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

[Krevnik]

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.

It isn’t a “it’s hard to do” problem, it’s an issue with how Apple wants security to operate on iOS coming into conflict with the lassiez-faire approach to security desktop OSes have had historically. That lax approach has helped in many ways create the culture we see around extensibility/tweaking/etc, so it’s not inherently bad, but it isn’t the sort of “don’t trust, verify” world connected devices tend to live in these days.

Yes, they *could* just do an App Store rules change and let apps load arbitrary code from outside their own bundle (or ship their own JS interpreter, etc, etc). But if they haven’t budged yet, I don’t see them doing it now.

Apple would want these signed, and deployed through the App Store. That requires dev work on their part, and creates a platform specific process plugin devs would have to go through during their ports. All things that delay the ability

 

[tkatz]

This just means we're going to get a web-based feature-stripped Photoshop, which relies completely on Adobe's cloud service to work, just like the "new" Lightroom CC. It's fine if you're doing light edits for web but doesn't really scale well to more demanding workflows. And then they will gradually retire the full desktop Photoshop like they are doing to Lightroom CC Classic.

It's not all bad, Photoshop should have been completely rewritten from the ground up ten years ago. Maybe in 5-10 years we'll have a fully usable Photoshop on both tablet and desktop.

Edit: This will probably make me pull the plug and switch to fully Adobe-free apps, Affinity Photo, Designer and Clip Studio Paint.

This is exactly what I was thinking. The way it's described as a "new cross-platform iteration", immediately made me think of Lightroom CC. I sure hope they don't fully retire Lightroom Classic CC as I much prefer it to the "new" version. Same goes for "Photoshop Classic CC" or whatever the current version will be renamed to when the "new" one comes out.

 

[satchmo]

So late to the party. This should have happened 3 years ago.

But given Adobe's foothold in the creative industry, it'll probably succeed.

 

[convergent]

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.

Completely agree with you. Apple is he&&-bent on pushing the Mac away and making everything iOS, but unless they think about things like multiple monitors, multiple input options, etc... its never going to get the job done. And if someone wants to have full PS on a tablet, they can do it today with something like a Surface Pro to do work when in tablet mode, but then have the ability to dock it at their desk and also work on a larger display. I do this with Lightroom and it works great.

But that said, there will be a lot of folks that can get by solely on the iPad so good to see they are doing it. My daughter is a Graphics Designer and she does most of her work on a MacbookPro, but recently bought an iPad Pro and ProCreate which she loves. Will be interesting to see what she thinks about this when it comes out.

 

[Feenician]

It isn’t a “it’s hard to do” problem, it’s an issue with how Apple wants security to operate on iOS coming into conflict with the lassiez-faire approach to security desktop OSes have had historically. That lax approach has helped in many ways create the culture we see around extensibility/tweaking/etc, so it’s not inherently bad, but it isn’t the sort of “don’t trust, verify” world connected devices tend to live in these days.

Yes, they *could* just do an App Store rules change and let apps load arbitrary code from outside their own bundle (or ship their own JS interpreter, etc, etc). But if they haven’t budged yet, I don’t see them doing it now.

Apple would want these signed, and deployed through the App Store. That requires dev work on their part, and creates a platform specific process plugin devs would have to go through during their ports. All things that delay the ability

Yes. Yes, you’re right. “Drop arbitrary code in a folder to load” is extremely unlikely to be accepted. I guess Adobe could go the Office route. They have an in-app extension store. I think they’re JS based? I wonder how they fit in with App Store rules?

 

[827538]

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've actually used the latest version of CC on a friends laptop and I was wondering what great improvements have been made and things I can't do on my current version of Photoshop - aside from some of the latest RAW camera support there's nothing. I'm still very satisfied with CS6 and I can see myself happily using it for years to come. It's fast, efficient and doesn't cost me money.

Also what happens if their servers screw up? Can I still use the software?
I don't want to subscribe to my OS, my games, my programs.

I'll make an excuse for movies and music (mainly because I don't end up paying).
[doublepost=1531498244][/doublepost]

I'm still rocking CS5.5 on my older iMac and CS6 on my new(er) MacBook Pro as well. Stupid subscription models.

Yup, I'd probably buy the latest version of Photoshop if it was a buy once proposition. But I will not have it leaching onto my bank account month after month, year after year.

Only two things I subscribe to are Spotify and Netflix (neither cost me any money).

CS6 works great, why bother upgrading? I have it on my Windows desktop machine and my little Macbook.

