Adobe has killed its flagship iPad and iPhone photo editor Photoshop Touch. On Thursday, Adobe announced that the $10 app will no longer be updated effective immediately and will be removed from the App Store on May 28, 2015.
Keep reading for what you can expect from the app in the future and a peek at Adobe’s plans for iOS and other mobile platforms.
The announcement doesn’t come as much of a surprise for me. Recent updates have mostly been bug and compatibility fixes, with no outstanding new features.
When it was released, Photoshop Touch was what many of us wished the more consumer-oriented Photoshop Express should have been. Since its introduction, it’s been one of the top photo editors for iPhone, iPad, and Android platforms.
Despite a somewhat clunky interface, the powerful photo app was able to do an awful lot of what iPhoneographers needed it to do on their devices.
Adobe’s new strategy seems to be headed towards seamless integration of the workflow between devices and platforms and already has replacement apps in the works. Where PS Touch was mostly a standalone app with cloud integration, the next generation of mobile photo apps from Adobe promises greater integration and access to the Cloud and Adobe’s Creative Cloud suite of apps.
Bryan O’Neil Hughes is Principal Product Manager, Digital Imaging for Adobe Photoshop and he writes on the Photoshop.com Blog:
When we introduced Photoshop Touch several years ago, it was an all-in-one solution that mirrored the desktop version of Photoshop. But today, we believe that our new mobile solutions, when connected together and to the desktop, vastly expand creative possibilities.
He also writes:
I’m proud to announce that we’re actively pursuing a serious retouching solution for mobile, it’s called Project Rigel and is expected to be available in late 2015.
You can view a sneak peek of Adobe’s new mobile retouching app here:
And you can read more about Adobe’s Mobile strategy here.
Adobe appears to be steering mobile users to their Creative Cloud subscription service. The new Photoshop retouching app will be part of Creative Cloud. That’s only a good thing if you pay the $10-$50 per month subscription to maintain a Creative Cloud account. Basically, PS Touch’s replacement will be rent-ware.
Also, it looks like Adobe is taking a modular, task-based approach to its mobile photo apps, with each of its newer mobile apps specializing in one area of editing rather than one big app that does everything. According to AppleInsider, no one photo app will replace Touch.
What Will Happen to My Copy of Photoshop Touch?
In the short term, nothing should change if you already own a copy of Photoshop Touch. The app will work fine for the foreseeable future until an iOS update breaks it. With iOS 9 on the horizon, this could be sooner rather than later. And, it may work fine in iOS 9 — we won’t know until it’s tested.
Photoshop Touch Alternatives
There are plenty of other powerful, self-contained photo editors available for iPhone, iPad, and Android. We like Snapseed (free) a lot; the app just got a pretty big update which indicates at least some sort of commitment from Google, the app’s developer. I really like the original Filterstorm app and I’m warming up to Filterstorm Neue. We’re excited about Photoshop-alternative Pixelmator ($9.99) which will soon be a Universal photo app for both iPhone and iPad. There are plenty of other good alternatives as well.
Even as a full-blown Creative Cloud subscriber, I can’t say I’m happy about this. While I appreciate the workflow that Adobe is trying to build, it doesn’t really apply to many mobile photographers who shoot, process, share, repeat. It comes at the expense of an installed mobile user base that simply doesn’t want or need that particular workflow or doesn’t want to rent a mobile photo app for $120 per year or more.
One of the things I like about shooting on my iPhone is the all-in-one ability to do everything on the device independent of cloud-based processing or desktop apps. As a self-contained but connected mobile app, Photoshop Touch had the power and capabilities of a good desktop photo editor.
With this move, Adobe is drawing clear lines between its professional suite of apps and its consumer ones — Photoshop Express and the recently purchased Aviary app.
RIP, Photoshop Touch, 2013-2015.
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What do you think? Is this a smart mobile strategy by Adobe or does it just feel like a cash grab to you? Sound off in the comments below.
Via AppleInsider and CNET
