Security Update 2012-001 caused a kerfuffle when it was first released, as it caused chaos for those still using old PowerPC applications. The print and open/save dialogs of programs that run via Rosetta were the main victims.

A couple of days later, Apple pushed out Security Update 2012-001 version 1.1, which fixed the problem for those who had applied the original patches, and avoided them for the rest. I hadn't been as quick as usual to apply the update, but in any case I don't think there are any PowerPC applications left among the programs I use regularly.

But where I just wrote that version 1.1 "fixed the problem", that was an overstatement. The updated updater merely rolls back to the previous version of the ImageIO framework, leaving users open to some of the security vulnerabilities that Security Update 2012-001 was supposed to address.

The question is whether Apple's testing of the update was deficient by design or by oversight. It's hard to see that such basic operations would be missing from a test suite, so it's easy to jump to the conclusion that PowerPC applications are (hopefully that's now 'were') omitted deliberately.

And that brings us to motivation. One way of looking at it is to give Apple the benefit of the doubt and imagine that the powers that be simply assumed that nobody running Snow Leopard is still running PowerPC-only apps. If that's the case, they don't have anyone monitoring the right web sites for them. To give just one example, there have been extensive discussions over at MacInTouch about possible replacements for Quicken 2007 that will work under (Intel-only) Lion. It starts here and goes on for many pages.

Another is to regard it as a wake-up call from Apple: "Hey, you're still running those old applications? Get with the program, buddy, even if you're not ready to make the leap to Lion."

What's your take?