1. The “full web” has less power to hurt Apple

In the short term, Apple’s competitors will lose the ability to beat consumers about the brow with talk of the “full web” experience that comes with Flash-supporting mobile operating systems like QNX and Android. That’s a good thing for consumers on both sides of the divide, since even mobile Flash support on most devices except the most current, most high-end ones amounted to an unpleasant, laggy, stuttering experience. But the real winner is Apple, since one of the competition’s most distinguishing traits, which is often used to try to make Apple’s platform appear weak by comparison, has now been taken away.

Existing versions of mobile Flash will remain available for devices, but without support from Adobe itself, it’s hard to tout that as much of an ecosystem advantage. Especially when Adobe admits the superiority of, and will support efforts to improve HTML5 technology for cross-platform content.

2. More content coming to an iOS device near you

Now that there’s only one game in town, companies who operate websites have no option but to make their content compatible with the most popular portable devices. For mobile browsing, iOS is the most-used platform. Now, there’s no excuse to wait and watch: Even if Android does eventually win out and take the lion’s share of mobile visits, HTML5 will be the content delivery vehicle of choice.

Since Adobe will also be actively promoting HTML5 as a solution for mobile devices, there’s also no one trying to work against development efforts in that direction. In fact, Adobe will likely work with content provider partners who’d been hanging on to Flash to upgrade to solutions that can deal with both technologies, depending on whether a user is on mobile or the desktop, like Flash Media Server 4.5.

3. A Flash-less desktop future

Apple no longer ships Flash pre-installed on its Mac systems, and some users find that installing it themselves can negatively affect battery life and performance. The full version of Flash might be the next to fall, however, now that its mobile cousin is no more.

As Aral Balkan pointed out on Twitter, “No Flash Player for mobile platforms means don’t use Flash on websites, period.” The statement makes sense, since mobile access is becoming an increasingly important way that users come to web content. Mobile Internet is predicted to eclipse wireline access by 2015, and mobile browsing is already overtaking desktop browsing in some markets.

Live streaming is another area where Adobe is losing out to Apple. Apple’s HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) is becoming a popular option for connected televisions, as well as the default tech of most streaming content providers. That’s just one more reason users will soon be able to do without Flash, no matter the platform.

Long story short, Adobe’s capitulation is great news for Apple, since it no longer has to fend off accusations of presenting a “limited” version of the web, and for Apple users, since content providers would actually have to actively go out of their way to make content that doesn’t work on iOS devices going forward. Even Adobe wins, since it no longer has to devout resources to bailing out a boat with way too many holes in its rusty hull.

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Of course, all of that comes with a price, and a recurring one at that. Carousel is a subscription service that ordinarily costs $99 per year (or $9.99 per month) but that is available at an introductory price of $59.99 (or $5.99 per month) annually. Luckily, Carousel also comes with a 30-day free trial subscription so you can see if you’re into what the service is selling.

Isn’t this just Photo Stream?

It’s understandable to assume that Carousel and Photo Stream are basically the same. Both advertise the ability to sync your photos across devices. But Carousel is actually quite a bit more sophisticated. It offers impressive yet easy-to-use editing tools (which use the same tech found in Adobe’s Lightroom program) on any device you happen to be using, as well as ample sharing options.

Editing

Carousel’s editing choices are impressive. There are a number of quick-hit filters you can apply with a single click (17 in total), which act like Instragram filters to give your pictures a stylish and distinctive look. You can also quickly adjust white balance, exposure and contrast (including using auto settings for the first two), and you can crop and rotate your photos on any platform (iPhone, iPad and Mac all have similar but specifically tailored interfaces).

All editing is nondestructive, too, so you can peel back effects at any time and restore your original image. This also allows you to compare various effects with others when applying filters. It’s remarkably powerful and very easy to use.

Sharing

Photo Stream is great for automatically keeping all of your photo libraries the same, but it doesn’t offer you much in the way of sharing photos beyond the service, outside letting you email, tweet or message images. Carousel also lets you share individual photos directly via email and Twitter and also via Facebook and Tumblr.

Also, you can share an entire Carousel (you can create up to five on one account) with a person or up to five people. Users will be notified via email that they’ve received access, and they can then check out the full gallery by downloading and installing one of the Carousel apps on any platform. It’s a huge advantage over Photo Stream in my opinion, and one many MobileMe Gallery users are likely missing from Apple’s iCloud offering. You and people you share Carousels with can also tag images as favorites, so that you can see which they like most and vice versa.

