As of now, the Flash Player update will only be available to users with Ice Cream Sandwich devices. Basically, that means anybody with a Samsung Galaxy Nexus, which was released through Verizon this week and has already sold out at most stores.

Here is the list:

• Seeking while video is paused will not update the frame on ICS device
• StageVideo using On2 and Sorenson does not work on ICS devices
• PHDS content plays with audio pops
• OS does not prioritize incoming call - audio remains playing before and after call is received
• Enter key does not work on the multi-line input field

Adobe really has no reason to make any major changes to the mobile Flash Player. The updates for what could be the final version of mobile Flash are simple, really just a matter of getting Flash ready to run on Ice Cream Sandwich. There are no fixes to address battery life, the major problem for mobile Flash. Why tackle big problems like these when the entire product is at the end of its life?

Adobe's mobile solutions will now focus on application development with Flex and Air through its acquisition of Nitobi, the makers of PhoneGap. It is concentrating on creating killer apps and helping developers with tools. The company is going to make a big jump into HTML5 development in 2012 and has laid the groundwork with its app-building tools and acquisitions in the latter half of 2011 for it to be a go-to resources for developers.

Adobe's new tract is what is best for everybody. While mobile Flash had the potential to be one of the standards of the next generation, the company ignored the warning signs until it was too late and innovation outpaced it.

The question becomes: does mobile Flash really matter? For Android in general, the answer is yes, Flash does matter. For Android 4.0? Maybe. It all depends on how many Android Gingerbread users get the ICS push within the next couple of months and how much they rely on Flash. Most Gingerbread devices will eventually see ICS updates. Yet, with HTML5 being pushed by developers, this is a fork that Android users will hardly notice.

On the other hand, there is a lot of functionality that will be missed without some aspects of Flash for mobile on Android devices. Those using Android 2.3.4-7 have Flash pre-installed without likely realizing that it is there. That was also the first full build of mobile Flash that worked in the way that it was supposed to (even though technically it was available in Froyo 2.2). As of early November, 43.9% of Android users have Gingerbread. That means that they will eventually have ICS. Yet, if Flash is coming out by the end of the year then nearly 95% of those users will probably not miss it since it will take longer than that for the OEMs and carriers to push ICS to those devices (many of which just got Gingerbread in the first place).

For almost all users, the timetable for mobile Flash for Android 4.0 is a non-factor. Even for the next generations of Android (Jelly Bean?), the lack of it will not be a problem as mobile Flash is destined to soon become irrelevant with HTML5. Flash for older Android devices is not going anywhere and, according to Pocket-lint, mobile Flash continue to be support with critical bug fixes and security updates.

Do you really need mobile Flash on your Android Ice Cream Sandwich device? If you do, why? Let us know in the comments.

"They ignored it until it was too late," Icaza said. "They were not looking out for the best interest of developers." According to Icaza, Adobe chose to focus at the time on apps for feature phones. Adobe's lack of foresight put the company in catch up mode and ultimately headaches and ridicule of the mobile industry leading to the news that Flash for mobile will soon die.

Flash forward more than four years later and Adobe finally has got the message.

"They dragged it on for months and months and three years down the line they finally kill it," Icaza said.

When Adobe finally did figure out that touch screen smartphones were the future and not just a fad, it created a glut of tools (like Adobe AIR and the AIR Marketplace) that tried to do a little bit for everyone. AIR has been built into the toolset for creating BlackBerry apps, especially for the QNX/BBX platform and Flash has been given Android compatibility since the release of Frozen Yogurt. What really makes little sense is how Adobe was not able to develop Flash to actually work well on mobile devices. The focus has long been on making sure that Flash can do more, more, more and be something for everybody. Adobe never took a step back and said that to do more, Flash may have to do less.

"It became too much of a tangle," Icaza said. "At the end of the day the focus on what was important was lost and what is important are the developers."

Icaza said that Adobe wanted to recreate the success of Flash mobile for feature phones in the same way that it succeeded in Japan, where there is a large commuter society that spends a lot of time on their phones while in transit to and from work. Icaza implied that it was this focus on trying to replicate this process was what blinded Adobe from the early stages of the most important evolution in computing since the advent of the World Wide Web.

"Adobe said that smartphones were going to be a niche," Icaza said.

