TECH THAT...
A ROUND-UP OF THE LATEST NEWS IN THE DIGITAL WORLD
ADOBE MAX
IT’S been a busy week for Adobe, makers of the world’s leading creative software.
It released, some would say finally, a version of its venerable Photoshop software for Apple’s iPad. Although its features do not yet match those of its desktop counterpart, it will, Adobe says, eventually get there as features are added over time.
The software is free to download from the App Store, but requires an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription, from £9.99 a month, to work.
The release coincided with the Adobe Max conference, where other new ventures were announced.
A new mobile app, Photoshop Camera, is on the way, which will do some of the things Photoshop is known for in post-production in the app as you take images. Then came the news that the vector drawing app Illustrator, is also coming to the iPad “by the end of next year”.
The most impressive thing demoed at the event, though, was the new AI subject tracking crop system that is now part of Adobe’s video editing app Premiere Pro.
You can now reframe video with a different-shaped crop and the software will ensure the subject is tracked and always in frame – useful when making video for different social networks with different aspect ratios and orientations.
APPLE TV+ LAUNCHES
APPLE TV+, the video streaming subscription service from the iPhonemaker, launched this week with a fairly limited, but impressive selection of programmes.
Just seven shows are available at launch, with the headline blockbuster being Jennifer Aniston (pictured) and Reese Witherspoon’s The Morning Show.
Other titles include See, set in a world where everybody is blind, Dickinson, a teen coming-of-age drama about the poet Emily Dickinson, and For All Mankind, a drama that wonders what might have happened if the Russians had been first to the Moon. There are shows aimed at children, too, including Snoopy In Space, in which the cartoon dog tries to join NASA.
Reviews have been mixed for most programmes – but I’ve seen the first episode of The Morning Show, and l’ll certainly be watching the second.
Apple TV+ costs £4.99 a month, or free for 12 months when you buy a new iPhone, iPad, Mac or Apple TV.