If there are two things that Adobe knows like the back of its collective hand, they are photos and mobile software. We don’t know anyone young or old who doesn’t automatically say “Photoshop” when someone mentions photo editing. As for mobile software, Flash Lite currently resides on over 500 million handsets and that figure will only grow. So when Abode told us that today it would be unveiling the first beta version of its photo-centric mobile software, we can’t say we were surprised. After a demo however, we were also pretty excited. In a nutshell, the initial offering of Photoshop.com Mobile will be the third leg in a trifecta of account syncing – allowing you to capture and automatically (or manually) upload images from your mobile phone and have them sync between your mobile, Photoshop Express (online) and Photoshop Elements 7. In other words, your photos are automatically synced across mobile, cloud and desktop / laptop even as you edit and save them. Awesome! If you think that’s not a big deal, go ask Apple how it’s doing with MobileMe. From Francisco Kattan, director, Product Marketing and Developer Relations, Mobile and Device Solutions at Adobe:
With the rising popularity of camera phones and rich Flash based mobile applications, Adobe is giving consumers the ability to share their mobile photos at any time. With Photoshop.com Mobile Adobe is taking the first step to deliver on the promise of rich multi-screen experiences that seamlessly work on the desktop, in the browser and on mobile devices.
When it launches toward the end of September, Photoshop.com Mobile will be available for the following six Windows Mobile devices: Samsung Blackjack I, Samsung Blackjack II, Motorola MOTO Q 9h, MOTO Q Music 9m, Palm Treo 700 w/wx, and Palm Treo 750. More Windows Mobile handsets will be supported by year end 2008 but don’t fret if you don’t have a Windows handset. Adobe has a couple of partnerships in the works including Photoshop Express support for ShoZu that will make certain aspects of the mobile portion of their service available to hoards of additional handsets. Of course this might not offer the same rich experience as its Flash Lite-based Photoshop.com Mobile app but it will defintiely tide us over until more versions are launched. In terms of pricing, the Photoshop.com Basic account which offers 5 GB of storage is completely free while a Photoshop.com Plus membership offers more services such as templates and interactive online albums along with 20 GB of online storage for $49.99.