In a blog post earlier this year, Icaza said that Flash ultimately became a second-class citizen within Adobe, taking a backseat to the developer tools that the company makes money from as opposed to the standard that many of them were built on.

"We were the darlings of the company," Icaza said. "And we were ignored."

And now, Adobe is going to focus on HTML5. To a certain extent, the cycle starts all over again. Adobe released EDGE and now FlashPro that will turn Flash into HTML5. Icaza said that Adobe will have a PR nightmare on its hands trying to convince its three million Flash developers to scrap projects in Flash and move to HTML5. If you read the Adobe Twitter account today, that push is well under way.

What do you think of the death of mobile Flash? Take our poll on the subject or let us let us know in the comments.

There could be several books written about the battle for Flash against mobile. "Steve Jobs' Last Laugh" could probably be finished in time for the holiday shopping season. "How To Kill Flash For Dummies" would be an enlightening title as well. It is a bittersweet day for many. We want to know: how are you reacting to the passing of Flash for mobile? Take the poll below.

The fall of one platform is often correlated to the rise of another. Look at Android vs. Blackberry or Chrome vs. Firefox, Google vs. Yahoo, Internet Explorer vs. Netscape. The death of mobile Flash is seen as the ultimate validation of HTML5. The evolution of this battle on mobile will take place with native apps vs. Web apps though there is no clear indication yet what will ultimately be the winner in that sweepstakes.

Adobe will now focus on HTML5 development and tools that can be used to help developers. The company's recent acquisition of PhoneGap maker Nitobi will help ease the pain in Adobe's mobile development cycles and should not be overlooked as a major factor in this decision to kill mobile Flash.

The pages of ReadWriteWeb have been filled with Flash news for the last four years. Like so many things in the last decade, the argument was created by our generation's largest tech luminary, Steve Jobs. A lot of pundits and tech insiders took Jobs' words for gospel and that fueled the bashing of Flash that has led to this point. On the other hand, there have been a lot of hardworking people (with a lot of money) that have tried to fix the problems Flash had on mobile devices for the last several years. This cannot be a good day for them as something they have been working on for years has been obsoleted overnight.

Take a look at some of the highlights of our Flash coverage from the last couple of years and take the poll below to let us know how you feel.

ReadWriteWeb's Notable Flash Coverage:

• Steve Jobs Wins: Adobe to Give Up Mobile Flash for HTML5
• Steve Jobs Speaks: Why We Don't Allow Flash on iPhones and iPads
• On Mobile Flash, Apple Stands Alone
• Does HTML5 Really Beat Flash? The Surprising Results of New Tests
• EU May Force Flash Onto Apple Products
• Adobe Releases Flash to HTML5 Conversion Tool
• HTML5 Scores a Point as SlideShare Ditches Flash Entirely
• Adobe: Flash is an Exception to Windows 8's 'Plug-in Free' Rule
• Adobe Flash Player 10.2 Ready For Honeycomb; Honeycomb Not Ready For Anything
• Farewell Flash? Adobe Launches HTML5 Web Animations Tool "Adobe Edge"
• Google Swiffy Converts Flash to HTML5
• B&N's Nook Color Gets Apps, Flash & More in Major Update
• Flash Video Comes to the iPhone, iPad with Skyfire
• How to Install Flash on your iPhone (The Easy Way)
• Apple Approved: iSwifter Lets You Play Popular Flash Games on the iPad
• Worried About Flash on the iPad? Apple Tries to Ease Your Fears
• No Flash? No Worries: Majority of Online Video Now Available in HTML5
• YouTube: Flash Still Beats HTML5
• Flash Now Importable to HTML5 Canvas
• Death to Flash: 3 Great HTML 5 Demos
• Adobe Celebrates, But Will Flash Developers Return to Apple?
• Proof of Concept Brings Flash to the iPhone
• MobiUs Accelerates Mobile HTML5 Development, Aims to Kill Mobile Flash

For those who aren't thrilled with Photo Stream, Adobe launched an alternative today called Carousel. The new applications for Mac and iOS allow users to centralize their photo library in the cloud, making them accessible across devices. The software also syncs edits that are made regardless of which device they were made on, and also keeps a back-up copy of the original.

