When it comes to creatives and creative applications we all like to make cool art and show it off to our peers and people that we respect and can learn from, having technology and an eco-system that supports this, is fundamental for continued success.

The Creative Cloud embraces all of these trends and supports the creative user in their workflow, enables them to be connected at all touch points, as well empowering them to be even more creative anywhere at any time. One of the things i enjoy about the Creative Cloud is the complete freedom to create and be inspired anywhere. For example, I can take a Photograph on my iPhone with Photoshop Touch and upload directly to the Creative Cloud. I can take this image almost immediately and populate a mood board with ideas on the iPad using Photoshop Touch and the extra form factor, then sync to my Creative Cloud account once I have finished. When I next get into the office, I am able to use this directly within Photoshop CC to a remind me of the idea, or add to an image or a piece of art work that I have been working on for a while, which may have been in need of something extra to make it visually compelling. This is something that for me was lacking in a non connected, non free flowing creative world.

Adobe has the unique advantage of having the Creative Cloud services, combined with the power of the desktop tools, as well as connecting the mobile touch apps in a complete transparent workflow.

As we have already mentioned, the Creative Cloud tools were previously disconnected from online services as well as within the local working environment. Most creative users are working with the two licenses that are available. however, one of the challenges is having consistency across both of these environments, i.e. not really supporting a consistent way of working with the tools (i.e. using the same brushes, actions, swatches, preferences etc) in the two environments that they are working in, therefore disrupting the creative process. Previously, to work with the same settings on both computers in your environment, you had to copy the files manually from one to the other, then hopefully the files would work without too much trouble or fiddling about.

(N.B.The 2 software installs as part of your subscription can be installed on a combination of Windows or Macintosh computers as well as across the same type of computer. )

Due to the Creative Cloud and server side computing we are able to connect each of the pure creative CC tools (Photoshop CC, After Effects CC, Premiere Pro CC etc) to have a deep connection to the Creative Cloud’s services, that will enable each applications settings to be synchronised with it’s opposite partner application on the other computer (There is more than just one service, but i’ll focus on sync settings in this post, which i think lies at the heart of the creative process), enabling a seamless working environment where ever you are.

N.B. The sync settings is not going to run all of the time and consume additional bandwidth on your Internet connection, slow your Internet connection or even your computer down, but only when you want to synchronise. Also, the settings will stay on the computer even if one of the computer(s) is/are offline (in accordance with the offline lease of the Creative Cloud), which means you don’t have be connected to the Internet all of the time to use the creative applications, so, you are able to go on your travel trip or away from home and still keep the consistent settings and run the applications as you always have been able to do, and ultimately keep your creative process simple and seamless. 

Focusing on Imaging, I’d like to explain how this synchronisation works with Photoshop CC .

You now have a direct login to the Creative Cloud from within Photoshop CC, and access to Synchronise settings (under the preferences menu option).

The “Manage Sync Settings” will open the following screen

From this menu item you are able to manage which settings you would like to have synchronised with your Creative Cloud account (and eventually other computers).

In this menu option, synchronise can be turned off completely, or able to sync one or a selection of settings (described above). Because there can be up to the two unique computers in your environment, there is a concept of Local and Remote settings.Local settings are for the computer you are currently working on and remote settings are for the other computer. It is also worth while noting that when the settings are synchronised, they are updated without having to relaunch the App. Before the synchronisation is started , the  configuration for managing any conflicts will need to be setup. In the above example you can see the “When conflicts occur”  is set to “Always Ask”, which means if there is a newer version of the settings within my Creative Cloud account, Photoshop CC will prompt me to choose which settings I want to keep (local or remote ones).  The other options that are available are “Keep Local” or “Keep Remote”, this will not prompt you to select which settings you want to use.

(N.B. The preferences will synchronise everything in the preferences panel (including application interface colour, background save etc)).

By clicking the “Manage Account Online” menu option, the Creative Cloud web interface will be launched and will take you into your online account (Adobe ID).

