Adobe to Launch Full Version of Photoshop for iPad, Expected in 2019

[Krevnik]

I wouldn't have thought that features are OS-dependent. What I got from it is that it will be a 1:1 feature set probably with a UI that is tweaked to suit a stylus interaction method.

Plugins won’t make it to iOS for sure. That’s a feature that enables lots of other features.

But one issue is the sheer number of things Photoshop can do means that accessing them via touch can be iffy. A tweaked UI wouldn’t be enough, it’d have to be rethought to offer 1:1 parity (if we ignore things like plugins which cannot reach parity), and I doubt Adobe will go that far.

 

[jonnyb098]

Affinity scared them into this probably : )

Yep, thats exactly what happened. Adobe came out with all these "baby apps" to try and reach a general audience (which Adobe products have never been for anyway). Then comes affinity with a photo, vector, and soon to be desktop publishing app and adobe finally realized they should have done this almost 3 years ago. Imagine how the iPad would have flew off shelfs in 2015 with the introduction of the 12.9 inch pro if they showed off FULL PHOTOSHOP running on it. Huge missed opportunity and now they're playing catchup.

But as a creative pro, I'm really excited to see if they pull this off properly. One thing I use regularly is batch processing of actions on photos so Id be very impressed if they could manage this on an iPad. But Im not so sure how some of the higher end pro features/automation will work. Maybe integrate with the workflow features of iOS 12??

 

[bluecoast]

You may well be right, but I really hope you’re wrong. Unless Marzipan becomes device-aware (right now it’s only size aware afaik) then I don’t think it’s the answer for complex apps that cross iOS and macOS. The UI for touch apps and mouse apps is and should be quite different. What I’m hoping to see is, like Microsoft with Office, an ARM port forcing a radical cleanup of the code base. That would really help the native versions on all platforms.

Either way, that sound you hear is the sound of healthy competition. Go, Affinity!

Competition is always good!

I’d imagine that marzipan is going to be loads better than what we’ve seen so far.

I think the apps on Mojave are an early ‘stage 1’ ie ‘can we get modal window iPad apps onto the Mac with basic mouse and menu support?’

Stage 2 you’d imagine is going to be more conplex first party apps (I can’t guess what right now) perhaps unveiled as developer previews in March.

Stage 3 will be the public frameworks with (you’d imagine) all shared iPad / macOS utility apps, apps like messages, FaceTime, contacts & mail (and probably safari too) plus Music, books, GarageBand (though given that many are using it for electronic music maybe a name change is in order), iMovie (just ‘movies’ by then), pages, sheets and keynote.

Plus I’m sure demos from various games companies, slack etc MS and yes... adobe!

 

[Manatee]

Full Photoshop without mouse/trackpad control? For some things, poking the screen just doesn’t cut it.

 

[Nanotyrns]

Maybe they scared them into lower pricing too? No? Worth a shot.

They'll almost certainly tie them to Creative Cloud and continue with their "All or One" terrible bundle options and what about Illustrator? I think they believe that their core clientele are tethered to a desktop/laptop and not interested in tablet options but as they watch Affinity Designer's user base explode over the next year and it's feature set grow they'll have no choice but to start offering something for iPad.

 

[bluecoast]

Plugins won’t make it to iOS for sure. That’s a feature that enables lots of other features.

But one issue is the sheer number of things Photoshop can do means that accessing them via touch can be iffy. A tweaked UI wouldn’t be enough, it’d have to be rethought to offer 1:1 parity (if we ignore things like plugins which cannot reach parity), and I doubt Adobe will go that far.

Complete speculation here, but what if app plugins (via the App Store) are going to be one of the killer features of iOS 13?

Apple are already moving safari extensions to the App Store.

What if marzipan is going to feature the ability to run plugins on the iPad Pro and the Mac (via the App Store)?

 

[Feenician]

Competition is always good!

I’d imagine that marzipan is going to be loads better than what we’ve seen so far.