Photo Stream's Limitations

When iCloud launched, I eagerly turned it on for just about everything but photos. My iPad (first generation, so it doesn't have a camera) mostly contains screen shots of apps I've taken for work. My iPhone almost entirely contains Instagram shots. On the desktop, I don't use iPhoto, but rather edit photos from my SLR using Photoshop and back them up on an external hard drive. I personally have no reason to merge all of these images together.

Some users who did activate Photo Stream have complained about some of its limitations. It only keeps photos online for 30 days and so far Apple hasn't provided users a way to delete individual photos from iCloud or single out images to be excluded from it. It's all or nothing with Photo Stream.

For now, Carousel is only available on Mac OS X (Lion only) and iOS, but apps for Android and Windows are reportedly on the way.

Adobe is making big news on the first day of its Adobe MAX conference. First they announced that they are buying Web font pioneerTypeKit. Then came the news that they have acquired framework provider Nitobi and its powerful PhoneGap code. In keeping with the theme of mobile innovation, the company has announced Adobe Touch Apps, a family of six applications to enable creative professionals to produce dynamic work that will run anywhere.

Touch Apps will be part of the Adobe Creative Cloud. That includes Photoshop, which Adobe will release as a mobile app that will work with a finger or a stylus. The six Adobe Touch Apps will be able to run across devices and be transferred into the company's Creative Suite CS5.5. Check out what Adobe has in store after the jump.

An interesting note in Adobe's press release, "With stylus capabilities expected to become a key feature on some next generation tablets, Adobe Touch Apps are designed to work with both finger and stylus input."

Honestly, I am not sure where Adobe is getting their stylus expectations. The only tablets that have integrated any decent stylus-based apps are from HTC in the Flyer and EVO View. The iPad certainly is not nor probably will be a stylus-based operating system and no other Android tablet features a stylus.

The six apps in Adobe new touch-based creative suite all look to be powerful additions to tablet creativity software. They are: Photoshop, Collage, Debut, Ideas, Kuler and Proto. Each will cost $9.99 and Android compatibility is coming in November. Adobe expects to make an announcement on iOS availability in early 2012, except for Ideas, which is already available on the iPad. Let's take a look at each of them.

At $9.99 A Piece, Are They All Worth It?

Photoshop Touch: This is what users have been clamoring for. Not just a great photo editor on a tablet, but Photoshop itself in all of its geeky glory, come to the tablet. It features a tablet-exclusive feature called Scribble Selection Tool that allows users to easily extract objects in an image what using their finger to highlight what they want to keep and what they want to remove. It also has Facebook integration for easy sharing and Google Search and can sync to Adobe's Creative Cloud.

Collage: Combine images, drawings, text and Creative Suite files. Can import images, draw, add text and apply color themes. Files can be accessed through Photoshop later.

Debut: Once you create in Collage or Photoshop, users can then show their work anywhere with Debut. The app opens Creative Suite files and then can be given feedback with a markup tool.

Ideas: This is the drawing tool used for vector-based projects. Want to create a t-shirt while on the road? Can bring in images that can be edited with Ideas and then exported to Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator.

Kuler: Color. This is the app that can dynamically create color schemes that can be used in other projects. There is an odd social engagement layer (I am not a designer, do they vote on colors?) where partners can share their color themes. Swatches can then be exported to other Creative Suite files.

Proto: Interactive wireframes and prototypes for websites and mobile apps. The prototypes can be exported as industry standard HTML, CSS and Javascript.

While Photoshop, Collage and Proto are obvious for the designer on the go at $9.99, are Kuler, Ideas and Debut worth that much? They seem secondary to the main Adobe experience and likely could be packaged together for $9.99 for the set.

Designers - Is this the best set of tools available for creative projects on a tablet? Are they something you are likely to use? Let us know in the comments.

Not content to settle for what's possible, Adobe has recommended some specifications to the W3C that will allow CSS to create much more fluid, flexible layouts.

The CSS Regions standard recently made its way into both the WebKit browser engine project and latest Chromium release, and will also be supported by Internet Explorer 10.

Another improvement to CSS proposed by Adobe is called Exclusions, which lets developers flow text into a non-rectangluar shape, or to wrap it around graphics on the screen, much like what's been possible in desktop publishing for decades. Check out the video below for examples of these new standards at work.

