While Blackmagic might’ve beaten them to video editing, when it comes to photo editing, Adobe is first out of the gate with a new Photoshop beta for Apple’s new ARM-based Apple Silicon machines. Naturally, it requires one of the newly announced Apple computers, and a paid-up Adobe CC subscription. But don’t get too excited just yet. Adobe notes there are some limitations. Not all of the features are… Well, they actually say that “many features” are not yet available and some may experience slow performance. But it is a beta, so what else can you expect?
Rather than tell you what it can do, it’s probably easier to list the things that it can’t do. Adobe stresses that this is an early version, and while it does offer many of the core features we’ve all become used to, there is a lot that’s missing. And some of it is pretty important for photographers… You know, stuff like Camera Raw.
Oh yes, that’s quite the list, huh? Well, again, it’s a beta, so there are some things that are going to take time to redevelop for a whole new processor architecture. Adobe says that Mac users who rely on Photoshop should stick to the existing PHotoshop for Macintosh, and over time more features will come to the Apple Silicon-specific version. If history is anything to go by, I think we can expect it to take a while before it’s available in any kind of form that can be used as a daily workhorse. Even the iPad version took a while to get working well, and the Apple M1 customer base just really isn’t that high yet. But, hey, Adobe might surprise us. If you want to download the beta and check it out for yourself, you can do so from the Creative Cloud Desktop app. For more information, see the Adobe website. [via MacRumors]
