Yesterday, Adobe presented a keynote address on the next phase of Creative Cloud and their suite of software technologies. Along with this massive update, Adobe is releasing its first hardware ensemble, Ink and Slide. Our incoming president, Julia Sevin, got to test it out first hand at the Leadership Retreat earlier this month where Adobe, an official sponsor of AIGA, was on hand to chat with chapter leaders across the country.
We’ve written a brief summary of the nearly 2 hour keynote and specific highlights. In addition, we have some release notes, an outline of new features that were showcased or mentioned in the keynote address, and a brief opinion of Julia’s experience with the new Ink and Slide products.
Adobe Presents an Apple-style Keynote Address
And…it was 2 HOURS long. So we’ve saved you some trouble and summarized what we think is the important stuff.
The introduction to the keynote featured some well-known designers speaking about the amazing and changing landscape of collaboration and the process of creation. Then transitioned into an opening promo for the 2014 release of Creative Cloud and a welcome from Adobe CEO, Shantanu Narayen. He went on to say, “We at Adobe has a vision to bring together creativity and business.”
Narayan spoke of Adobe’s journey to the cloud and Creative Cloud’s advent, which actually started 5 years ago in development. He continued to assert that Adobe’s business model has changed because they understood that consumers would benefit from staying up to date on the software’s evolutions. He also purported that Adobe was able to predict that the advent of mobile devices would immensely change the creative process, and thus the way their business would be needed. Interesting to note, he cited that they have +10,000 employees at Adobe.
David Wadhwani, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Digital Media, was introduced as the main person pushing Creative Cloud. This is when things got interesting.
- He spoke about the three causes that affected an industry shift: Mobile, Social, and Cloud.
- David noted there was a shift shift in how we consume content and applications; all of the three factors occurred all at once
- Industry notes: in the last 5 years, internet grew in 1.5x, social networking grew 10x, mobile app downloads grew 100x, and cloud storage grew 250x
- Publishers are now featuring live streaming content feeds within their publications
- Consumers are using social media to create their own community
- Marketers are using it all to create different engagement experiences
- Enterprise is working on improving user experience for the benefit of their users.
“The major innovations of the last decade are the commodities of the next decade.”
Wadhwani detailed an interesting point; Adobe conducted their largest survey of creatives to date, making sure it was broad-based. You can view the
summary infographic here. Below are some details from the survey he mentioned during the keynote.
- Creatives responded with their thoughts, saying:
- Pace of change is accelerating (more in 5 years than the prior 50)
- Half are on mobile or developing for mobile, but are unsatisfied with options
- 70% are already building mobile apps
- Many are cross discipline
- Super optimistic; roles are anticipated to significantly change in the next three years to increase importance
- Main Concern: creatives are being asked create more and faster than ever
The nitty gritty.
What’s changing? That’s what you came here for, right? Below you’ll find an overview of highlights mentioned in the keynote.
There will be major updates released to desktop apps.
- Devices and Formats improvements
- Performance GPU enhancements
- Productivity – improved most used features
- More “Adobe Magic” (their nomenclature of the cool new features Adobe puts out to help us produce better work.)
Video Updates:
- Premiere Pro updates
- Workflows
- Direct link to SpeedGrade
- New presets
- Subclips can all be controlled via a Master Clip
- Masking capabilities on every clip with rigid mask tracker from After Effects
Design Updates:
- Focused on productivity, 3D Workflows, and web experiences without code
- Photoshop
- AI / ID Font Replace with TypeKit integration
- Live Preview of Fonts
- Smarter Smart Guides with real time measurements
- Smart Objects are now linked objects
- New Focus Area selection feature
- Improved Layer Comps
- 3D Compositing and Model Control
- Update a 2D model and have it update in 3D
- Path Blur
- 3D Printing integration; Shapeways partnership
- Illustrator
- Pencil Tool improvements
- Pen Tool improvement with projected line; beziers can be manipulated more easily
- Improved Windows OS GUI improvement
- Live Shapes
- InDesign
- Seamless update
- Improved Tables Tool – drag and drop
Dreamweaver
- Live Element Preview
- Live View editing and HTML insert
Muse
- More streamlined process with iteration; several improvements.
Photography Updates: New membership plan for photographers
New Product: Creative Cloud Market
Royalty free assets: Over 40,000 images, video, sound, illustration
Adobe is releasing a new family of mobile apps for free.
Full press release here.
- Adobe Sketch, a social sketching iPad app for free-form drawing.
- Adobe Line, the world’s first iPad app for precision drawing and drafting.
- Photoshop Mix, the most precise app for compositing and masking on iPad.
- Lightroom for iPhone extends recently shipped Lightroom mobile capabilities to the iPhone.
- Creative Cloud for iPad and iPhone, a new app that allows Creative Cloud members to access and manage their files, assets, and more from their mobile device.
And Adobe has announced their first suite of hardware – Ink and Slide.
- Adobe Ink, a beautiful three-sided hydro-formed aluminum stylus for iPad running iOS7. It enables controlled, expressive drawing and connects to Creative Cloud, giving users access to their creative assets – favorite drawings, photos, Adobe Kuler color themes and more – all at the tip of the pen. Built using the Adonit Pixelpoint™ technology, the fine-tipped, pressure sensitive pen is lightweight and balanced for a comfortable grip.
- Adobe Slide, a category-defining digital ruler (and companion to Ink) for iPad running iOS7. Taking a modern twist on traditional tools used before computer graphics and desktop publishing, Slide enables precision sketching – straight lines, perfect circles, and balanced shapes – on iPad.
Learn more about Ink and Slide here or purchase it now.
