Photoshop.com

Guest Post by Brady Kroupa

UPDATE | 23 November 2009
The updates discussed in this blog post have just been released, and Photoshop.com Mobile for Android is now available globally. If there is an Android Market in your country, you should be able to download the application by clicking here & pointing your phone at the barcode.

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We're very excited that Photoshop.com Mobile for Android, Adobe's first foray into the world of Android, has already proved to be extremely popular in just a week since its release. We especially appreciate all of the compliments and user feedback.
 
The two biggest questions we've received from users are:
 
1)  Why won't your application quit when I kill it with my task manager application?
2)  When will you release Photoshop.com Mobile for Android worldwide?
 
Let me begin by saying: We are listening. We hear your feedback, loud and clear, and we're working hard to respond. We expect to offer an update to our Android application in the very, very near future that will resolve both of these issues.
 
First, here's a brief explanation of what's going on with the application running in the background, i.e., not quitting.
 
One of the nice features of the Android operating system is that we can "Auto-upload" images. Users can choose to enable this feature from Photoshop.com Mobile's "Settings" menu if they want new images to automatically upload to Photoshop.com when taking pictures with the device's camera. This feature works by "watching" the images folder. It does nothing more than wait for new pictures to be added to begin an automatic upload. It actually consumes very little battery or processor resources.

The problem is that this service also runs when the auto-upload feature hasn't yet been turned on by the user. In this case, the service isn't doing anything, i.e. no photos are being uploaded. The app only uploads when the user explicitly asks the application do so in the "Settings" menu.
 
Nevertheless, because of a quirk in the Android operating system, Android will always restart a process that has an active service running, even if the user manually kills the process. Such is the case with our folder "watching" service; Photoshop.com Mobile appears to automatically restart the service even if the user doesn't want it to be restarted.
 
Based on your feedback, we'll be changing this service in future releases to only run when auto-uploading is enabled by the user in the Settings screen. Likewise, turning off the auto-upload setting will turn off the background service.
 
Second, we've seen a huge demand for Photoshop.com Mobile for Android in markets outside of the US and Canada, the only two countries where our application is currently available. We're working hard with the powers that be at Adobe to clear the path to release the application in every country in which there is an Android Market. We think we're almost there, so be on the lookout for an international release (initially in English) of Photoshop.com Mobile for Android shortly.
 
Thanks again for trying our app and providing us great feedback. Look for an update very soon.
 
Brady Kroupa
Photoshop.com Mobile Engineering Lead
 

UPDATE | 23 November 2009

We have just completed the work to make an English language version of Photoshop.com Mobile available internationally for Android and iPhone.

The Android application is now available in every country with an Android Market. The application has also been updated to fix the problem of automatically running in the background. To download the app globally or to patch your application in the US & Canada, click here and point your phone at the barcode.

We have submitted the iPhone version to Apple for approval. Based on the approval of our first version of Photoshop.com Mobile for iPhone, we expect no issues with a final posting to the iPhone App Store.

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Photoshop.com welcomes news, reviews & feedback from our community!

This is a toolkit designed to help bloggers craft their reviews & stay in touch with Photoshop.com online. If you write a review or create a tutorial for the new Photoshop.com Mobile app, send us the link, and we will be posting resources on Twitter & Facebook.

Got questions? Tweet them to us at @photoshopdotcom ~ our engineers are standing by to answer your questions, and we'll be adding FAQ to the bottom of this page.


RESOURCES:

Photoshop.com on Twitter

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Photoshop.com on Facebook

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SCREENSHOTS:










COMMUNITY FAQ:

Tweet your questions to @photoshopdotcom and we will post FAQ here!


Q: How can I download the Photoshop.com Mobile Android app? (via @iusher)
A: Visit our product page and point your Android  phone at the barcode - this should bring you right to the application on the Android Market, where you can download the app for free.

Q: Is the Photoshop.com Mobile Android app available globally? (via @akpetteroe)
A: Currently the app is available for download in the US & Canada, but we're looking into ways to release the app globally. Please stay tuned!

Q: When will Photoshop.com be available for Windows Mobile? (via @1stAngel)
A: It's already available! Check out our product page for Windows Mobile.

Q: Can I upload photos to other photo sharing sites using the Photoshop.com Mobile for Android app? (via @brownpau)
A: Using your Photoshop.com account, you can share photos seamlessly with Flickr, Photobucket, Picasa and Facebook by logging in from your desktop or laptop browser. Currently the Android app does not directly interface with other photo sharing sites, but we've passed this feature request on to our development team!

Guest Post by Brady Kroupa

On behalf of the Photoshop.com Mobile team I'm pleased to share that we've released Photoshop.com Mobile for Android.

It's an exciting time to be a mobile application developer and even more exciting to release Adobe's first direct-to-consumer Android application.
We're very proud of our Windows Mobile and iPhone releases, but Android has allowed us room to add some great new features. Android can handle multi and background processing, so our Android app can simultaneously upload your photos while browsing or editing images. The app offers many of the same editing and sharing features available in Photoshop.com Mobile for iPhone. In addition Android gives us direct access to your photos, allowing us to provide a richer, more integrated browsing and editing experience.