 

[e1me5]

So I guess Premier Pro and After Effects are coming to the iPad as well? If that happens I would like Apple to port FCPX and Motion to iOS.

 

[dwig]

There is absolutely no way that a truly full version of Ps can be made to run on any iPad device in the foreseeable future. They just don't have the horsepower to handle all the features and all of the data, and won't have for quite some time. What can happen is for Abobe to fork Ps into Classic and CC versions, like what they've done with Lr.

Personally, what I think is happening is that Abobe is preparing another evolutionary rewrite of the basic Ps code base. They did it once long ago and far away when the need to be both cross-OS and cross-processor became apparent. The code that they had acquired that became Ps was in Object Pascal and could be compiled only for 68000 and PowerPc processors. They rewrote Ps in C (Object C, ... ?) so it could be compiled for Intel x86 processors running Windows. ARM's growing penetration and Apple's interest in possibly moving the macOS to their own custom ARM derived processors means Abobe needs to be able to compile the main Ps code for ARM. It would also help minimize the coding duplication that is likely occuring now with the various Ps companion apps for iOS and for Alphabet's probably merging of Android and Chrome and the related devices that will likely be mix of ARM based as well as Intel.

 

[Krevnik]

Yes. Yes, you’re right. “Drop arbitrary code in a folder to load” is extremely unlikely to be accepted. I guess Adobe could go the Office route. They have an in-app extension store. I think they’re JS based? I wonder how they fit in with App Store rules?

View attachment 770438

It is JavaScript (https://dev.office.com/reference/add-ins/javascript-api-for-office).

React Native does something similar by executing the JavaScript inside of WebKit. It gets away with it because you *are* allowed to use WebKit or JavaScriptCore as a means of scripting. Note that Office doesn’t seem to support VBA on iOS?

Not good enough for PS plugins though, many of which assume some form of GPU acceleration and/or multi threading. Two things JavaScript is rather weak at.

It also has the delay problem of existing plugins taking a long time to port, only now developers need to think about if it is worth maintaining two copies of the code to support iOS or not. If Adobe had a good framework exposed to JS (using React Native maybe?) and made the JS support available on desktop, maybe it would work out, but still face delays as plugins got rewritten, and a perf penalty in both memory and speed.

 

[iansilv]

If its subscription-based I don't care.

 

[DNichter]

This is great to see, but I feel like there are already better alternatives for iPad out there already. I am all for major companies creating not dumbed down versions of their apps though. It's about time, the iPad is more than capable.

 

[Greymacuser]

For casual 'for fun' users, this will sound be an amazing advancement.
For professionals this will be a big so-what.
No iToy will be able to match the workload a real computer can take on. I doubt you can add/customize brushes with this, for example.
This would make sense for in-the-field fast and sloppy rough work-ups, but not for the real work that you'd have to do back at your office/studio.

Combine one port and no portable media storage capability for bringing/saving your work, and it really doesn't sound that great to me.

 

[AronDraws]

Oh my gawd YESSSSS but please make it so if we pay for the desktop subscription the iPad subscription is included PRETTY PRETTY PLEASE WITH SUGAR ON TOP :3
[doublepost=1531500996][/doublepost]

For casual 'for fun' users, this will sound be an amazing advancement.
For professionals this will be a big so-what.
No iToy will be able to match the workload a real computer can take on. I doubt you can add/customize brushes with this, for example.
This would make sense for in-the-field fast and sloppy rough work-ups, but not for the real work that you'd have to do back at your office/studio.

Combine one port and no portable media storage capability for bringing/saving your work, and it really doesn't sound that great to me.

If it doesn't have the brush loading capabilities I will not use it. THAT would be the ultimate deal breaker.

 

[Feenician]

I doubt you can add/customize brushes with this, for example.

Not sure why'd you say that. Even Affinity can use Photoshop .abr files. It'd be pretty embarrassing if Photoshop couldn't.

 

[Brammy]

For casual 'for fun' users, this will sound be an amazing advancement.
For professionals this will be a big so-what.
No iToy will be able to match the workload a real computer can take on. I doubt you can add/customize brushes with this, for example.
This would make sense for in-the-field fast and sloppy rough work-ups, but not for the real work that you'd have to do back at your office/studio.

Combine one port and no portable media storage capability for bringing/saving your work, and it really doesn't sound that great to me.