Adobe announced today that its Digital Publishing Suite will be ready when iOS 5 and Newsstand go live. Using DPS, media companies will now be able to publish directly into Newsstand, just as they can now publish stand-alone apps for iPads and other tablet devices.

This should, in theory, help them better monetize their content, although publishers already have mixed feelings about the 30% revenue cut Apple insists on taking from content sales.

The Future of Publishing or Print 2.0?

Adobe touts its DPS product as "a complete solution for both traditional media and business publishers," who can use it to export tablet-friendly versions of their print publications. The system essentially serves as an extension the print workflow, allowing publishers to enhance layouts built with Adobe InDesign with digital bells and whistles. It also offers tools for collecting subscription payments and analyzing basic user behavior. For more detailed analytics, publishers can plug in Adobe's Omniture service, so long as they are paying customers.

The system can be used to overlay interactive elements like slideshows, videos and rich, animated graphics. The end result is an experience akin to Wired's iPad edition, which was built using DPS. Other publishers using Adobe's digital publishing solution include Readers Digest, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia and India's Hindustan Times.

Presumably these publications, along with others, will find their way into Apple's Newsstand, which appears to be designed to support an issue-by-issue release of periodicals.

These digitally-enhanced magazines and newspapers may be neat to look at, but are they really the future of publishing? Some argue that this model hinges too heavily on the print paradigm of releasing content in periodical chunks rather than letting information flow in a real-time stream as it does on the Web.

Most iPad editions of magazines are "bloated, user-unfriendly and map to a tired pattern of mass media brands trying vainly to establish beachheads on new platforms without really understanding the platforms at all," wrote Khoi Vinh, former New York Times Design Director, in a blog post last year. "The fact of the matter is that the mode of reading that a magazine represents is a mode that people are decreasingly interested in, that is making less and less sense as we forge further into this century, and that makes almost no sense on a tablet."

Taking Better Advantage of the Tablet Form Factor

Indeed, digital magazines and newspapers that mimic print have not exactly wowed consumers. But that doesn't mean people aren't excited about reading news on tablets. Three of the most popular iPad apps in the "News" category of the App Store are Flipboard, Pulse and Zite, all personalized news reading and aggregation apps that have won their fair share of praise from users. Flipboard in particular was named "App of the Year" by Apple and made Time magazine's list of last year's best inventions.

Rather than bolt on an extension to their print workflow, which should already have some kind of pipeline to the Web, shouldn't publishers logically pick the workflow up from there and build a channel from the Web to tablets?

That's what disruptive news reading apps like Flipboard do and that's how many traditional newspapers publishers like The New York Times, USA Today and the BBC are doing. Their apps update as new pieces of content become available, not in regular chunks.

Of course, there's something to be said for the packaged reading experience that magazines offer, which can offer a respite from the real-time barrage of information that inundates us all each day. And if publishers have print editions, there's no reason they can't offer that experience on a tablet, perhaps as its own tab on an app that is otherwise dynamic, social, sharable and deeply interactive.

The app lets you turn common document files like Microsoft Office, Open Office, Adobe Illustrator or InDesign and a variety of images into Adobe's propriety PDF format. The company promises document quality comparable to that produced by Acrobat for dekstops.

We can see this feature being useful in a number of professional scenarios. Anytime a report, contract or other work-related document needs to be transmitted as a PDF, this app can do it without the need to be in front of a desktop computer. Anybody doing more sophisticated layout and page design work, however, is still chained to a desktop for that workflow, so they'll have little reason to use mobile PDF creation tools like this.

CreatePDF is available for $9.99 in the App Store.

Aimed to coexist with Adobe Flash, not replace it, the Web design software is Adobe's big bet on how it will continue to solidify its position as a top player in the infrastructure of the modern Web, especially as the Web goes increasingly mobile. In this new mobile context, the Web has become a more hostile environment for Flash, which has no place on Apple mobile devices, and likely never will.

Although Flash still accounts for the majority of website animations today, that won't always be the case.

So does Edge's launch mean that Adobe caved and ceded the battle to HTML5 over Flash? Adobe doesn't see it that way. Although battles make for good headlines here in the world of tech journalism, it's not really an either/or scenario when it comes to the "Flash vs. HTML5" conundrum in the professional world. For today's Web designers and developers, both technologies are still used.