Control

Photo Stream has taken a lot of flak for the absence of a delete option for single photos (you have to reset your stream completely to erase them), and Carousel doesn’t make the same mistake. You can individually delete any photo you add; just hit the share button and a big red delete button also appears.

You also don’t automatically add every photo you take to Carousel, as you do when Photo Stream is turned on for iOS devices. Instead, you select them from your phone’s image gallery and camera roll. Imported photos are then grouped by date (something I do wish could be tweaked). For some who appreciate the automatism of Photo Stream, this will be a drawback, but for people who want control over what does and doesn’t go to the cloud, it’s a plus.

Great service, but is it worth it?

For a just-launched service, I was amazed that Carousel was so easy to pick and jump into, and that it worked out of the box exactly as advertised. There were no launch-day hiccups or syncing issues, and inviting others to check out my shared galleries worked smoothly, too. There’s no doubt, for me, that Adobe has produced something better than Photo Stream (it feels like what Photo Stream should have been), but the only question that remains is, Is it something I’d be willing to pay for long term?

There are lots of free options for sharing and storing photos, and even basic services like Flickr can accomplish a lot of what I want to do with Carousel’s sharing features. But Carousel really impressed with how slick it is and how much control it provides a user over what gets posted and who can see it. Adobe also did a great job of taking the most important Lightroom features and packaging them in a simple, accessible way for the average consumer.

In the end, I’m leaning toward signing up because I can already tell this will be the perfect tool for sharing photos with my far-flung family members in a more private way than other alternatives, and because in addition to the existing iOS and Mac apps, Adobe has promised that Android and Windows versions are in the pipeline, too. True cross-platform photo management, editing and sharing that lives in the cloud and works well is definitely something I can get on board with.

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The new version of Flash Media Server will repackage content automatically for Apple’s mobile products, which lack Flash support, and implement HTTP Dynamic Streaming or HTTP Live Streaming, both of which are compatible with iOS. In theory, that should allow iOS to have its cake and eat it too, meaning future Flash content will playback on iOS devices, without the slowdowns and battery drain that are part of what made the technology unappealing to Apple to begin with.

Basically, Adobe is making changes to Flash Media Server in order to once again make it an appealing option for video publishers, by serving their actual needs instead of struggling with Apple in an unproductive either/or relationship. It’s something Adobe has been doing across its product lineup lately, with its Flex and Flash Builder tools for apps, and also with the Adobe Digital Publishing suite for digital magazine publications.

Adobe will continue to offer Flash, of course, but this is a clear acknowledgement that different solutions are necessary for the growing category of mobile video, which is dominated by Apple devices. Apple called this future, refused to waver, and now Adobe is wisely bending in response in order to remain relevant. While this is incontestably a win for Apple, it’s also a big step forward for Adobe, since now content producers and publishers won’t have to look elsewhere in order to serve the entire mobile market.

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Carousel was unveiled at Adobe’s Photoshop World 2011 conference this morning. It’s a new app for iPhone, iPad and Mac that will leverage Photoshop Lightroom technology to offer image fine-tuning and adjustments on all platforms, as well as automatic syncing, sharing and browsing of your collection via the cloud. Increasingly, the cloud is becoming the tent pole of mobile software, as we’ll see discussed in detail at Mobilize 2011. If you take a picture on one device, it should be available on all others immediately and automatically, according to Adobe. Edit on one device, and those edits are also shared, but your originals won’t be lost since Adobe’s tech uses non-destructive editing tech.

The catch is that Carousel won’t be free. When it launches later this month, it will cost $60 per year or $6 per month as a subscription service. That’s the introductory price; it goes up to $100 per year or $10 a month after Jan. 31, 2012. That’s quite a bit more than the one-time fee associated with most existing iOS or Mac photo editing apps, and it’s more expensive than the similar iCloud service, which provides free syncing of photos through Photo Stream, as well as the ability to purchase more storage for between $20 and $100 per year. Google+ also offers basic mobile photo syncing for free through its iOS application, though in a far more limited form.

Adobe’s offering provides more powerful editing tools, as well as sharing options that allow up to five non-Carousel members to collaborate on individual photos or a library of photos for free. Non-subscribers get a special download link for a single install of the app of their choice and can view and edit photos in shared albums. With Photo Stream, your options for collaboration are more limited; you can share through external social networks, but that’s about it, and Carousel has that angle covered, too; you can share to Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr from within the apps.

Carousel definitely offers more than Photo Stream, but it also isn’t integrated at the OS level like Apple’s offering will be, so you’ll have to go to apps to use it. It also might be more muscle than the average mobile photographer needs, at a higher price than they’re willing to spend, though I can easily see the appeal for pro photographers who need to work with distributed teams on a regular basis. But Adobe is clearly targeting consumers, and talks mostly about uses average folks might have for the service, like creating and sharing family photo libraries.

