Adobe Pushes Into Tablet Space With 6 New Apps And “Creative Cloud”

Adobe’s had a busy day. Along with the acquisition of Nitobi Software and TypeKit, the company has also made a clear push into the tablet space, looking to bolster content creation. At the Adobe MAX 2011 conference in Los Angeles, Adobe officially announced the Creative Cloud — its very own cloud storage offering — along with with six new Adobe Touch apps for Android tablets and the iPad.

Creative Cloud lets users sync, share and view files from both the Adobe Creative Suite (desktop) and the Adobe Touch apps. It offers 20GB of free storage, though pricing and availability won’t be announced until November. However, the Creative Cloud (once it’s in action) will certainly boost the value of the six new Touch apps, most notable of which is Adobe Photoshop Touch.

Here’s a quick run-down of each of the new apps:

• Adobe Photoshop Touch: This is the beast of the new apps, since just about everyone can have fun in Photoshop. The app allows users to layer images, edit in most of the same ways they do in Photoshop, and add effects to their imagery. Adobe also added a new feature only available on the tablet-based apps called Scribble Selection Tool. It lets users pull objects from an image by “scribbling” over what to keep first, and then over what should be removed. Facebook and Google Search have also been integrated with the app, letting users search for images and share their creations quickly.
• Adobe Collage: This app seems pretty cool. It lets users collect images, drawings, and text to build what Adobe is calling a “mood board.” It features a customizable pen which allows for four different types of drawing, along with the ability to import photos, add text, and apply color themes. Thanks to Adobe’s new cloud-syncing tool, users open up these files in Photoshop and do what they will with them.
• Adobe Debut: This one’s for the creative professional. Adobe Debut offers a way to present clients with tablet-friendly versions of Creative Suite files, including Photoshop layers and Illustrator art boards. From there, clients can give feedback using the markup pen tool, which adds notes and drawings right on top of the work.
• Adobe Ideas: Adobe Ideas is a vector-based drawing app on steroids. With either a stylus or finger, users can doodle to their hearts’ desire, but with the added ability of choosing color themes and importing tablet-friendly images which can function as separate layers.
• Adobe Kuler: This app pulls from Adobe’s Kuler web-app which lets people create and share different color themes. Within the app, users can create themes based on a single photo, or by simply pulling their favorite shades together. The Adobe Kuler app already has hundreds of thousands of themes ready to roll courtesy of the Kuler community, and users can rate and comment on themes straight from the app. After themes are created they can be exported as color swatches for use in different Adobe projects.
• Adobe Proto: This is the developers’ app. It allows users to develop interactive wireframes and prototypes for mobile apps or web sites. The finished product can be exported in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Just like the Creative Cloud, these new apps won’t roll out until November. Worse, iOS availability seems to be a bit behind, with Adobe expecting to announce iPad availability in early 2012. Each app will cost $9.99 from both the Android Market and the Apple App Store.

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• ADOBE SYSTEMS

Company: Adobe Systems

Website: adobe.com

Launch Date: December 1982

IPO: NASDAQ:ADBE

Adobe Systems Incorporated is a diversified software company. The Company offers a line of business and mobile software and services used by professionals, designers, knowledge workers, high-end consumers, original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partners, developers and enterprises for creating, managing, delivering and engaging with compelling content and experiences across multiple operating systems, devices and media. Adobe distributes its products through a network of distributors and dealers, value-added resellers (VARs), systems integrators, independent software vendors (ISVs) and OEMs, direct to end...

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