Once you are in the web browser, clicking on the “My Application Settings” will take you to the screen that shows the settings that exist online.

You can see here that there are settings stored for both Photoshop CC as well as After Effects CC. In this case in this example, the settings are from my computer that is in the studio.

The sync settings is also available on each application window, as show in the following picture.

Once the this button is clicked, the following small window will appear, just above it.

Once the “Sync Settings Now” is clicked, a progress bar will be displayed, then Photoshop CC will look at the differences between the Cloud files and your local files and work out the delta between the two. If settings don’t already exist, then it will be created for you, however, if they do and there are differences, then an alert will be displayed informing you that the settings are ready to by synced. If there are conflicts between the computers then you will be notified and prompted to make a choice (if “Always Ask” was turned on”) . If on the conflict you select “Local” then you will keep the local settings and these are synchronised with the Creative Cloud, updating the central settings files, if you choose “Remote” then the remote settings will be applied to the local application.

The sync settings is a great feature in CC which fully utilises the Creative Cloud and enables you to improve your workflow.

MAX keynote opening sequence

One of the best parts of working on the MAX program is watching our keynote general sessions come together.  This year, the introduction to the first keynote on Monday, May 6, was particularly beautiful.  As most of you know, four different artists created their own interpretation of the Adobe MAX identity.  (You can read more about it here).

With four amazing concepts to work with, our keynote producer Nicole Williams worked with Pix Productions to build out an amazing opening sequence.  Says Jeremy Nichols of Pix Productions, “40 projectors, 150 rigging points, one spectacular crew, and a stellar client made this a reality”. View it here.

See more behind the scenes images and video on the Pix Productions Facebook page.

モバイル計測の実装

アプリケーションには自由にユーザーインターフェイスを作ることが出来るため、ウェブサイトにはない特徴/機能があります。そのような機能を有効活用するために、どのようなデータを取得して分析すれば良いのかを説明している記事があります。

• Hybrid Apps: Making Whole Two Halves

ネイティブ（アプリで作成された機能）部分と一部 WebView (アプリ内ブラウザ) が混在したハイブリッドアプリについて、ユーザーの行動を継続してトラッキングするための方法を紹介しています。

アプリからウェブサイト、ネイティブアプリからWebViewへの遷移は、考え方によってはアプリからの流入と捉えることもできますが、サイト上の機能の１つとして捉えることも可能です。

上の記事では１つのレポートスイート内でモバイルのエクスペリエンスを計測する方法として、visitorIDを引き継ぐ方法として、サンプルコードとともに説明しています。

アプリケーションからプッシュ通知（通知センターへのメッセージ通知など）もアプリをリマインドするための１つの有用な方法です。

• Are you measuring your Push Notifications?

こちらは、iOSでプッシュ通知を計測する方法を、サンプルコードと共に解説しています。

しかし、計測だけできたとしても意味がありません。この記事ではさらに、プッシュ通知が、アプリケーション内のアクションに与える影響を分析するレポートの例として、

• プッシュ通知からアプリを起動したかどうか
• どの通知(例: キャンペーン)がアプリの利用、コンバージョンなどに貢献したか
• プッシュ通知を受けたユーザーと受けないユーザーの行動の違い

などがあげられています。

一方、ウェブサイトではスマートフォンに最適化したサイトから、レスポンシブ ウェブデザインを採用するサイトも見受けられるようになりました。

• Responsive Web Design and Web Analytics

この記事では、レスポンシブ ウェブデザインのサイト特有のデータとして、

• エクスペリエンス (例: スマートフォン、またはタブレット用レイアウトなど)
• 画面サイズ
• 画面の向き

を計測する方法と、そこから得られるレポートを紹介しています。

最適化へのステップ

分析の次は最適化です。AppMeasurement には、アプリケーションの計測だけでなく、 Adobe Target（Test&Target） でテストする機能も提供しています。テストにあたってどのようなアプローチを取るか、テスト対象箇所を決めるために考慮することなどは、以下の記事が参考になるでしょう。