Now is the time to release an app for Android. Lately there's been an
explosion in the number of Android devices hitting the market from HTC,
Motorola, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson, to name a few. Android has really matured and now offers a dynamic and accessible range of features to developers. Throw in an excellent marketplace, top notch development tools, with an open source foundation, and if developers aren't excited now, they will be soon.

We've only just begun. We're already working on adding more editing
features, improving performance, and supporting the latest Android OS enhancements. I can't wait to hear what you think about it.

Brady Kroupa
Computer Scientist Lead, Photoshop.com Mobile

Guest Post by Mark Dahm

Halloween, for better or worse, has become a celebrated event in our household. As a young dad, I naively fed my wife's enthusiasm for All Things Ridiculously Out Of Proportion, forking over considerable time and energy decorating my offspring in countless costumes. We greedily ransacked entire neighborhoods of anything sweet, sour or crunchy, in a wide array of disguises, ranging from Winnie the Pooh, to Starbuck's employees, and even tornadoes (our new puppy played the part of, who else, Toto).

As you're gearing up to celebrate, don't forget that you have friends and family that would love to see the gang, and Photoshop.com is the perfect way to share the experience. Today we are announcing improvements in a number of key areas, including performance, video support and online sharing, all perfectly timed to make your Halloween 2009 a story people will remember.

Faster Photo Uploads and Site Loading:
Uploading photos to Photoshop.com is now twice as fast with the built-in Upload button, or the updated AIR Uploader. Not only can you upload multiple photos at a time, they'll go a lot faster, too.

We dramatically improved the Photoshop.com loading speed for users with larger accounts. If you have 4GB+ of photos, you can now take advantage of our new caching feature. Next time you log in, click Accept when prompted for this feature, wait for everything to load, then sign out and log back in.

Video Sharing and Playback:
For those of you experimenting with video on your digital camera, Photoshop.com is gearing up to help you get videos uploaded and shared as simply as we do for photos today. Now you can include video in albums you link to or embed in other sites (like Facebook or MySpace). The videos will play back right alongside any photos.

Photo Decorate Features:
If your costumes need a little something extra, head on over to the Decorate feature to play with some of the new frames and costume artwork we've added: add a little more art to your works of art.

Photo Sharing Improvements:
To help you control your group albums, we simplified the privacy settings layout, making it easy to pick what's shared publicly and what is private.

With the set of enhancements we announced today, Photoshop.com is getting dressed up for the season.  As my youngest son schemes to go as a Blue Man (Complete with 3 miles of convoluted tubing and a mic!), it's going to be another great set of photos to share this year, and I don't want anyone to miss the fun.  Upload and share your holiday photos with your friends and family and let us know what you think.

Mark Dahm
Principal Product Manager
Photoshop.com

I have to say, these are great days for mobile applications. As someone who has spent most of his professional life developing desktop software, the switch to mobile software development has been, well, refreshing.  Managing the development and defining Photoshop.com Mobile for iPhone is just one of those rare gigs that doesn't roll by that often.

Why is this guy bragging, you ask?  Right now, there are something like 10 bajillion apps on the iPhone AppStore, but none quite like Photoshop.com Mobile for iPhone.

Editing Photos on Your iPhone:

For us, creating the best photo editor means maximizing your image's size on the iPhone screen. We want your images to occupy most of the UI, because your image is really what our app is all about. Our editor is just a tool to help you make your photos look their very best. Unlike some of the other photo apps out there, we didn't get carried away with complexity. Our editing features are gesture-based and focus on the basic fixes that will really make your iPhone photos pop.

Uploading Images:
Our photo uploader is also pretty cool.  We allow for multiple, queued uploads. Pick a bunch of photos, put your phone in your back pocket, and all of your images get uploaded to the Photoshop.com service, (which, BTW, is a helluva deal since it provides 2GB of storage for free).  As a developer, the only thing I wish could be a little different is background processing.  If we get swapped out (like you receive an incoming call), image uploading has to stop. (Note to Apple: we would love to have background processing in some form in a future iPhone OS release.)  Our uploader is only going to get more awesome.  I can't really say too much about this except that one upcoming feature we're considering rhymes with "schmideo".

Remote Viewing Online Photos:

Finally we have a remote viewer.  It's not too shabby.  Let's say you are already a Photoshop Elements user with 10,000 of your personal photos in the Photoshop.com cloud. With Photoshop.com Mobile, you can now view every one of your 10,000 photos directly from your iPhone.  That's one fat digital wallet.  Oh, and then there's photo sharing - you can share remote albums and/or individual photos with others: all you need is their e-mail address.  So at that next cocktail party, you'll be armed with all your "LOL Cats" submissions and summer family camp photos.

Overall, I'm really proud of Photoshop.com Mobile for iPhone.  Great design+development+testing... it all adds up to what I feel is going to be a really nice 1.0 for our users.

Tell us what you think.

Charles McBrian

Engineering Manager, Photoshop.com Mobile
Adobe Systems, Inc.

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