Adobe's Support for HTML5 Continues with Edge

"HTML5 is an opportunity for Adobe," explains Devin Fernandez, Group Product Manager for Adobe's Web Pro Segment, "that's not to say there aren't opportunities for Flash." He contends that Flash will continue to push forward, and, as we have reported previously, it will focus on areas that HTML5 cannot yet address as well - like 3D gaming for example. (Although even there, HTML5 is making inroads.)

Still, with HTML5 being a relatively new technology, it doesn't today deliver a consistent experience across the widest range of devices and browsers. For example, Windows XP, which even to Microsoft's own chagrin remains a fairly popular computer operating system, can only run up to Internet Explorer 8. That means it can't take advantage of the many major leaps in terms of HTML5 support introduced in IE 9.

In other words, Adobe believes Flash still has a solid future here on the Web for some time. But when the Web is ready for an entirely Flash-free existence, this is surely Adobe's plan for maintaining its relevance among the creative professionals crowd, including developers and designers alike.

What Does Edge Do?

Adobe claims it has been a strong player in HTML5, going back to April 2010, when it first began introducing support for the technology in its product line, including Dreamweaver, Illustrator, its Digital Publishing Suite and, more recently, its Flash-to-HTML5 conversion tool, Wallaby.

Now, with Adobe Edge, it aims to provide the tools that will help professionals build Web animations, and in the future, even simple games. At present, Edge will focus on its core animation engine, but in the future, it plans to add more HTML5 features, including Canvas support, support for HTML5 Audio and Video tags, richer support for animating SVG graphics and more.

The software (for both Mac and PC) is designed to have an intuitive paneled user interface, a fast startup time, and will include, at the bottom, the familar timeline feature creative professionals already know and understand. Edge users can import existing HTML documents and graphic assets including SVG, PNG, JPG and GIF and then sytle them with CSS3. Panels on the left and right provide access to properties of the .EDGE file and the various elements the designer is working with. And in the center, there runs an embedded version of the WebKit browser.

When a project is complete, it will work on modern Web browsers like those that run on Android, iOS, HP's webOS, the BlackBerry PlayBook, plus Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari and Internet Explorer 9.

Where to Get Adobe Edge

Starting today, Adobe Edge is available as a free download while in its public preview period. The 1.0 product is expected to launch next year.

This is a hugely important launch for Adobe - one that IDC analyst Al Hilwa, says is "the biggest thing they have done so far." Hilwa likes Adobe Edge, and believes it shows that Adobe is really in-tune with designer needs.

"Adobe has started working on HTML5 and has brought many little things, showing that they can pivot nicely to new trends," Hilwa told us. "It shows that they can remain the premier tools vendor no matter what the technology inside is."

Will designers agree with Hilwa's sentiment, though? In time, we'll know.

Aimed to coexist with Adobe Flash, not replace it, the Web design software is Adobe's big bet on how it will continue to solidify its position as a top player in the infrastructure of the modern Web, especially as the Web goes increasingly mobile. In this new mobile context, the Web has become a more hostile environment for Flash, which has no place on Apple mobile devices, and likely never will.

Although Flash still accounts for the majority of website animations today, that won't always be the case.

So does Edge's launch mean that Adobe caved and ceded the battle to HTML5 over Flash? Adobe doesn't see it that way. Although battles make for good headlines here in the world of tech journalism, it's not really an either/or scenario when it comes to the "Flash vs. HTML5" conundrum in the professional world. For today's Web designers and developers, both technologies are still used.

Adobe's Support for HTML5 Continues with Edge

"HTML5 is an opportunity for Adobe," explains Devin Fernandez, Group Product Manager for Adobe's Web Pro Segment, "that's not to say there aren't opportunities for Flash." He contends that Flash will continue to push forward, and, as we have reported previously, it will focus on areas that HTML5 cannot yet address as well - like 3D gaming for example. (Although even there, HTML5 is making inroads.)

Still, with HTML5 being a relatively new technology, it doesn't today deliver a consistent experience across the widest range of devices and browsers. For example, Windows XP, which even to Microsoft's own chagrin remains a fairly popular computer operating system, can only run up to Internet Explorer 8. That means it can't take advantage of the many major leaps in terms of HTML5 support introduced in IE 9.

