Could Google’s Chrome browser ever come to iOS? At least one analyst seems to think so today, and they seem confident that the search giant may even have a final version of the app waiting for Apple’s approval in the App Store. There’s not much to dislike about Mobile Safari, but choice is always a good thing — even though Apple isn’t likely to ever voluntarily let us change the default browser on our iOS devices. Meanwhile, here’s a look at everything else making news for Tuesday, May 15, 2012.
The Wall Street Journal has published a followup report on the recent smattering of lawsuits attempting to get class action status against Apple over claims that Siri “doesn’t perform as advertised.” Today, Apple is fighting back with a motion to dismiss that claims the Siri technology may only be a beta, but she’s still cutting edge. “They offer only general descriptions of Apple’s advertisements, incomplete summaries of Apple’s website materials, and vague descriptions of their alleged — and highly individualized — disappointment with Siri,” Apple’s motion argues. “Tellingly, although Plaintiffs claim they became dissatisfied with Siri’s performance ‘soon after’ purchasing their iPhones, they made no attempt to avail themselves of Apple’s 30-day return policy or one-year warranty — which remains in effect. Instead, they seek to take an alleged personal grievance about the purported performance of a popular product and turn it into a nationwide class action under California’s consumer protection statutes. The Complaint does not come close to meeting the heavy burden necessary to sustain such claims.” Your move, Siri users.
Adobe kicked off their annual Digital Publishing Summit on Tuesday by announcing a series of new features for the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite (DPS). “Among the new features are Content Viewer for iPhone, social sharing, expanded font licensing and enhanced integration with Adobe Creative Suite 6, a milestone release, creating an unbeatable combination for media and corporate organizations,” the company revealed in a press release. “As readers voraciously consume mobile content, they’re demanding dynamic, shareable reading experiences across tablet and mobile phones,” explains Jim Guerard, vice president and general manager of Creative and Media Solutions, Adobe. “Adobe’s digital publishing innovations propel the industry forward by allowing publishers to reach and monetize an unprecedented number of consumers hungry for dynamic, one-of-a-kind mobile reading experiences.” For more details on Adobe’s DPS improvements and how the company’s customers plan to implement them, check out a live blog of the Digital Publishing Summit on the Adobe website.
Business Insider is reporting that Google’s Chrome browser may soon make the leap to iOS, where Apple currently makes 50 to 60 percent in revenue sharing from Google on searches made with Mobile Safari. According to Macquarie analyst Ben Schacter, Google Chrome may arrive sooner than we expect. “Apple may already be reviewing Google’s submitted code for a Chrome browser for iOS,” the analyst says, and expects the app to be released in the second quarter if not “definitely this year.” Of course, for Google, a Chrome browser would help level the playing field where search revenue is concerned — although Apple doesn’t currently allow third-party apps to act as a default browser on its iPhones, iPod touches and iPads. Schacter notes the tide could turn, however, should the Federal government go after Apple in the same way they did with Microsoft, who made Internet Explorer the default browser on its Windows PCs. “All that said, the most important thing to consider is whether or not Google’s Chrome will be better than mobile Safari,” the report concludes. “Google has failed to deliver solid applications for iOS in the past.” No kidding…
Facebook may be on the verge of a historic stock offering, but that doesn’t mean diddly squat to automaker General Motors, who’s pulling the plug on million worth of paid advertisements with the social network. According to Forbes, GM “is definitely reassessing our advertising on Facebook, although the content is effective and important.” The company will continue to “post relevant content about the company and its brands on GM’s Facebook pages” — and why not, since that kind of advertising is pretty much free? “In terms of Facebook specifically, while we currently do not plan to continue with advertising, we remain committed to an aggressive content strategy through all of our products and brands, as it continues to be a very effective tool for engaging with our customers,” GM explained in a statement. Of course, that doesn’t exactly look good for Facebook, whose 5 billion IPO is coming at the end of the week.
Let’s take a break from all these crazy MacBook Pro rumors and turn our attention back to the fabled seven-inch iPad, shall we? AppleInsider is reporting that the fabled 7.85-inch junior iPad will launch in Q4 2012, complete with “G/F2” thin-film touch technology. According to DigiTimes, “the G/F2 structure places the electrode on the top and bottom ends of the ITO film, which will then be laminated onto the cover glass. The iPad Mini will also be more transparent and will have good sensitivity despite current skepticism with thin-film touch panels in the industry.” Since we only yesterday reported that DigiTimes tends to have a spotty track record when it comes to Apple rumors, we’d say readers would do well to approach this one with a big ol’ grain of salt as usual…
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Adobe Systems is having a big week, shipping Creative Suite 6 on Monday and Creative Cloud expected on Friday, but in-between they’ve quietly slipped Photoshop Lightroom 4 into the Mac App Store, marking their fourth title to land on Apple’s virtual store shelves.