• Party like It’s 1999? — Mobile Optimization
• Mobile Optimization Follow-Up

モバイルの最適化へのステップとしては、

1. 注力できるポイントを見つける (モバイルユーザーがどの程度いるのかを知る)
2. モバイル固有の機能 (位置情報、通知機能)を考慮したテスト箇所の検討

があり、記事の中ではテストアイデアがいくつかあげられています (例えば、モバイルデバイスからウェブサイトにアクセスしているユーザーにはアプリの紹介ページヘリダイレクトする、タッチに適したボタンの大きさをテストする、など)。

後者は、Adobe Summit のフォローアップ記事となっており、具体的な質問に答える形で、テスト箇所の見つけ方やサクセスメトリックの定義について解説しています。

モバイル (スマートフォン) は画面が小さく、提供できる情報が限られてしまいます。一方で、(ビジネスにもよりますが)時間帯や位置情報などをもとに、ユーザーのコンテキストが絞りやすくなるという面もあります。ユーザーが「今」求めているものを即座に提供出来れば(The Last Millisecond)、PC 以上に高い顧客ロイヤルティを得られる可能性があります。

今回ご紹介した記事が、モバイルでビジネスを提供する皆さまのヒントとなれば幸いです。

筆者：常泉 正志 アドビ システムズ株式会社 コンサルティング部コンサルタント

クレジットカード決済サービス会社、アフィリエイトサービス事業会社を経て 2012年より現職。コンサルタントとして、Adobe Marketing Cloudでの分析/最適化にあたり、対象となるウェブサイトやアプリケーションで使用している技術に合わせた導入の支援を行なっている。

Yes!!! SiNTLUCAS has a deal with Mike Horsten @ Mimaki Europe, Amsterdam!
Our three students Robert van den Broek (Media Design, Boxtel), Marc van Buul (Digital Publishing, Eindhoven) and Esther van Helmont (Digital Publishing, Eindhoven) will show their Adobe skills for five days at FESPA 2013 in London. FESPA 2013 is the largest focused event for the wide format print industry; encompassing the very latest equipment and consumables in digital printing, screen printing, industrial and garment decoration at the award winning ExCel London Exhibition Centre.
At the Mimaki-stand they’re going to surprise European public with designs for vinyl, acrylic, textile, Forex, Dibond and iPhone-covers. They’re going to do this in their own space in the Mimaki-stand, the Aquarium, and will be followed with a webcam.
A fantastic opportunity for these students to show their skills to the whole of Europe and a great example of collaboration betweent he  business community and education!

JWT/Casa found that using Digital Publishing Suite to develop apps for its clients transformed its business as an agency by improving speed to market, cost effectiveness, and business processes such as internal communications. Below is a clip of Lorenzo Vallone, SVP/CTO at Casa, discussing how DPS can be used to replace traditional app development at an agency.

At the Digital Publishing Summit in New York City, JWT/Casa shared some interesting insights into how DPS has transformed its business.

1)   Interactive storyboarding: The creative team can use the InDesign and DPS interface to quickly prototype the user experience for an app and push it dynamically through Adobe Content Viewer. For an agency, this agile workflow allows them to easily gather feedback from the client on the user experience.

• In one example, GM approached JWT/Casa with an app request on a Thursday afternoon, and JWT/Casa was able to provide the CMO with a prototype the following Monday.
• In another example, a pharma client requested a sales enablement tool for iPad. JWT/Casa did the design, development, and build with DPS in three weeks.

2)   Multi-device development: After using DPS to develop an app for one set of devices, it is relatively easy to change the layout for other devices and operating systems

3)   Developers create special touches: When some of our customers are evaluating DPS as an app development platform, they worry that DPS is going to put developers out of business. Instead, we find that developers are freed up from creating a basic interface, and instead can add special touches to apps, fully utilizing their coding skills.

• In one example, JWT/Casa created the Digital Publishing Summit Event App. Designers handled the basic user interface, but developers added a special “Notes” section to the app. This allowed our audience members to take notes and email them to themselves during the presentation.