You can sign up now to be notified when the service goes live, and Adobe is offering a 30-day free trial before you have to start paying for Carousel. Anyone interested in getting this level of control over your personal photo cloud, or are Apple’s upcoming built-in iOS features good enough?

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According to Adobe, its Digital Publishing Suite will be able to output files that are automatically detected by Newsstand and included among the titles that appear there. Adobe is touting Newsstand as a better way for publishers to promote and sell their periodicals. It’s definitely true that Newsstand, with its integrated “Store” button and automatic display of the most recent issue’s cover, should make it easier for iOS users to discover and engage with magazine content.

Adobe’s backing should help Newsstand’s stock of available titles considerably, since quite a few publishers, including Condé Nast and Reader’s Digest employ the Digital Publishing Suite in creating their iPad magazines. The Suite is marketed by Adobe as a one-stop solution for publishing to iPad, Android and BlackBerry tablets, and Newsstand support should also help it attract more customers who are thinking about how best to approach making the leap to tablets.

Support for Newsstand should be rolling out shortly after iOS 5 gets its general public release, which should be sometime in the next couple of weeks. It’s a sign of the appeal of iPad publishing that Adobe, whose popular Flash platform for online dynamic content was entirely blocked from iOS devices, is now helping spearhead new initiatives by Apple.

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The real coup here is that Amazon has top-tier offerings from Microsoft and Adobe, including Office for Mac 2011 and Photoshop Elements 9. Amazon’s web store also has more current game offerings from major publishers, like Dragon Age 2, Civilization V and Sims Medieval. Game offerings on the Mac App Store tend to be older, and therefore compatible with a wider range of Mac computer hardware.

As with the Mac App Store, much of the user input required for installation is taken out of the process, making it remarkably easy for even beginner users to buy and use titles. Unlike the Mac App Store, though, Amazon’s offering is part of its existing website, and requires no software beyond a web browser to operate.

Titles you buy from the Mac Download Store remain available for unlimited re-download and installation through Amazon’s Games and Software Library, but the number of computers you can use the software on will vary depending on the software publisher’s preference. Downloads all include sizes, and download time estimates based on your connection.

Amazon is clearly interested in the idea of becoming a one-stop app shop for multiple platforms. It introduced its Amazon Appstore for Android devices earlier this year, and it already offers direct downloads for PC software and games. It’s a good time to be in the direct download business, since boxed software sales have been slipping for quite some time.

Apple seems to want to promote the Mac App Store as the preferred distribution method for some of its own software at least, so I wonder whether it will welcome a strong competitive model from Amazon. With its existing customer base and, I imagine, less particular restrictions about the software it offers for sale, Amazon will be an attractive choice for software publishers and developers, and it seems to have the backing of some big fish already.

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Color Lava ($2.99)

Finding the right color or color scheme for design work or image editing in Photoshop can be tricky, and may be especially so for artists used to mixing paint using traditional media. Color Lava attempts to mimic this experience using the iPad’s touch interface, allowing you to create and store color palettes and instantly set the foreground color in your desktop Photoshop installation.

The app provides a color wheel featuring the three primary and three tertiary colors, as well as shades of black and grey. You also have access to a virtual water tray for cleaning your digital “brush,” and to help you blend the colors you already have on your working palette. You can mix colors and tap different areas to create a five-color scheme which you can save to the app for later use. You can also use photos from your camera roll or other on-device albums to draw colors for use in schemes.

Color Lava works well, is simple and self-explanatory, and even provides some interesting visual enhancements like animated ripples in your water tray and 180 degree rotation support (though only landscape modes are supported). Once you set up your Photoshop connection (you must be on the same Wi-Fi network), setting your foreground color is incredibly easy.

Adobe Nav ($1.99)

This is the app that has the most integration with the desktop version of Photoshop. Adobe Nav essentially provides an iPad-based toolbar for your desktop Photoshop install. It has all the tools you’ll normally find in your left-hand PS toolbar column, and includes the ability to edit the configuration to include any commands available to that toolbar. The app also provides a foreground/background color switcher, a one-button Screen Mode toggle, and a one-button zoom to return the image to Actual Pixels magnification.

The ability to completely customize which commands are available on your 4 x 4 grid makes it very easy to line up your most commonly used Photoshop tools for quick and easy access. You can have Gradient Fill and Fill Bucket side-by-side, for instance, instead of having them as an either/or nested toggle the way they are in a default Photoshop installation. The one-touch commands Adobe provides are also great choices, although I’d appreciate the ability to bring up a basic color picker in the app itself, or to customize which zoom magnifications appear by default.

