Lauren Goode

Recent Posts by Lauren Goode

Adobe Brings Photoshop Touch to iPad, Unveils iOS-Friendly Video Ad Platform

You might already be aware of this, but Adobe and Apple haven’t always had a warm and fuzzy relationship.

Now, Adobe is bringing Photoshop Touch to the iPad as part of a suite of creative apps for Apple’s iOS. The app was previously only available for Android devices.

Photoshop Touch lets users layer images, touch up photos and use “paint” tools, with a few swipes on the iPad. It also includes a Scribble Selection Tool for removing objects from photos, the ability to search for images through Google Image search, and a quick-sharing option through Facebook.

The app costs $9.99 and currently works only on iPad 2. Adobe already has an iPad app available for photo touch-ups — Adobe Photoshop Express — but it’s a much more limited version of Photoshop.

Adobe plans to introduce a handful of other creative apps for iPad 2 later this year, including Adobe Collage, Adobe Ideas and Adobe Proto, for Web site and mobile-app prototyping. These apps will all work with Adobe’s Creative Cloud services.

The new Adobe apps for iPad show not only that companies are increasingly viewing tablets as devices for content creation — just a few weeks ago, Avid introduced a full video-editing app for iPad — but also signals the importance of getting aboard the iOS boat.

Back in 2010, Apple CEO Steve Jobs likened Adobe’s Flash technology to floppy disks and serial ports, when he explained why Apple wouldn’t support Adobe’s flagship Flash product on its mobile devices. Then, in June of last year, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen said that the Flash argument between Adobe and Apple was over. In November, Adobe said it would no longer develop Flash for mobile devices, and would instead focus on HTML5, seen by many as a concession in the war between Apple and Adobe over the future of Flash technology.

Now, in addition to the iPad apps, Adobe is also introducing a video ad service, codenamed Project Primetime, for producing and publishing ads that will work across Apple iOS and Google Android devices, desktops operating systems, and “smart” (Internet-connected) TVs, including Samsung TVs.

Adobe will support a few different video formats in Primetime, including H.264 and MPEG-DASH as well as Adobe’s standard Flash-based video protocol, but Adobe says it hopes to reduce fragmentation in the video technology market. Essentially, it’s doing so by introducing more non-Flash solutions.

Its Adobe Access 4 software, for example, formerly known as Adobe Flash Access, will now support iOS apps, and is expected to be available to broadcast and media companies in spring of this year.

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