I think the apps on Mojave are an early ‘stage 1’ ie ‘can we get modal window iPad apps onto the Mac with basic mouse and menu support?’

Stage 2 you’d imagine is going to be more conplex first party apps (I can’t guess what right now) perhaps unveiled as developer previews in March.

Stage 3 will be the public frameworks with (you’d imagine) all shared iPad / macOS utility apps, apps like messages, FaceTime, contacts & mail (and probably safari too) plus Music, books, GarageBand (though given that many are using it for electronic music maybe a name change is in order), iMovie (just ‘movies’ by then), pages, sheets and keynote.

Plus I’m sure demos from various games companies, slack etc MS and yes... adobe!

Yep, if Marzipan is the plan going forward - and I definitely see massive upsides to that too, as well as the potential downsides I mentioned - then I hope we’re just in the “here’s a way to make iOS apps run as-is” phase. Next up, “here’s how to make apps that scale and adapt for the platform they’re running on”.

Full Photoshop without mouse/trackpad control? For some things, poking the screen just doesn’t cut it.

What things couldn’t you “poke” with the pencil?

 

[bobenhaus]

Maybe they scared them into lower pricing too? No? Worth a shot.

Yeah noticed how Apple is starting to come out with lower price products? Clearly Apple is starting to be affected by similar and cheaper products.

 

[KazKam]

This thing may be called Photoshop, but there's no way it could even come close to the productivity tool desktop PS is. Maybe fine for sketch artists and digital painters, but for complicated/precise/batch workflows, no way this thing will be anywhere near as capable.

I'm talking about things like managing PS files with hundreds of layers, and batch scripting and exporting using custom JS. This thing will be a watered-down joke that will only let you save to the cloud like most iPad apps. When will Apple realize many can't take the iPad seriously for productivity until it has an accessible file system.

I can't think of a single PS workflow I currently do that could be achieved with any level of efficiency on an iPad, and I'm in PS at least 10 hours/week.

 

[guzhogi]

This should be interesting. I'm more into Affinity & Pixelmator at the moment, though. I also like using Duet Display on my iPad Pro & rMBP, and use my iPad as a drawing tablet. The desktop versions still have some features I can't find in the iOS version. I admit, I'm still a novice amateur, so maybe I just haven't discovered it yet.

 

[MBAir2010]

Alternatives yes, but not viable like-for-like replacements.

for me, i use an app on the iPad 4 times as much as photoshop on the MBA/MINI.
if i could export CYMX images and have more storage, piece of mind, backups, the iPad alone can perform all my tasks!
and i use just the iPad gen 5, no pencil!
the ipad scans a drawn pencil sketch, imports into a n app, i letter, draw colorize and export the image via air drop (no iCloud) to the mini and a copy of the PSD goes to the macbook air.

oh, im typing this on a macbook air

 

[jjudson]

This makes me VERY happy. Was thinking about getting a new Wacom Intuos, but I’ll wait now.
[doublepost=1531494011][/doublepost]

This thing may be called Photoshop, but there's no way it could even come close to the productivity tool desktop PS is. Maybe fine for sketch artists and digital painters, but for complicated/precise/batch workflows, no way this thing will be anywhere near as capable.

I'm talking about things like managing PS files with hundreds of layers, and batch scripting and exporting using custom JS. This thing will be a watered-down joke that will only let you save to the cloud like most iPad apps. When will Apple realize many can't take the iPad seriously for productivity until it has an accessible file system.

I can't think of a single PS workflow I currently do that could be achieved with any level of efficiency on an iPad, and I'm in PS at least 10 hours/week.

Maybe not for graphic artists, but for photographers like myself, it’ll be great.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

Plugins won’t make it to iOS for sure. That’s a feature that enables lots of other features.

But one issue is the sheer number of things Photoshop can do means that accessing them via touch can be iffy. A tweaked UI wouldn’t be enough, it’d have to be rethought to offer 1:1 parity (if we ignore things like plugins which cannot reach parity), and I doubt Adobe will go that far.