In other words, Adobe believes Flash still has a solid future here on the Web for some time. But when the Web is ready for an entirely Flash-free existence, this is surely Adobe's plan for maintaining its relevance among the creative professionals crowd, including developers and designers alike.

What Does Edge Do?

Adobe claims it has been a strong player in HTML5, going back to April 2010, when it first began introducing support for the technology in its product line, including Dreamweaver, Illustrator, its Digital Publishing Suite and, more recently, its Flash-to-HTML5 conversion tool, Wallaby.

Now, with Adboe Edge, it aims to provide the tools that will help professionals build Web animations, and in the future, even simple games. At present, Edge will focus on its core animation engine, but in the future, it plans to add more HTML5 features, including Canvas support, support for HTML5 Audio and Video tags, richer support for animating SVG graphics and more.

The software (for both Mac and PC) is designed to have an intuitive paneled user interface, a fast startup time, and will include, at the bottom, the familar timeline feature creative professionals already know and understand. Edge users can import existing HTML documents and graphic assets including SVG, PNG, JPG and GIF and then sytle them with CSS3. Panels on the left and right provide access to properties of the .EDGE file and the various elements the designer is working with. And in the center, there runs an embedded version of the WebKit browser.

When a project is complete, it will work on modern Web browsers like those that run on Android, iOS, HP's webOS, the BlackBerry PlayBook, plus Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari and Internet Explorer 9.

Where to Get Adobe Edge

Starting today, Adobe Edge is available as a free download while in its public preview period. The 1.0 product is expected to launch next year.

This is a hugely important launch for Adobe - one that IDC analyst Al Hilwa, says is "the biggest thing they have done so far." Hilwa likes Adobe Edge, and believes it shows that Adobe is really in-tune with designer needs.

"Adobe has started working on HTML5 and has brought many little things, showing that they can pivot nicely to new trends," Hilwa told us. "It shows that they can remain the premier tools vendor no matter what the technology inside is."

Will designers agree with Hilwa's sentiment, though? In time, we'll know.

]]> Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/farewell_flash_adobe_launches_html5_web_animations_tool_adobe_edge.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/farewell_flash_adobe_launches_html5_web_animations_tool_adobe_edge.php Adobe Sun, 31 Jul 2011 21:02:00 -0800 Sarah Perez Adobe is shutting down two of its app stores dedicated to mobile and desktop application distribution, Adobe InMarket and the Adobe AIR Marketplace. The decision, the company says, was based on developer feedback. Adobe says it will now focus its efforts on helping developers publish their apps on multiple platforms, including official app stores like Apple's iTunes, Google's Android Market, BlackBerry App World, Intel's AppUp, Samsung Apps and Toshiba App Place.

AIR Marketplace for Consumers

The two stores served different purposes for Adobe. The AIR Marketplace was a consumer-facing effort where end users could search for and discover applications built using Adobe AIR technology, like TweetDeck, AccuWeather's alerts app, AOL's Top 100 Videos or a Facebook Photo Uploader, to name a few of the more popular items. Developers were encouraged to list their apps in this store for self-promotional purposes, and it included typical consumer app store features like images, descriptions, ratings, reviews and social sharing options.

InMarket for Developers

Meanwhile, Adobe's InMarket was an app distribution service targeted towards developers. The idea here was that developers could publish once to distribute everywhere.

Adobe launched the store last fall, when it only supported publication to Intel's AppUp center, a Windows app store designed for netbooks and notebooks. At the time, Adobe said that it expected to support 10 stores by the second half of 2011. Unfortunately, that did not happen. According to the InMarket FAQ, only AppUp and Adobe's own AIR Marketplace were supported. This makes it seem as if the store's shutdown had less to do with "developer feedback" and more to do with Adobe's failure to secure app store partners as promised.

Developers have until August 31st to download their app analytics, revenue reports and other data, and update any widgets or links to their app's webpage. Developers who published to AppUp will receive an email from Intel over the next few days with more details about direct publishing.