Adobe Nav also provides a thumbnail viewer that allows you to switch between your currently open Photoshop documents with a single tap. This is a terrific addition for Photoshop users who often have many files open at once. Trying to cycle through open images to find one only by name is a chore, and this eliminates that completely.

Adobe Eazel ($4.99)

Of the three apps, Eazel represents the most innovative from a control perspective. The app provides nothing but a blank canvas by default, and you bring up controls by tapping the screen with five fingers simultaneously and then lifting all fingers except the one associated with the tool you want to alter. These include color, brush size, opacity and settings.

The interace is very different, but it is also surprisingly easy to get a handle on. I’m by no means an artist, yet I was able to come with the reasonable facsimile of some kind of fruit you see in the screens. The feel is decidedly watercolor, and there’s no way to change that, but it’s a good tool for sketching out ideas or for doing some amazing digital painting for more capable artists.

Eazel’s connectivity with the desktop version of Photoshop is limited to the ability to push images from the iPad app to Photoshop wirelessly, preserving layers (though only a foreground and background layer are currently possible in the app). Even though you can’t manipulate the image on the iPad after its sent to Photoshop, it’s a handy function for users who want to create on mobile and edit on desktop. Also, it’s early days and really just serves to hint at what Adobe’s Photoshop Touch API is capable of.

Good Now, Better Later

Adobe’s apps are impressive. They integrate easily with the desktop version of Adobe Photoshop (so long as you have Version 12.0.4 or higher), and they make working with the software either easier or more interesting. Color Lava and Adobe Nav in particular should find their way into the every day workflows of many iPad-toting Photoshop professionals and amateur enthusiasts. Eazel’s appeal is more limited, but it will probably do well among those who have a need for it.

The apps are simple, easy to connect (and they automatically reconnect upon reopening after a few uses), and they show how powerful Adobe’s Photoshop Touch API is. In addition to being useful tools on their own, they also whet the appetite for what’s to come. Tight desktop/second screen integration will be one of the ways in which major traditional software companies ride the post-PC wave, and the first crop of Photoshop Touch apps are a great example of that integration.

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Tablets and other mobile devices acting as unique, flexible control surfaces that can act with or without direct connection to their parent programs is an area that so far has only been lightly explored. Perhaps that’s because much of the focus so far has been on whether or not post-PC devices can truly operate independently of traditional computers. In our haste to prove they can, we may have overlooked the fact that sometimes, hardware codependence is a beautiful thing. Other software companies should take a close at what Adobe is doing here and see if something similar wouldn’t benefit their own products. Even Apple’s Final Cut video editing software cut definitely benefit from something similar.

Photoshop Touch will first be implemented in three official Adobe apps scheduled for May release, called Eazel, Color Lava and Nav. Each app essentially transforms your iPad into an additional control device or surface for your desktop-based installation of Adobe Photoshop. Adobe certainly isn’t the first to attempt this (there are apps that act as control surfaces for video and audio editing software, too, and even apps that work as game controllers), but it is probably the largest and most influential company to do so, and it has also gone a step further and made these tools available to third-party developers for use with its software.

The apps Adobe showed off work in a couple different ways. Nav allows you to create a custom tool palette, and also use a color picker and zoom controls. You can flip through open Photoshop files, and open files directly from your iPad in your desktop Photoshop installation. Nav is pure companion app, and doesn’t exist independently of Photoshop on the desktop.

Eazel and Color Lava, on the other hand, can work both with or without Photoshop itself being open. Eazel is an independent iPad painting app that very accurately simulates physical paint media (if the demos are any indication). It works independently, but allows you to transfer your paintings to Photoshop at any resolution, which means you can resize for print without any loss of quality. Color Lava, as its name suggests, is all about creating color palettes and swatches. These can later be synchronized with your desktop Photoshop, or it can be used in real-time with Photoshop open.

There’s also a video demo (see below) of one third-party Photoshop Touch app by Shawn Welch making the rounds (via MacRumors). It looks to act as a high-level management tool for all Photoshop installations on a given network. For example, you can open images simultaneously on all connected computers, and you also have very granular control over every individual running instance of Photoshop. Looks like a very handy tool for design studio art directors.

The apps previewed by Adobe show the company has been thinking carefully about how to extend interfaces to mobile devices in a way that makes sense. Each of the apps seems to work particularly well with a touch interface, and they do much more than treat the iPad as just another keyboard or mouse. These apps may leave some design professionals wishing the iPad had pressure-sensitive input (I know I was thinking wistfully of the Wacom-penabled Axiotron Modbook), but to dismiss them because of those kinds of hardware limitations is a mistake.

