Adobe Photoshop Touch hits iPad 2 for $9.99 | Hacker News Reader

Adobe Photoshop Touch hits iPad 2 for $9.99

9to5mac.com

33 pointsjamesjyu28 comments

Man, this is gonna be a really tough sell.

The computer is where people do their real work.

The iPad is where people do casual consumption, games, or yes, perhaps some photography, but mostly instagram-level, meant for casual sharing. Instagram is perfect for this device. Quick, easy, looks good, simple to share.

This tablet version of Photoshop is both wayyyyyyy more complicated than instagram and wayyyyyyy less useful than the full Photoshop application.

As a power Photoshop user, I have no need nor desire for this product. I simply cannot imagine my wife, who has no image-editing skills, using this over instagram or an instagram-type app. So who is this for exactly?

I guess this won't work on my "old" iPad 1? I hope Apple is going to announce the 3 in a couple of weeks. I'm holding myself to upgrading every other generation for both the tablets and phones. Does anyone else find it strange that these technologies are essentially obsolete in 24 months?

I'm used to upgrading processors and other components every 2 years or so. The nature of the physical device space we're entering means now we have to replace the screen and plastic case every 2 years as well.

That's what I've been doing for a while. Seems to work. We stagger purchases at home, so there's always one current device around

It's not that strange if you take into account the law of accelerated returns, that suggests that change itself happens at an ever faster pace. PC's used to be changed at 3-5 years, laptops at 2-3 years, and now smartphones and tablets at 1-2 years.

The singularity is near says this, but it seems that the rate of Moore's Law has been pretty constant (cost version: x2 performance/price every 18 months). When Ray extends this back to discrete transistors, vacuum tubes, relays, and mechanics, there's a case for an acceleration in rate - but not within silicon.

If hardware is updated at different rates in different categories, I think it's due to factors specific to that category. Counter-example: the update rate for game consoles is much slower now than it was previously.

I find it not strange, but terrible. With the ratio of sales from iPad 2 : iPad 1, it is clear that Apple has little incentive to optimize their OS for older devices at all. I remember how the iPad seemed to FLY on iOS3.2, and now on iOS5, I have to start turning off features so the lag doesn't make me regret the purchase altogether.

The best thing we can say about Planned Obsolescence is that the devices we throw away get smaller every year.

I quite like the touchlight feature where you could shine light on your iPad camera at different angles to adjust lighting. 9.99 was a steal really, though I'm not getting it.

Looks like it was just a mistake to launch. We have to wait until Monday for the real launch. Why do we see so many developers accidentally launching apps early for iOS?

I think this is a general problem in the app release process because you have cannot be certain when your app will be approved and your app is released at different times in different international app stores.

You can set the date you want your app to be available, independently of the review date (of course the later one wins).

At some point that was suddenly not possible, deliberately or accidental. After that incident I am always a little wary of setting a future date and not having the ability to change it to launch.

I still prefer it on my Eee Pad Slider. I can plug-in my Canon 60D on it and easily edit the photos I just took. Anyway, I'll give the iPad version a chance...

Wow. Adobe devaluating their product by setting such a low price. I don't think this is a good idea.

1. Read The Innovator's Dilemma.

2. Tablets are the future. If Adobe doesn't make a photoshop for the iPad, someone else will and Adobe will go out of business.

> 2. Tablets are the future. If Adobe doesn't make a photoshop for the iPad, someone else will and Adobe will go out of business.

OK, let's assume tablets were the future ... so how does it help Adobe (a software company) if they set such low prices for their products? They are just educating customers that software should be very cheap and there's not much worth to it.

I can understand why Apple who is a hardware company at first is interested in low software prices but for a software company this is just suicidal.

Tablets are not the future for all types of computing. Someone else can make Photoshop for the iPad but it doesn't mean that it will be a success nor that Adobe will go out of business.

I don't think Adobe has much to gain OR lose by doing this as they have the capital to develop a side mobile app.

If only the desktop version was sold at a reasonable cost, I think they would make more money.

The desktop version is pretty reasonably priced given it's aimed at professional users. $50/month is less than 1% of the salary of a designer, and it definitely increases productivity by much more than 1%.

In comparison it's cheaper than SEOMoz or a Business Plus account on Linkedin.

Yes, it is pretty key to remember Photoshop is not meant for casual home users. It is not MS Paint, and it is priced accordingly.

I wonder how paint.NET and GIMP stack up compared to Photoshop.

GIMP had a lot of the functionality (Photoshop has pulled away recently with all the content-aware stuff) but it never had the interface. I don't think paint.NET ever came close, though it could potentially catch up.

You can take pretty much any image editor and create professional quality artwork from scratch, some just take a lot more effort. I've seen people do some amazing things with GIMP, yet most feel that it is too difficult to get anything accomplished.

Pantone was always the key feature GIMP can't have, and it matters in print.

A big problem is the ecosystem too. Since most people either use Photoshop or a cracked Photoshop, it's almost impossible to replace it as the industry standard. I hope Adobe will keep improving their DRM to the point where cracks stops working, that'd be the best thing to ever happen to Paint.NET and GIMP.

Web designers may make more than 5000/month, but most graphic designers, artists, and photographers make about half of that (if they can even find a job.) To make matters worse, the fact that they frequently deal with printed materials means that Photoshop Elements probably won't cut it for many of them.

Then there's the massive amounts of student loans that they will be paying off for a decade, due to insanely high art school tuition rates.

$50 may not sound like much to a web developer, but for a large percentage of Adobe's target demographic, it is hard to afford.

There are a lot of photo manipulation tools out there that cost a great deal less than Photoshop goes for. Much of their market consists of people who find Photoshop too expensive. Alternatively, one can purchase a new version every three-four years - bringing the cost down to something like $10-$15/month. I've got a several-years old version of CS3 running on my MacBook Air. Works just as well as it did when it was considered the latest-and-greatest. I suspect, as a non-professional graphics designer, I'll do fine purchasing a new copy every 8-10 years or so.

I'd rather Adobe make a decent profit on their tools from their high-end commercial clients so they can continue to invest, do research, and improve the product. The rest of us can get by with an "Academic Version", slightly outdated version, or cage a heavily discounted copy off of a friend-of-friend who works for Adobe. If you are working in the graphic design industry, Linkedin probably has you two or three hops away from an Adobe employee, and I guarantee that if you are "in the biz" and impoverished to the point of having a tough time paying for a new retail copy of CS5, someone will have a employee credit that they can give you. Heck, there's a good chance that if you write (and design) an impassioned plea to Adobe Marketing, Adobe will comp you a discounted copy.

let's say it's half: that makes 50$ 2% of it, surely the expense for their most important tool is reasonable?

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