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New Photoshop for Android includes Apple potshot

New version of the image editor can be used by other Android apps, and Adobe goes out of its way to say Apple makes that impossible on the iPhone.

Stephen Shankland Former Principal Writer
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Stephen Shankland
2 min read

Adobe Systems released a new version of its Photoshop.com Mobile application for Android phones on Thursday night, an upgrade that came with an apparent attempt to tweak Apple's nose.

'Vignette blur' is of the new editing features available in the version 1.1 of Adobe's Photoshop.com Mobile for Android.
'Vignette blur' is of the new editing features available in the version 1.1 of Adobe's Photoshop.com Mobile for Android. Adobe

The new version gets more editing options. It adds "vibrant" to make photo colors richer and "pop" for a pop-art style. Also new are "soft black and white," "warm vintage," "vignette blur," "white glow," and "rainbow," Adobe said.

But more significantly, perhaps, the mobile editing software also now can be incorporated by other programs on the phone. "Third-party application developers now have access to the Photoshop.com Mobile for Android 1.1 editor, allowing them to easily make it a part of their applications," Adobe said.

This is where the Apple potshot comes in--a notable move given a public squabble over Apple's unwillingness to include Adobe's Flash Player on the iPhone or forthcoming iPad.

"Unlike iPhone, the Android platform allows us to make the Photoshop.com editor broadly available to developers so they can provide it within any application they are working on. Photoshop functionality can then easily be accessed from an online auction, real estate, or social media application so users can quickly fix photos and make them look their best, before being showcased," Doug Mack, general manager of Adobe's Digital Imaging and Rich Media Solutions group, said in a statement.

The remark is hardly a condemnation of Apple. But I can't remember Adobe ever going out of its way to take sides by calling attention to what Photoshop on Mac OS X can do that it can't on Windows or vice versa.

More details are available at the Adobe site for mobile Android developers.