Adobe announced the Photoshop Touch apps and SDK alongside its CS5.5 paid mid-cycle upgrade, but according to the company’s official press materials, Touch apps will work with existing installations of Adobe Photoshop CS5 thanks to a free patch available May 3, 2011. I’m happy Adobe isn’t limiting the availability of these new features to CS5.5 customers, and I can’t wait to see how they work in an actual photo-editing workflow. Does anyone else think Adobe’s on the right track here?

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Adobe now has its own tool for creating deployment packages of its CS5 products for OS X computers. The Adobe Application Manager Enterprise Edition (AAM) may be a mouthful, but it’s a blessing to those of us who have been waiting for such a tool to arrive. It allows you to create a custom install package file using your CS5 media. Not only that; it will allow you to bundle updates into the install or create a separate update package. I’ll walk through both of these operations.

Creating a Custom Package Install

First thing you need to do is download AAM from Adobe’s site. Once installed, insert your CS5 media and run the AAM program. The first screen will present you with the option to create an Installation Package or an Update Package.

1. First, we’re going to do an Installation Package, so select that option. Next, we need to give our package a name, which will become the file name in the end. We need to give it a save location, too, and also pont it to the install media.



2. On the next screen, give it your serial number and click Next.
3. You then can disable any products you don’t want in the package or just let it install everything.
4. Now we get to the heart of it. We have the ability to disable all the different options that are a pain to deal with when deploying a product like CS5. The default settings are good, but I also like to check the “Disable Air…” box also. Updates are shut off so users won’t be constantly bothered by update dialogs.
5. Now we come to the update portion. Unfortunately, the program won’t go out and grab all the available updates for you. They have to be downloaded by hand and added to this window. It’s easy enough though, head over to Adobe’s update site and grab whatever updates pertain to your install. Just click the Add Update button and point it to the DMG files you’ve downloaded.
6. Click Build and go take a break.

When the build is finished, you’ll have a customized PKG file that you can either use to install CS5 remotely using Apple Remote Desktop, or run by hand.

Creating an Update Package

After you’ve created your install package, you should also create an Update Package that you can also run through Apple Remote Desktop to remotely update any existing CS5 installation.

1. Re-launch AAM, and this, time click the Update Package button. Give it a name and a Save To location.
2. Hopefully ,you still have the updates you downloaded earlier when you built the Installation package. Otherwise, head over to Adobe’s update site and grab the updates you want to include. Click the Add Update button, and select the DMG files you want to be a part of this.
3. Click Build, and it should complete itself rather quickly.

That’s all there is to it. I hope Adobe stays on this track and continue to provide tools that make it easy for us admins to deploy its products in the future. Even if you just want to create a custom installer for yourself in case you ever lose your original install media, this is a great way to do it.

Flash 10.2 requires an Intel Mac with a 1.33 GHz Core Duo processor or better, at least 128MB of graphics memory, and OS X 10.4 or above. Supported browsers are Safari 4, Firefox 3, Chrome 2, and Opera 9.5 and above. According to Adobe, a two-year old Mac mini used less than 8 percent of the CPU playing “smooth full HD 1080p video.”

That sounds like it would be a Mac mini using the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M. Conveniently, I have a unibody 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook with the same integrated graphics solution, so I looked forward to a precipitous drop in CPU usage when playing HD video with Flash. To my surprise, I got it; not 8 percent, but 16 percent playing 1080p video, which is still a big improvement from punishing CPU usage of the past. Unfortunately, the same could not be said of a MacBook Air from 2008 using Intel GMA X3100 graphics card. Even taking into account the difference in CPUs, the same video used 125 to 150 percent the CPU usage of the 1.6GHz Core Duo machine.

The takeaway here is that if your Mac supports hardware acceleration for Flash, Flash 10.2 can provide real gains in performance and better battery life for mobile Macs. Those using Flash 10.1 can test their performance before and after upgrading using test videos from Adobe. It should also be noted that performance gains won’t materialize unless websites update to take advantage of Stage Video, but some sites, like YouTube, already have.

For those who don’t want to tolerate Flash ads, there’s always the blocking plug-in ClickToFlash for Safari. For those with Macs that can’t take advantage of hardware acceleration in Flash 10.2, or for those who just hate Flash, there also a “dual browsing” option. Get rid of Flash on your operating system, use Safari or Firefox for normal browsing, and just use Chrome (which has the plug-in built-in) when you absolutely need Flash.