I work closely with some of our DPS agency partners, and have heard these same themes time and again: speed to market, cost savings, and a heightened focus on user experience gives clients a competitive advantage that strengthens the agency-client relationship.

• Watch the full video, JWT/Casa: Accelerate App Production on Adobe TV.

Esquire is no stranger to innovative breakthroughs in the digital publishing space—from being one of the first publishers to release their digital issue before their print, to integrating tools like Google Maps and Netpage, and delivering some of the most engaging interactivity out there—they have consistently pushed the notion of what’s possible. These innovations have driven over 1M digital subscribers to date, one of the highest numbers in the industry. And now—Esquire Weekly.

The Weekly will be a mix of all the things Esquire does best–ambitious writing, humor, an advice column of a type no one has ever seen, and celebrations of the things Esquire gets enthusiastic about.

When we asked Mark Mikin, Esquire’s Mobile Editions Editor, why they pursued a weekly edition and how DPS has helped, he had this to say:

“We’ve always wanted to make our iPad edition unique—we never wanted it to just be a replica of our print magazine. One of the ways we do that is by making it rich with interactivity, with a lot of multimedia and a fresh design tailored for the tablet. But another thing we can do on the iPad that we can’t do anywhere else is create a whole new edition. One that’s more frequent, like the Weekly. What’s great is that, with the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite tools, we can create this really quite fast. Which is essential.

We realized people were coming back to our app every day looking for more stuff. And we wanted to give them more stuff, in a magazine format, that would entertain them and keep them in the Esquire universe between monthly issues. And we’re really happy with what we’ve come up with. We hope our readers will enjoy it as much as we do.”

Go team Esquire!

Learn more about Esquire Weekly

Download Esquire now

Previous/related:

• Can you open a Photoshop CC file in CS6?
• You should never lose access to your work, period.

Leading Indian media house Malayala Manorama, which has diverse interests in the print, visual and online media has entered into an agreement with Adobe Systems under a multi-million dollar deal. This agreement is expected to drive digital-transformation initiatives at Manorama, which is pursuing a comprehensive digital strategy.

Manorama Online has been in the online media business for more than 15 years, and this deal would support its preparation for challenges posed by the digital world with constantly developing apps and multitude of devices.

It will leverage Adobe Marketing Cloud to allow for fast and flexible delivery of content across a wide range of devices and platforms, including mobile and social. Adobe Experience Manager and Adobe Analytics solutions, along with consulting services will be used to attain Malayala Manorama’s vision of being a leading digital player in the media and publishing domain. The publishing house will also take extensive advantage of the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite to make its content available on a wide range of devices and platforms. Three of the major highlights of this strategic engagement are:

• Open and cross-platform: Adobe’s next-generation content management platform with open core will help Malayala Manorama integrate different news sources and deliver it seamlessly across mobile, web and social.
• Efficiency in the newsroom: Adobe has integrated its Creative Suite® with Adobe Marketing Cloud to drive efficiencies across Malayala Manorama’s newsroom enabling content reuse from print to web and mobile
• Scalability: Being one of the most-visited news sites in India, Malayala Manorama has adopted a solution which has a small footprint but provides but scalable enough to handle spikes in traffic during key events.

Key Adobe solutions include:

• Adobe Experience Manager: It helps clients organize and manage the delivery of creative assets and other content across their various digital channels.
• Adobe Analytics: It helps clients to see the trends, get key insights, and make strategic decisions that help them customize their brand’s digital experiences, find and create loyal customers, and increase revenue.
• Adobe Digital Publishing Suite: It is a complete solution that lets media and business publishers create, distribute, monetize and optimize publications for tablet devices.

Manorama Online will implement a complete end to end Adobe technology solution that will allow fast and flexible delivery of content across any platform, including mobile and social networks. As more businesses prepare for the fast approaching digital future, Adobe is excited to be part of the transformation of a renowned Indian company. We look forward to seeing the great content and reader experience that Malayala Manorama will deliver across all its platforms.