What's interesting about these applications - not Photoshop replacements themselves - is how they integrate the tablet with the PC, offloading specific tasks to the touchscreen interface. In Color Lava, for example, artists use their fingers to mix colors on the iPad, creating custom swatches and themes which can then be ported back to Photoshop. Adobe Nav, meanwhile, offers a different way to navigate desktop Photoshop's interface. Only in Eazel are actual paintings created - but paintings which take advantage of the touch technology to offer new techniques in blending paint.

In addition, third-party developers will soon be able to integrate similar functionality into their apps, thanks to Adobe's new toolkit, the Photoshop Touch SDK.

These forthcoming Photoshop Touch apps only augment the Photoshop experience, they do not replace it. But the add-ons unlock the functionality of the touchscreen in a new way, bringing back the physical interaction between color and palette that typical Photoshop use had lacked. Instead of clicking a mouse, designers swirl their fingers over the touchscreen's interface, mixing paints on an actual palette. When you think about it, even the iPad's form factor itself seems a suitable stand-in for the real-life palette with its thin, rectangular shape, easy enough to balance on a hand, while held in the crook of an arm.

After mixing colors in Lava, artists can then port the new color combinations back to the desktop software, which they can navigate using Adobe Nav. This new user interface for Photoshop puts the software's tools and menus right on the touchscreen, where toolbars can be customized and files can be opened, accessed and zoomed into, both on the tablet and PC, simultaneously.

In Eazel, the new touchscreen drawing application, artists use their fingers to create paintings. Press all five fingers to the screen at once to reveal Eazel's tools, in order to change things like brush size or color. It even introduces a new technique involving "wet" and "dry" paints. In Eazel, the paints dry as they would in real life: over time. Paintings made in Eazel can also be ported back into the desktop version of Photoshop.

Photoshop, the Platform

Adobe is releasing tools for developers in the form of the Photoshop Touch SDK (software development kit). With this, third-party developers will be able to build similar functionality into their own touchscreen applications. That means developers can build different types of palettes, color-mixing tools and drawing applications - or even tools where the Photoshop integration is just one feature of a more complete application experience. The SDK extends this functionality to different devices, too, including Android tablets and RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook.

Designers and artists have not yet had a chance to get their hands on the new Photoshop Touch apps yet - they're due out on May 3 in the iTunes App Store, retailing for $1.99 to $4.99 each.  However, developers can begin building their own apps today, with the SDK available here.

When the company submitted the app in early September, they called it a "test of whether Jobs' 'thoughts on Flash' ban is actually political rather than technical". Today, it looks like the ban has fallen on the side of reason.

According to an article on CNNMoney.com, Skyfire "isn't a standalone application, but rather a tool that works on top of Apple's Safari Web browser. As a result, the company said the app was given a rather rigorous review from Apple."

The app will only work for Flash video and not games, as it works by downloading Flash content to a server and translating it to HTML5, before sending it to the user.

Working with JQuery

With Edge, Adobe wants to give interactivity designers the ability to create rich HTML5 experiences based on an open JavaScript framework for animation. Adobe plans to contribute this framework back to the jQuery framework. As Gubbay told us, jQuery's ability to create animations is still very basic, but the new framework should make it easier to create interactive HTML5 experiences. Adobe will talk more about this during tomorrow's MAX keynote where jQuery founder John Resigwill be on stage.

Working with WebKit

These tools, however, as Gubbay told us, are only one part of the equation. The browser itself also plays a fundamental role in ensuring that all of these design are displayed correctly. For digital publishers, however - and especially those who want to bring traditional print material online - most browsers' still can't quite render the complex layouts that these publishers are looking for. With HTML, it is still virtually impossible to wrap text around arbitrary shapes, for example, or to manipulate typefaces. To fix this, Adobe is working closely with Google and the WebKit project to ensure that the controls are available in modern browsers like Safari and Chrome.

Martha Stewart joined Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch on stage during today's MAX keynote and demonstrated an interactive version of her magazine on the iPad, but as Gubbay told us, the company also hopes to be able to help designers to bring their products to the numerous new tablets that will launch before the end of the year. Conde Nast's CTO Joe Simon also announced that the company will use Adobe's told to bring its magazines (including Wired and The New Yorker) to tablets. With SiteCatalyst, Adobe will offer an analytics platform for publishers who want to get a detailed view of how their readers use their digital editions.