Adobe is preparing to bring Illustrator to the iPad, with an official announcement on the release coming next month, a Bloomberg report claimed on Monday.
The arrival of the professional-grade vector graphics editor for the iPad is expected to happen in 2020 and would mark the company’s latest effort in bringing more of its Creative Cloud software suite to Apple’s tablet.
Adobe’s Lightroom, an image organization and manipulation package, is already available, as is Premiere Rush, its video editing tool, and Fresco, the sketching and painting app. Photoshop is also being prepped for release by the end of the year.
Sources with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg this week that the California-based software giant would unveil its plans for an iPad-based Illustrator app during the Adobe Max conference in November.
Adobe declined to confirm or deny the news, saying only: “We have nothing new to share at this time.”
With Adobe already in the process of launching iPad versions of apps in its subscription-based Creative Cloud software suite, it’s easy to believe that it’s prepping a version of Illustrator, too. The move would surely help it to encourage additional subscriptions from professional creators attracted by the idea of having the ability to work on the go using a portable device like the iPad.
The success of Illustrator on iPad would largely depend on the extent of its feature list. This goes for Photoshop, too, with another Bloomberg report recently suggesting that some beta testers were finding Photoshop for iPad disappointing. The report added that the Photoshop app would “lack some key features” when it launches in the coming months, despite Adobe earlier touting the software as “the real Photoshop.”
“Feature-wise, it feels like a beefed-up, cloud-based version of their existing iPad apps and not ‘real Photoshop’ as advertised,” one of the testers told Bloomberg.
But Scott Belsky, chief product officer of Adobe’s Creative Cloud division, was keen to point out that testers were using a beta version and that more features would be added before the official launch. And, of course, new features will be added over time, following the software’s release.
As with Illustrator, Adobe is expected to offer some news on Photoshop for iPad at its upcoming Max conference.