Adobe has released Photoshop Lightroom 4 to the Mac App Store, which now joins Photoshop Elements 10 Editor, Premiere 10 Elements Editor and Adobe Revel (formerly Carousel) on Apple’s Mac storefront. Lightroom 4 is priced at 9.99, which matches Adobe’s own retail pricing, but it’s not much of a deal considering the software can be purchased at a discounted for customers also buying a Creative Suite 6 bundle, which Adobe shipped on Monday.
“Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom® 4 software helps you create amazing images that inspire, inform, and delight,” the app description reads. “Perfect your shots with powerfully simple one-click adjustments and a full range of cutting-edge advanced controls. Craft elegant photo books, organize your images, and share them easily on social networks, in web galleries, and more — all with one fast, intuitive application.”
Unlike the Mac App Store-only “Editor” editions of Photoshop and Premiere Elements 10, Lightroom 4 appears to be feature complete when compared to the boxed copy offered by Adobe. (The company had to remove Elements Organizer from its consumer-based photo and video editing apps, but the software was otherwise intact.)
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 is now available on the Mac App Store for 9.99 as a 388MB download; the software requires Mac OS X 10.6.8 or later and a 64-bit processor.
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We have liftoff! As promised on Monday with the news that Creative Suite 6 was shipping, Adobe has taken the wraps off Creative Cloud, its .99 per month subscription service which includes all CS6 products along with a host of others.
Adobe Systems Inc. announced the immediate availability of Adobe Creative Cloud on Friday, the beginning of a new era in the company’s long history which provides a radical new way of providing tools and services for its customers.
“A subscription-based offering, Adobe Creative Cloud is a hub for making, sharing and delivering creative work and it is centered around a powerful release of Adobe Creative Suite 6 software, packed with innovation across its industry-defining design, Web, video and digital imaging tools,” the company explains in a press release.
Adobe Creative Cloud features the entire Creative Suite 6 product line for Mac and Windows, which includes the latest versions of Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, Flash Professional and more — all available for a monthly .99 subscription, based on annual membership.
When purchased separately, Creative Cloud also introduces Touch Apps into the mix for both iOS and Android, today adding Adobe Proto and Adobe Collage, as well as new features and additional language support for the existing Photoshop Touch and Adobe Ideas apps. Creative Cloud members on an annual plan will receive a complimentary month of membership upon signing into Creative Cloud from three qualifying Touch Apps. The service tops off these great tools with 20GB of free cloud storage.
“Adobe Creative Cloud members receive full access to the entire portfolio of Creative Suite 6 tools, integration with our touch tools, file storage and sharing services and Web hosting — everything they need to go from idea to finished work, at a breakthrough monthly subscription price,“ said David Wadhwani, senior vice president, Digital Media Business, Adobe. “Creative Cloud will allow our product teams to unleash a constant stream of innovation, releasing new features, apps and services as they are developed.”
Also available today is Adobe Muse 1.0, the company’s new software that enables designers to create HTML5-based websites without writing code. The software just exited a successful beta period which saw 700,000 downloads from developers who gave it a spin, and best of all, Muse is included with Adobe Creative Cloud.
Adobe Creative Cloud is now available for .99 per month with an annual subscription, and for a limited time, CS3, CS4, CS5 and CS5.5 customers can receive special introductory pricing of .99 per month for the first 12 months. Month-to-month plans are also available for .99 per month for occasional use.
(Updated to clarify that Touch Apps must be purchased separately from the App Store and are not included free with Creative Cloud.)
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If you’ve been clamoring to get your hands on Adobe’s new Creative Suite 6 products, today is your lucky day: CS6 is now shipping and available for immediate purchase and download. Unfortunately, the new Creative Cloud service won’t follow until this Friday.
Adobe Systems Incorporated has announced the immediate availability of Creative Suite 6, its latest and greatest bundle of creative software. The company has released four such bundles this year: Creative Suite 7 Design & Web Premium, Creative Suite 6 Design Standard, Creative Suite 6 Production Premium and Creative Suite 6 Master Collection, which assembles all of the creative software under one shingle.
