William Gallagher
Photoshop for iPad is still expected before the end of this year, but beta testers are complaining that it is lacking. Adobe says the beta doesn't include many features that will be in the shipping version, and that the company plans to continuously develop the app.
It's a year since Apple and Adobe announced that Photoshop would be coming to the iPad, and it's six months since the latter began accepting beta testers. Now, while the official release is reportedly still on schedule for before the end of 2019, some beta testers are saying that the software is 'rudimentary,' and lacks key features.
According Bloomberg, testers are claiming that despite Adobe saying it would be a full version of Photoshop instead of its previous scaled-down iPad apps, certain core functions are missing.
"Feature-wise, it feels like a beefed-up cloud-based version of their existing iPad apps and not 'real Photoshop' as advertised," said an unnamed tester. "I understand it is based on desktop Photoshop code, but it doesn't feel like it right now."
In response, Adobe has told Bloomberg that the beta test version does lack many features that couldn't be deployed yet. A need to produce them in collaboration with Apple means many are "coming in hot," according to Scott Belsky, chief product officer of Adobe Creative Cloud.
He added that while the first official release would contain these unspecified features, it would still not be a complete duplicate of the desktop Photoshop.
"Launching every single feature that was accumulated over 25 years on the iPad on day one would not best serve our customers and the needs they have," he said. He added that Adobe sees this as very much a version 1 and would develop it further.
"I want to say it's the best product in the world for specific workflows and not have to apologize that it's not full because that's not what the customer needs," he said. "I couldn't be more proud of where we landed. People will see for themselves."
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13 Comments
I seriously hope that unlike the article states it is not based on the same code as the desktop Photoshop. That thing is a giant bloated mass of slowness and ancient times, not as bad s some of their other apps to be sure.
i use it, a lot, and have done since 1993. so i love it and am not being rude, but it could do with a full rebuild with actual mac support.
lightroom and photoshop do not even run properly on 10.15, with limited functions still being 32bit. no metal support, no egpu support. do any of their apps properly support amd gpus yet? last i checked it was nope.
going catalina i decided to format and start a new story. i then after close to 30yrs decided not to install PS or AI or INdesign or Lightroom. i was on the verge of replacing my 2015 loaded MBP15” because of how slow it ran with adobe and... on a whim bought Affinity Publisher, looked pretty solid and OMG i am moving whole books around with full page images and text like 60fps silk, a month ago it was clunking so bad it was depressing.
Make that iPad PS amaze us Adobe and Apple, time to enter the present again.
(note: i obs only mean 30yrs of PS. Indesign was 2001-2ish for me i think. lightroom was 07-08ish perhaps)
This was announced a year ago. Sounded like it was almost read for release. Here it is a year later and it's half baked? They're going to launch it like that?
I'm not sure 'refutes' is the correct word here, unless Adobe demonstrated a version with all the "missing" functionality. In fact, they essentially conceded that, at this time, it is lacking in functionality and claim they intend to add it before the official release. Perhaps 'disputes' might have been a better choice, particularly if you change 'is' to 'will be'.
My company was one of the very first Adobe shops with PS 1. It’s been a really long time. I’m looking forward to this. Everybody should understand that Adobe is correct when it says that it can’t have every feature working in the first version. It will take a few years. It’s still mid October, so we can be sure that they’re continuing to validate functionality. PS is a modular app, and has been for a very long time. That began way back with PS 5.
Still, as professionals in areas that Adobe didn’t think would want the app began to use it in numbers, they added features to accommodate them. So some people think it’s bloated. But it’s not. You don’t have to use the features you don’t want, or need. Just don’t select it from the menus. Is it a large app, with a large footprint? Yes, so what?
This was entirely predictable; from the incompleteness to the excuses.
And yes, Photoshop is bloated.
But I don’t care; once adobe went subscription model, I quit Adobe.