Steven Frank explains how to remove Flash from Safari. In both your root directory and your home directory, go to “/Library/Internet Plug-Ins” and remove “Flash Player.plugin,” “flashplayer.xpt,” and “NP-PPC-Dir-Shockwave,” (if it’s there). You can create a folder for them like “Internet Plug-Ins Disabled.” Rebooting Safari, you will now see “missing plug-in” where Flash used to play. For workarounds for still being able to play Flash video in Safari, there’s the excellent Safari Extension YouTube5.

However, if your Mac supports Flash 10.2′s hardware acceleration, perhaps it’s time to consider letting Adobe back on your Mac.

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Skype certainly isn’t making itself any friends by blocking these clients. Both boast a large user pool. Nimbuzz is used by 30 million people, on Mac, PC and all major mobile platforms. That’s a lot of people who are finding themselves seriously annoyed at having to look elsewhere for Skype support starting Oct. 31.

I’ve already said that Skype is missing the boat by not prioritizing its Mac and iOS clients above those for other platforms. Skype’s iPhone efforts are one of its major sources of revenue, but now, I think it may be on its way toward being squeezed out of the Apple ecosystem. Even if Apple doesn’t lock it out entirely, as it has done with Flash on iOS, it could render Skype redundant by expanding its FaceTime efforts. In fact, even the planned North Carolina data center could be part of an effort to prepare for increased server demand resulting from FaceTime. Nimbuzz already announced that it would be bringing FaceTime to its client, and it probably won’t be alone.

FaceTime’s arrival on the Mac as a standalone app from Apple also can’t be good for Skype’s prospects. If I can do phone-to-computer or vice versa between Apple-branded products using Apple-branded software, I’m not very likely to go looking elsewhere for a solution. And if Nimbuzz and other multi-service clients expand that capability beyond just Apple-made devices, then I’ll have an end-to-end video and voice calling solution that covers all the bases.

Apple probably won’t move to actively block Skype, but it will give preference to its own solutions first and foremost, like it’s beginning to do on the Mac by not shipping machines with Flash pre-installed in preparation for the arrival of the App Store on OS X. Skype may find itself on the outside looking in, especially if they continue to alienate third-party apps that could guarantee them a continued presence on Apple devices.

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On the agenda were discussions of Apple’s control of the mobile market, and what the two companies might be able to do together to make sure Cupertino didn’t go unchallenged in that space. According to the NYT’s sources, which it cites as employees and consultants to both companies involved with the discussions, one of the topics of conversation was a possible acquisition of Adobe by Microsoft.

In the past, Microsoft had considered an Adobe acquisition, but didn’t think the move would hold up, owing to antitrust fears by industry regulators. Now that Microsoft isn’t the biggest kid on the blog any longer, and considering the rate at which Google and Apple have been buying up companies, an Adobe purchase is probably worth a second look for Redmond.

A spurned Adobe is the perfect target for Microsoft’s overtures. First, Apple’s complete shutout of Flash from its wildly popular iOS mobile platform must mean that Adobe is missing out on an incredible amount of potential revenue. And even though Apple recently relaxed its App Store rules to allow apps created with third-party tools like Adobe’s Packager, Narayen admits that the resulting effect on his company’s bottom line has been negligible.

Whether Microsoft actually does end up acquiring Adobe, or just forms a much closer partnership with the interactive media firm, both would be an effective means of striking at Apple. The Mac-maker’s roots are in creative tech, after all, and Adobe is a huge part of that legacy, whether or not Apple is willing to admit it. Try to find a photography or design professional who doesn’t use Adobe’s Creative Suite in some capacity.

In a worst-case scenario for Apple, Microsoft would buy Adobe, and though it probably wouldn’t be able to make CS Windows platform-specific, it could hobble the software on OS X the same way it seems to have done with MS Office in the past. A slow erosion of Apple’s creative user base could also undermine the reasons it became a success to begin with: “Think Different” is a slogan born of the Mac’s appeal to the artistically minded.

On the other hand, Apple’s focus is moving more and more toward the consumer market and away from creative professionals, thanks to the growing success of iOS devices. It might be content to let the chips fall where they may with Microsoft and Adobe, since neither seems like a significant player in the mobile market at this juncture, even with Windows Phone 7 poised to drop just next week.

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• new advanced editing tools: layer mask, content-aware spot healing
• new organizer software
• improved repair tools
• copy and paste photo “styles,” texture, contrast, tone, tint, etc.
• new guided editing effects: portraits, out-of-bounds, pop art
• improved panoramic photo merging
• create calendars, greeting, cards, and photo books for printing or purchase
• more sharing options, including Facebook, Flickr, and Adobe Online albums

However, the bulk of the program really boils down the first two points: the organizer and a couple of editing tools.