Unfortunately, the company’s highly anticipated Creative Cloud offering is MIA at the moment — Adobe expects it to arrive this Friday, May 11, along with CS6 point product subscriptions. No reason was given for the delay, which will certainly come as a bummer to those of us ready to fork over .99 per month for all of its cloud-based goodness on top of the entire CS6 Master Collection and more.
“We announced Creative Cloud and CS6 two weeks ago and these releases have caught the imagination of creatives everywhere,” said David Wadhwani, senior vice president, Digital Media Business, Adobe. “Today we’re shipping CS6 and look forward to the beginning of an exciting new era as we introduce Creative Cloud later this week.”
Adobe Creative Suite 6 and be purchased and downloaded immediately from the Adobe Store, with boxed copies available from all Adobe Authorized Resellers. Retail prices range from ,599 for CS6 Master Collection, ,899 for CS6 Production Premium, ,899 for CS6 Design & Web Premium, and ,299 for CS6 Design Standard. Upgrade and education pricing as well as volume licensing are also available, with full details on the Adobe website.
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The Creative Cloud icon soared high above Golden Gate Park’s museum campus for today’s launch event at the DeYoung Museum.
Adobe held a launch event today for Creative Suite 6 and the brand-new Creative Cloud. If you’re a creative type, you can watch the entire hour-long presentation and demos (it’ll be rebroadcast continuously until 4pm Pacific today, and starting tomorrow you can watch it on-demand at tv.adobe.com), but let me just tell you why I’m so hyped about Creative Cloud.
(In fact, Robin Dick, our art director, and I attended this event together, and when we got back to the office one of the first people we happened to encounter was our friendly IT tech, and we immediately accosted him to explain why we needed Creative Cloud, like, yesterday.)
First of all, Creative Cloud is software-as-a-service. Instead of shelling out ,299 to ,499 for a Creative Suite collection, you pay monthly. It’s .99 per month for a yearly membership, and if you’re already using CS3, CS4, or CS5, your first year is only .99 per month. (Month-to-month is .99 per month — good for test drives or if you only need CS6 for a one-time project.) For that you get access to the entire Creative Suite 6 — that’s all 14 CS6 apps, from the heavy hitters like Photoshop, Premiere Pro, and Illustrator, to ones you may have never played with, like Fireworks, SpeedGrade, and Encore. They can all be downloaded to any machine you’re working on with the new App Store-like application manager.
You even get access to two new apps, Adobe Muse and Adobe Edge preview, that aren’t available in any boxed version of CS6. These are new tools for design and development of HTML5 content, and their inclusion in Creative Cloud points to Adobe’s commitment to pushing out innovations to Cloud users as soon as they are ready. More updates are on the horizon, too.
Creative Cloud also includes 20GB of cloud storage for your Adobe files and projects. The Creative Cloud Connection app works like Dropbox on the Mac, adding a folder in your Finder and syncing its content up to the cloud automatically. You can access your files locally or on a slick web-based interface. But it’s got more power than Dropbox, since it recognizes your Adobe files. Dropbox can go, “Hi, I’m Dropbox, here’s an InDesign file,” but all you can do is download that file and open it in InDesign. If you upload that same InDesign file to your Creative Cloud storage, suddenly you can share it with other users who can preview each page of it right in the Web interface (even if they don’t have InDesign), leave comments on it, download a copy, and so on. Photoshop files can show you their color palettes. It’s all incredibly cool.
And I feel like a game show host, BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE. You also get access to Adobe’s touch apps: Photoshop Touch and Adobe Ideas, for starters, and a few more currently Android-only apps that are coming to iPad soon. They let you sketch out ideas, mock up concepts, and then save those files and color palettes right to Creative Cloud, so they’ll be waiting for you back at your computer.
Creative Cloud will even have publishing services, letting you host up to 5 websites, and it’ll make it easy to publish your work on iPad, iPhone, and Android devices. You also get access to Adobe Typekit, with more than 700 web fonts you can use in your projects.
And the cloud wouldn’t be the cloud without some social features. Besides being able to collaborate on your projects with coworkers, you’ll be able to join communities (think Flickr groups) and share inspiration, work, and tips. You’ll be able to access training and support too—there’s a lot of new mojo packed into the CS6 apps, but Adobe wants to make sure you stay up to speed.
Pretty cool, right? Creative Cloud is available for preorder now. We’ll have a full review in our August 2012 issue, along with the major CS6 apps. Stay tuned!
