Full Photoshop is Coming to the iPad: Report

Adobe is bringing the full version of Photoshop to the iPad. That’s what a new report has revealed, stating that the move is part of Adobe’s new strategy to make its full software compatible across multiple devices (and to further increase its booming subscription sales).

Bloomberg first broke the news, reporting that the full Photoshop app is currently scheduled to hit the iTunes App Store for the iPad sometime in 2019, but the app itself will be announced later this year in October at the annual Adobe MAX conference.

Adobe Creative Cloud CPO Scott Belsky confirmed the development of a cross-platform Photoshop (and other Creative Cloud apps) to Bloomberg without providing a timeframe, saying: “My aspiration is to get these on the market as soon as possible. There’s a lot required to take a product as sophisticated and powerful as Photoshop and make that work on a modern device like the iPad.”

Adobe already makes photo-editing software for the iPad, but Photoshop Express, Photoshop Fix, Photoshop Mix, and Lightroom Mobile are stripped-down apps that are designed specifically for mobile devices. A full version of Photoshop on the iPad would provide photographers with far more features and power.

Since Apple’s MacBook lines of laptops don’t feature touchscreens, full Photoshop on the iPad would also allow photographers and retouchers to move their post-processing over to their tablets and use a stylus pen such as the Apple Pencil for hands-on editing.

Having full Photoshop would also bring Apple’s iPad more in line with Microsoft’s Surface tablets, which run full Windows 10 and therefore can already the desktop version of Photoshop. The fact that even iPad Pro tablets only run iOS and a selection of mobile-only photo editing apps has limited the iPad’s potential for photography professionals.

By launching for the iPad, Photoshop could become the single dominant photo editing app on that device as it is for Mac and MacBook users.