You sure about that? I think Affinity has them a trifle scared. Affinity Publisher is the final nail in their coffin.

 

[jjudson]

Full Photoshop without mouse/trackpad control? For some things, poking the screen just doesn’t cut it.

Apple Pencil will work just fine for photography touch ups. I use a Wacom tablet now almost exclusively without a mouse. This could be great for people like me — especially on a new gen iPad Pro.

 

[Rvsymmot]

This thing may be called Photoshop, but there's no way it could even come close to the productivity tool desktop PS is. Maybe fine for sketch artists and digital painters, but for complicated/precise/batch workflows, no way this thing will be anywhere near as capable.

I'm talking about things like managing PS files with hundreds of layers, and batch scripting and exporting using custom JS. This thing will be a watered-down joke that will only let you save to the cloud like most iPad apps. When will Apple realize many can't take the iPad seriously for productivity until it has an accessible file system.

I can't think of a single PS workflow I currently do that could be achieved with any level of efficiency on an iPad, and I'm in PS at least 10 hours/week.

So.......you’re not in the target market.
[doublepost=1531494617][/doublepost]I have a CC subscription but Adobe is hardly a brand I feel any connection too. Would love to get rid of those and switch to these Affinity apps, but there doesn’t seem to be anything close to InDesign. Does any one have any recommendations?

 

[eltoslightfoot]

So.......you’re not in the target market.
[doublepost=1531494617][/doublepost]I have a CC subscription but Adobe is hardly a brand I feel any connection too. Would love to get rid of those and switch to these Affinity apps, but there doesn’t seem to be anything close to InDesign. Does any one have any recommendations?

Not yet, but https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/pu...teid=54264&IsoCode=US&culture=en&&MC=WBGSER02

 

[BrettArchibald]

Adobe already offers a range of companion apps for Photoshop on iPhone and iPad, including Photoshop Fix for basic retouching, Photoshop Express for basic photo editing and creating collages, Photoshop Sketch for drawing and painting, and Photoshop Mix for creating multilayered images.

This is the problem! I've always hated Adobe's current approach to "Photoshop" on iOS. Four different Photoshop apps?!
Whenever I wanted to work on an image, I'd think "OK, let's launch Photoshop. But wait, hang on... which one?!"
I never know which one to tap on, and invariably always open the wrong one.
So I switched apps and now I don't use ANY of the Photoshop apps on iOS.

 

[e-coli]

Sounds great... but I’m not subscribing to software.

You can pry CS6 from my cold dead hands.

Never understood this as it applies to Adobe software. The workflow and performance improvements since CS6 have been vast and numerous. If you use these products professionally, it’s literally costing more money in time wasted by not upgrading. Not to mention the downstream inefficiencies that causes when sharing files (to wit, you’re pissing off your partners and vendors)

 

[mgauss7]

Better a decade late than never.

Maybe they can simplify it. Or provide menu options such as "reduce age by 10 years, 20 years..." "reduce wrinkles and age spots..." and so on

 

[KazKam]

Never understood this as it applies to Adobe software. The workflow and performance improvements since CS6 have been vast and numerous. If you use these products professionally, it’s literally costing more money in time wasted by not upgrading. Not to mention the downstream inefficiencies that causes when sharing files (to wit, you’re pissing off your partners and vendors)

I disagree. I'm still running CS6 at home and I use the latest CC at work. Adobe has added very little of tangible value to the app since CS6 (or even before that). A few clever things, a few impressive edge-case features, but definitely nothing essential by any means. The only things that are essential in their newest versions are related to platform/OS integrations and efficiencies. But as far as new features/capabilities... meh.

 

[Krevnik]

Complete speculation here, but what if app plugins (via the App Store) are going to be one of the killer features of iOS 13?

Apple are already moving safari extensions to the App Store.

What if marzipan is going to feature the ability to run plugins on the iPad Pro and the Mac (via the App Store)?

