Adobe on Monday launched a conceptual design app for the iPad, Comp CC, while Facebook brought third-party app integration to Messenger, and Google Drive gained support for automatic iOS photo and video backup.
Adobe introduces Comp CC
The new iPad-only utility lets designers build wireframes for web, print, or mobile projects. Touch gestures are used to trace out shapes, text boxes, and image placeholders. Those items can then be filled in more substantially with TypeKit font previews, graphics from Photoshop, Illustrator, Photoshop Sketch, or Illustrator Draw, and anything captured via Shape CC or Color CC.
Designers also have access to assets from Creative Cloud Libraries or the Creative Cloud Market.
Completed projects can be exported to InDesign CC, Illustrator CC, or Photoshop CC. Significantly, each file has an infinite version history -- within Comp users can scrub back and forward and export from any stage during a wireframe's creation.
Comp CC requires iOS 7.1 or later and a Creative Cloud subscription. Although most subscriptions options cost money, a basic 2 GB option is free.
Facebook Messenger toggles on third-party app support
Following up on last week's launch of the public Messenger API, Facebook has updated the Messenger iOS app with third-party app integration.
The new functionality lets users send GIFs, photos, and videos to Messenger contacts via third-party software, and likewise reply to messages without switching apps.
Other improvements include automatic GIF playback and simpler app discovery. The latter makes it easier to install third-party apps used by friends, and get recommendations on new apps to install.
Messenger is a free download for any device with iOS 7.0 or later.
Google Drive offers automatic media backup
As a part of scaling back Google+, Google has updated the Drive app for iPhones and iPads to support automatic photo and video backup. The option is only rolling out to iOS users "over the next few weeks" however, and won't immediately appear for most people.
Earlier this month Google announced that it was breaking up Google+ into separate Photos and Streams products -- the service's messaging aspect is already in the dominion of the Hangouts app for iOS, Android, and the web. As of today, people with media backed up to Google+ should be able to access it in Drive, though it will take several weeks for complete archives to be accessible.
The Drive iOS app is a free download running on iOS 7.0 or better.