may be able to quite amazingly difficult and tedious work in the wrong applications but believe that is silly and a huge time waster.

I rate Bridge a low level cludge. I can sort, comment, group and preview Adobe's files far more easily and CLEARLY, without constantly resorting to buried documentation in Finder/Coverflow than I can in Bridge.

Even its general layout and appearance just gets in your way. Adobe may fiddle with it all it wants but it just gets a C- from me.

I'm with B. Jefferson here. It seems you are not using Bridge in the manner for which it is intended. I often turn to Bridge to do and find out things the Finder cannot do efficiently. If I need to view 8 images together and rate and keyword them, can't do it in Finder; you can do the viewing part but not the rating and keyword part. If I want to select 6 images and make a Photoshop panorama from them, the Tools menu in Bridge puts you straight into the Photoshop Photomerge dialog in one step while any other way requires additional steps. If I want to browse the IPTC and EXIF metadata, or filter the view on them, Bridge is easier and more comprehensive than Finder or Preview. If you want to examine magnified details of multiple images to compare sharpness and don't have Bridge, you'd need to buy Aperture to do that in an Apple product because the Finder will not do it.

After many years of using the Finder I am aware of more of its features than many Mac users I talk to, so it's not because I don't know how to use that. But knowing that, I can see where Bridge goes well beyond what the Finder can do, because Finder is general purpose and Bridge is more of a workflow optimizer.

Maybe you are talking about an old version of Bridge. Those were pretty bad, and often worth avoiding. But the CS4 and CS5 versions are much improved. Maybe you should really sit down and take a second look.

You have made several valid points. And maybe I have sucked on this sour lemon one time too many.

Metadata can be handled in Finder with the aid of several 3rd party tools. Rating can be done similarly.

Bridge CS4 has got me too many times I guess, and I do find it tedious, ugly and slow. If I seem to be concentrating more on my tools than my work, there is something wrong.

Jefferson : My comment matches perfectly the context of MU - I , unlike you assume that the majority of the people here are well informed and know what they are talking about . That's why I don't go into details , they would be specific only to my experience on my specific system . On the other hand what you do instead of sharing Your personal experience ( which is the point of MU , mind you ) is recycling the largely popular CS5 features - I even doubt you really used CS5 .
It's really tyresome to see the same old omissions and interface inconsistencies ( Ps,Br) that should've been resolved several version ago . Finally what is important is not if it's cocoa or carbon, 64 or 32 bit but how it runs on your particular system , your overall experience

EGGSHELL - Again with the bootless generalizations. Your off-hand dismissal of the code improvements in CS5 suggests you are not as knowledgeable as you appear to think you are. The move to OS X native code (Cocoa) throughout will improve performance even in OS X 10.5; 64 bit operation will provide even more of a boost in Snow Leopard. These are not trivial matters, however "popular" they may be.

In regard to how well informed MU readers are, if we were all equally well informed there would be no need for these user reviews and comments, would there? The actual purpose of these forums is, I believe, to share information, precisely because no group of users, however large or small, is ever equally well informed.

As for your own experience, it's relevant because that's what you actually know. What you've heard others say is second-hand information at best. For instance, what are the "old omissions and interface inconsistencies" that bug you so much? It might be useful for us to know; assuming as you do that we already know what you don't like is just intellectual laziness on your part.

You are right, though, that I have not tried any of the CS5 apps - because I cannot yet afford them and messing with trial versions will just muck up my workflow as well as create potential problems when I do upgrade (as CS4 trial versions did for some people when they were not completely uninstalled). Which is exactly why I'd like to know what in particular you don't like (and do like for that matter) about CS5 so that I might have a better idea of what to look out for and look forward to. And that's why I find your blanket criticism useless. There's no information in it.

I don't doubt there are, in fact, what some people consider to be, as you say, old omissions and interface inconsistencies in CS5. But exactly the same criticism has been leveled at every upgrade of Adobe's apps as far back as I can remember (Photoshop 2.5), which is why I've gone to the trouble of calling you out on it. It's old news. If I knew exactly what you find objectionable I might agree or I might not, but at least I would have something concrete to go on. As it is you've had the pleasure of publicly venting your spleen but have not offered us anything constructive or helpful. If you can take the time to put me down, try a little harder and tell me something I can use instead.

@Jefferson > Dude , I don't mind you having an opinion . I do mind when someone comes here doing plain copy/paste of the latest features and specifics and considers that an opinion . You don't say anything that I already know . Go try the apps and then come back . Otherwise it's completely useless .

As for the details , go check the Adobe forums , I share my pain over there . I don't consider MU the place to go down and dirty as the developpers won't never bother to check here

Simple solution: don't download them.

very funny, but if i don't download them, how am i supposed to know if a difference is made?

Something might be up with your system. It widely reported that the 1.02 update significantly sped up startup, and I experienced that improvement myself, with a timer.

I totally agree with you, Adobe needs to learn that they need to make sure they release their updates at the same exact time, whether its a direct download from their site, or through the Adobe updater.