There’s a world of difference between plugins to Apple-level services like WebKit, and allowing third party apps to run arbitrary code. And to top it off, both Adobe and those plugins would need to adopt whatever mechanism Apple will use, which by its nature will be proprietary to iOS (and maybe Mac).

Marzipan is more about UIKit on Mac than anything else, this doesn’t really fall under the purview of Marzipan in the first place. The limitation is in sand boxing and App Store guidelines, really. You can technically load plugins already on iOS, from a developer standpoint, they just have to be in your bundle to begin with. So to enable it for iOS 13 would be a separate productivity push, and not really related to the Marzipan project.

Even if Apple does it, that is an extra set of “what if’s” on top of that which makes me thing uptake would be slow, even if Apple pulled this off next year. Actual real support by plugin devs would be years away, realistically.

But since iOS 13 isn’t even in the planning stages, nothing we can speculate about even matters in what this first version will look like. Whatever Adobe is cooking up, it’s likely built on iOS 11 as a target, due to the development time required for such a port.

Keep in mind it took Affinity a decent chunk of time to get their iPad apps out the door. Designer had a very short teaser video out prior to 2015, and Photo was teased at WWDC 2016 in detail. These were both long term projects for them, and they have a codebase not quite as bound up by legacy concerns like Adobe does. There’s no way Adobe hasn’t already been working on this since Affinity Photo launched last year, if not even earlier in response to their WWDC tease in 2016.

All this adds up to me being very skeptical of them delivering anything that Affinity Photo hasn’t already in terms of functionality.

 

[Feenician]

There’s a world of difference between plugins to Apple-level services like WebKit, and allowing third party apps to run arbitrary code. And to top it off, both Adobe and those plugins would need to adopt whatever mechanism Apple will use, which by its nature will be proprietary to iOS (and maybe Mac).

Marzipan is more about UIKit on Mac than anything else, this doesn’t really fall under the purview of Marzipan in the first place. The limitation is in sand boxing and App Store guidelines, really. You can technically load plugins already on iOS, from a developer standpoint, they just have to be in your bundle to begin with. So to enable it for iOS 13 would be a separate productivity push, and not really related to the Marzipan project.

Even if Apple does it, that is an extra set of “what if’s” on top of that which makes me thing uptake would be slow, even if Apple pulled this off next year. Actual real support by plugin devs would be years away, realistically.

But since iOS 13 isn’t even in the planning stages, nothing we can speculate about even matters in what this first version will look like. Whatever Adobe is cooking up, it’s likely built on iOS 11 as a target, due to the development time required for such a port.

Keep in mind it took Affinity a decent chunk of time to get their iPad apps out the door. Designer had a very short teaser video out prior to 2015, and Photo was teased at WWDC 2016 in detail. These were both long term projects for them, and they have a codebase not quite as bound up by legacy concerns like Adobe does. There’s no way Adobe hasn’t already been working on this since Affinity Photo launched last year, if not even earlier in response to their WWDC tease in 2016.

All this adds up to me being very skeptical of them delivering anything that Affinity Photo hasn’t already in terms of functionality.

Great post. I entirely agree that the “arbitrary code” part is what might trouble plugins for PS on iOS. I don’t agree that it would be hard to deploy them or that they have to be in the bundle, if they were allowed though. That’s as simple as PS providing a Photoshop/Plugins folder in Files.

 

[killr_b]

Adobe is just about cut out of my life now. Stupid Intel Textureworks...
LOL if they think people will pay $10/mo for Photoshop on iPad. I'm about to never pay them anything ever again.

Affinity Designer + Photo on iPad Pro AND desktop was like not even $100.

If Adobe could put FULL Photoshop (with plugins) on iPad Pro for $50 one-time payment, and actually update it, I will be shocked, shocked I tell you.

 

[mi7chy]

Can't do much pro Photoshop work in only 4GB of DRAM.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

Can't do much pro Photoshop work in only 4GB of DRAM.

Why not? The iOS world does not equal the MacOS/WinOS world.