Brushes are trivial. Even Affinity Photo can handle ABR brushes. The hard part will be actions and external filters. I use the Topaz filters a lot and I don’t see Topaz moving those to iOS.

 

[Krevnik]

This would make sense for in-the-field fast and sloppy rough work-ups, but not for the real work that you'd have to do back at your office/studio.

That’s exactly why I use Affinity Photo on my iPad though. I don’t need 100% equivalence, but I do want access to the parts of the toolset I use for those work-ups. Something Adobe really only seemed to understand with Lightroom Mobile.

 

[groove-agent]

I abandoned Adobe after they went subscription. Actually it's one of the reasons why I didn't completely go back to PC. Final Cut is awesome value, particularly versus Premiere Pro's subscription.

I get why software companies do it - but I refuse to pay it. Same as Apple Music, I'd rather spend that $10 and buy an album a month and actually own something rather than renting a service. Who needs another bill to pay without paying all these software companies trying to keep their hands in your pockets.

 

[PKoz]

Affinity scared them into this probably : )

I use Affinity and I will continue to use them. They didn't need to be scared into supporting the iPad. Adobe just doesn't listen to their customers at all. They are reactionary. Too little, too late. Sick of Adobe.
[doublepost=1531502188][/doublepost]

I abandoned Adobe after they went subscription. Actually it's one of the reasons why I didn't completely go back to PC. Final Cut is awesome value, particularly versus Premiere Pro's subscription.

I get why software companies do it - but I refuse to pay it. Same as Apple Music, I'd rather spend that $10 and buy an album a month and own something rather than renting a service. Who needs another bill to pay without paying all these software companies trying to keep their hands in your pockets.

Agree with you on Adobe, but for the music side of it, it is a mixed bag with me. I change back and forth from what you've stated. Right now I am on Apple Music, and I do like the idea that I don't have to care about moving a collection from machine to machine or backing it up, or going crazy and buying too much. I have access to everything. When I get sick of something, I delete it. I don't feel like I lost something cause I know I can always add it back if I want.
[doublepost=1531502503][/doublepost]

I assume this leak by Adobe was based on the news from Affinity that now they not only have a top rated Affinity Photo on iPad and now Affinity Designer as if the other day and the announcement of Affinity Publisher. I think they were caught off guard that Affinity is so ahead of the curve, so to avoid a lot of people leaving their Adobe subscription they want people to know they are at least working on iPad apps too. However Affinity's top rated iPad apps are here today, Adobe's not until 2019, which means won't be in our hands I imagine until 2020 and of course won't take advantage of all of Apple's tech such as iCloud since Adobe is pushing their own high priced plans. With Publisher on the way, and I'm sure eventually on iPad as well as their Lightroom alternative in the pipeline, I think Adobe should definitely be worried. But competition will only make both companies better so looking forward to the battle.

Sick of Adobe and Microsoft. They can both rot in hell as far as I am concerned.

 

[jhudgins]

Too little too late. I’m sticking with Affinity. Adobe and their price gauging subscription service can shove it.

 

[lambertjohn]

Yes, we can have photoshop for iPad for the low price of $19.99 a month!

That's exactly what's going to happen. It will be a subscription, just you watch. Greedy bastards. The whole damn world is turning into a subscription!

 

[W.O.P.R.]

It's about time. Mobile devices of today are so much more powerful than the devices of, well frankly, not that long ago and those devices ran highly capable versions of Photoshop. I never understood why the reluctance to make Photoshop on them something more than a glorified dime-a-dozen photo filter app. Especially when Stylus/pens/pencils evolved input beyond fingerpainting.

 

[Fattytail]

That's exactly what's going to happen. It will be a subscription, just you watch. Greedy bastards. The whole damn world is turning into a subscription!

This is already covered in the article. It's free to download, but some features are for subscribers only.

 

[rowspaxe]

But the iPad can't be a laptop replacement because it can't run 'Full' software.

Believe when I see it! "Full photshop" will not come to the ios without mouse/pointer function, imo

 

[mark63303]

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

You can pry CS6 from my cold dead hands.

I can understand your point, but CS6 is pretty old software (in software years) and although you may be able to get by right now with it, the amount of new features and software updates that have been added since CS6's release are starting to render it useless.

 

[mrr]

Photoshop was once the only game in town but for millions of people correcting and editing their photos on the iPhone or iPad is all they need. I am sure that Adobe recognizes that also. I welcome Photoshop to mobile platform.

I just wish that Correl Painter would bring their fabulous paint program to the iPad as well!