Adobe Elements Organizer 9 replaces the previous Bridge software, but it’s clearly designed as an iPhoto replacement, too. Organizer can access the iPhoto library, copying photos into its own directory in the Pictures folder of your User directory.

Like iPhoto, Organizer scans photos for faces and other attributes, and automatically tags them, often with similar mixed results. Also like iPhoto, Organizer has editing features like automatic color and levels, as well as the one-button Smart Fix, which is much better than Enhance in iPhoto. As in iPhoto, you can make cards and books, as well as share photos online, though not with MobileMe. If it weren’t for the lack of integration with MobileMe and iTunes syncing (which isn’t Adobe’s fault), I’d switch to Organizer in a heartbeat.

In terms of editing, to my surprise, I found Layer Masks. Until now, that’s been an “advanced” feature found only in Photoshop. Even better, the Spot Healing tool is now content-aware. Using that tool, it took four stokes to remove the unwanted people in the waterfall photo above. The Spot Healing tool draws on surrounding content, so the bigger the “spot,” the less impressive the results. Still, it’s a nice feature.

If there’s one problem with Photoshop Elements 9, it’s probably the price: $79 after an annoying $20 mail-in rebate. While that’s over $500 less than Photoshop CS5, it’s also the price of iLife ’09, which includes the adequate iPhoto along with iMovie, iWeb and GarageBand. Luckily, there’s a 30-day free trial that lets you judge for yourself. If you’ve tried both, let us know which you prefer in the comments.

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The announcement of Premiere puts Adobe in direct competition with Apple’s iMovie application that ships with every new Mac. This obviously begs the question, why would you choose Premiere over iMovie? Having just downloaded and installed Premiere, I don’t have the answer yet.

What I can say is that iMovie and Premiere seem very much alike in function and appearance. Both applications tout ease of editing, basic special effects, and simple sharing with online services as their primary draws.

Installing and launching Premiere is a bit odd, unless you are used to the Adobe way of doing Mac apps. The download is 1.84GB, which expands to 3.3GB after installation. After launching, Premiere shows a blank screen with a row of buttons at the top. Clicking on the house button launches a separate application called the Adobe Premiere Welcome Screen.

Adobe Premiere Elements 9

Even based just on this slightly confusing experience, I think Premiere will face stiff competition from the incredibly user-friendly iMovie and iLife suite.

As mentioned, Photoshop Elements 9 is also available for download, and includes some great features from Photoshop CS5. This quote from Adobe’s press release mentions one feature alone that could be worth the $99 price tag:

Adapted from Photoshop CS5’s celebrated Content Aware Fill feature, the content intelligence in the Spot Healing Brush analyzes what’s in the image and quickly de-clutters or repairs photos (like removing tourists from a crowded scene) with a swipe of a brush, magically filling in the background.

Photoshop Elements 9 and Premiere Elements 9 are available from Adobe for $99 each, or as a bundle for $149.99.

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The incomplete plans, known as the Digital Agenda, not only aim to redefine how antitrust rules are practiced, but also hope to see an overall improved digital economy in place by 2020. In order to reach this goal, the EU plans to work with a number of individual companies, relevant organizations and governments. The efforts carried out with these various groups will involve working through seven key points. The second point of this seven-part plan is one which may be of concern to Apple.

Point two of the Digital Agenda highlights the need for set standards and interoperability between devices. It specifically states:

The internet is a great example of interoperability — numerous devices and applications working together anywhere in the world. Europe must ensure that new IT devices, applications, data repositories and services interact seamlessly anywhere — just like the internet. The Digital Agenda identifies improved standard-setting procedures and increased interoperability as the keys to success

How This Could Affect Apple

It’s no secret that the European Union isn’t shy to flex its muscle when it comes to competition rules. In the past, it has fined various industry heavyweights including Intel and Microsoft. In fact Microsoft has found itself in the firing line on multiple occasions.

[inline-ad align="right"]But what could the Digital Agenda truly mean for Apple? Comments from European Union commissioner Neelie Kroes hint that she is giving Apple’s business practices a serious review. According to a report from Rethink Wireless, the commissioner has concerns that the current smartphone market is too closed, detailing that consumers are currently limited when coming to choose what software is present on their selected handset.

With the Digital Agenda in place, dominant market figures, such as RIM and Nokia, will not be the only ones to receive official practice reviews. Figures that are deemed significant, such as Apple, will also be called upon. Kroes detailed that:

“…significant market players cannot just choose to deny interoperability with their product. This is particularly important in cases where standards don’t exist. This is not just about Microsoft or any big company like Apple, IBM or Intel. The main challenge is that consumers need choice when it comes to software or hardware products.”

With Kroes’ comments in mind, it seems that Apple’s banning of Flash could come under serious investigation from the EU. Other blogs have speculated on how the Digital Agenda’s rules may apply beyond Apple’s Flash ban. Some have suggested that this digital strategy could be applied to change the closed nature of iPhone development via Xcode, whereas others have expressed thoughts on how iTunes’ restrictive style could be an issue — especially considering the whole Palm Pre syncing drama.

With the U.S. Fair Trade Commission looking into Apple’s ban on Flash and the European Union also casting an authoritative eye over the issue, it will be interesting to see how Apple would handle the Flash ban if any official body were to make a move.

Whatever happens, with both Apple and Adobe picking and choosing both open and closed formats and practices, one thing is clear: nobody’s perfect.

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Have they been under a rock the past three years? Didn’t the FCC inquiry regarding Google Voice get the iPhone on their radar? No. But apparently Steve’s letter got them all excited.

Their “concern” (if the NY Post rumor is true) is that somehow Apple is “forcing” developers to use only Apple approved development environments and therefore are locking out companies like Adobe from the iPhone app development platform. Talk about missing the point! There’s a heck of a lot more important things concerning the iPhone for the government to inquire about.

Of all the concerns to have…

I don’t think it’s a major stretch to say most iPhone developers are much more concerned about Apple actually approving their apps rather than what development environment is used to write the apps. Apple wants stable and reliable iPhone apps and by restricting the development tools, it protects its market share by protecting the iPhone and insuring developers don’t use middleware like Adobe’s Flash cross-compiler. Apple’s terms are clearly stated in the developer agreement and developers don’t have to develop apps for the iPhone. There are plenty of other platforms out there. Developers, of course, can use “web apps” which were the only type of apps available the first year of the iPhone. The mystery and randomness behind which apps are approved and which are either not approved or put in purgatory (Google Voice) hasn’t become a concern of either the DOJ or FTC.

If this, why not that?

If these agencies want a piece of the iPhone pie, how about looking at other aspects of the iPhone ecosystem? Apple isn’t just locking out Adobe from iPhone development, it locks out other companies from various parts of the iPhone OS as well. The Fed got all in a huff back in the late 1990s about users being able to choose the default browser and search engine on the Windows platform, but iPhone users are stuck with only a limited choice between Google and Yahoo searches on their iPhone. Browser choice is limited as well. Sure, you can use an app like Opera, but if you want to make it your default app for web links you might as well go pound sand. Why is this limitation of choice OK on the iPhone but not in an OS like Windows?

While the Feds are looking at the bundling issue, why not open an inquiry into the bundling of iLife with all new Macs? As a buyer, if I want to use, say Adobe Photoshop Elements or Premiere Elements, I still have to have iLife installed. I can’t buy a Mac without it. Other products like Adobe Reader are completely unnecessary on the average consumer Mac. Same goes for Google’s products such as Picassa or Chrome. AOL will want their 2 cents when AOL Instant Messenger and Netscpe were supplanted by Safari and iChat. When Microsoft does these “forced defaults” on Windows machines, it’s been a subject of inquiry, but when Apple does this on the iPhone and the Mac platform, how is it not a concern? Mess with Flash though, and you have two federal departments jockeying for inquiry rights!

To even consider going after Apple for any antitrust issues is outrageous when they have less than a majority of the market as Charles reported recently. How can any company be accused of anti-competitive behavior when they don’t even have a majority of said market?

These agencies, of course, are also ignoring how Adobe Flash became the preeminent multimedia format on the Internet: through their purchase of Macromedia as well as other buyouts that killed all other competitors to Flash. Microsoft’s Silverlight pales in comparison to the ubiquity of Flash on the Internet. The DOJ had their chance to weigh in on this issue back in 2005 when they didn’t object to the Adobe purchase of Macromedia. The fact that the iPhone won’t ever run Flash apps is the DOJ’s and Adobe’s own fault. They had their chance to get involved. They made this problem and Apple’s fixing it.

What is this really about? An argument about multiple federal bureaucracies trying to make a name for themselves by attacking a popular product. Apple has done nothing wrong here and section 3.3.1 is mild compared to other things Apple has done. Maybe some powerful federal bureaucrat’s kid is really upset at not being able to play Facebook games like Farmville on their iPhone, and thus, here we are.