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My Photoshop workflow depends on its ability to act as a plugin host for third party workflow tools and to integrate with the rest of a professional toolchain.

My Photoshop workflow depends on its ability to act as a plugin host for third party workflow tools and to integrate with the rest of a professional toolchain. So, for me, Photoshop functionally remains a PC/Mac application. (This applies to most applications ported to iOS or even the Web with such fanfare -- I still use Office plugins here and there...)

rainbowmverse 8y ago
It's the same with music software. It's wonderful that Reaper has a native Linux version! I might just go with Linux when I have the means to build a dedicated mixing and mastering computer, though I'll miss the ease and quality of SerumFX. Unfortunately, few VST developers have taken advantage of the new Linux support in the VST SDK. And then there's Ableton Live. All of it runs on Windows and Mac. None of it is likely to see an iOS port. I need my whole workflow to come along. None of it is trivially replaced.
- eropple 8y ago
  I didn't even think of music stuff. I use Logic Pro at the moment as my primary mixer for the video stuff I do (mostly because the remoting capabilities are nicer--Logic Remote is a lot nicer than Lemur or other OSC stuff) and...well, now I'm a little queasy.
scarface74 8y ago
Apple is introducing some advanced automation features with iOS 12 that may go a long way toward making that easier.
- eropple 8y ago
  Assuming plugins get updated for an arbitrary new standard that is wholly incompatible both with existing tools and with existing platforms (every Photoshop plugin I have works on Mac and PC and there is zero percent chance that those, even if they are updated, would not be a disgusting upcharge for iOS), sure. Or one could not use it at all.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    It is not an “arbitrary new standard”. It’s an enhanced port of the Workflow app that Apple acquired a year ago. They added functionality, but the core of inter process communications is the x-callback-url protocol that third party developers have been supporting for years. http://x-callback-url.com/ http://x-callback-url.com/ As far as app support, you act as if iOS is some backwood platform without robust third party support.
    - eropple 8y ago
      Third party developers on a mobile platform designed for consumption and very light productivity, sure. Meanwhile, in the world of what is and not what somebody might handwave could be, Photoshop plugins are binary plugins that talk to a C++ API. These plugins are not going to be rewritten for a callback URL protocol and if they were to be it will be slower, less sturdy, and almost certainly to the detriment of platforms that people actually use for this stuff. I know perfectly well what iOS provides for IPC and it is insufficient for big-boy tasks. I mean, for real: are you going to throw a 16K image with 20-100 layers across heckin' x-callback-url every every time the user makes a change because you want to recompute a layer transform? Do you want it to come back before you die of old age? Or is it actually that, no, this isn't for for-realsies work, this is for the kind of dabbler who won't notice that, and for-realsies work should stay on a Mac until they kill it and we go back to Windows and Linux? And please don't get me wrong: I'm acting as if the plugins that big-boy apps host are sometimes a decade old and are effectively out of support, because nothing in the Photoshop (or, indeed, most production) universe dies unless, well, Apple kills it. It's even more common for Office plugins and, as mentioned by another poster, it's literally more common than not for audio apps. (Gonna replace VSTs with x-callback-url? We binary-bolt this stuff together because a millisecond is a long time, remember...)

rainbowmverse 8y ago

It's the same with music software. It's wonderful that Reaper has a native Linux version! I might just go with Linux when I have the means to build a dedicated mixing and mastering computer, though I'll miss the ease and quality of SerumFX. Unfortunately, few VST developers have taken advantage of the new Linux support in the VST SDK. And then there's Ableton Live. All of it runs on Windows and Mac. None of it is likely to see an iOS port. I need my whole workflow to come along. None of it is trivially replaced.

eropple 8y ago
I didn't even think of music stuff. I use Logic Pro at the moment as my primary mixer for the video stuff I do (mostly because the remoting capabilities are nicer--Logic Remote is a lot nicer than Lemur or other OSC stuff) and...well, now I'm a little queasy.

scarface74 8y ago

Apple is introducing some advanced automation features with iOS 12 that may go a long way toward making that easier.

eropple 8y ago
Assuming plugins get updated for an arbitrary new standard that is wholly incompatible both with existing tools and with existing platforms (every Photoshop plugin I have works on Mac and PC and there is zero percent chance that those, even if they are updated, would not be a disgusting upcharge for iOS), sure. Or one could not use it at all.
- scarface74 8y ago
  It is not an “arbitrary new standard”. It’s an enhanced port of the Workflow app that Apple acquired a year ago. They added functionality, but the core of inter process communications is the x-callback-url protocol that third party developers have been supporting for years. http://x-callback-url.com/ http://x-callback-url.com/ As far as app support, you act as if iOS is some backwood platform without robust third party support.
  - eropple 8y ago
    Third party developers on a mobile platform designed for consumption and very light productivity, sure. Meanwhile, in the world of what is and not what somebody might handwave could be, Photoshop plugins are binary plugins that talk to a C++ API. These plugins are not going to be rewritten for a callback URL protocol and if they were to be it will be slower, less sturdy, and almost certainly to the detriment of platforms that people actually use for this stuff. I know perfectly well what iOS provides for IPC and it is insufficient for big-boy tasks. I mean, for real: are you going to throw a 16K image with 20-100 layers across heckin' x-callback-url every every time the user makes a change because you want to recompute a layer transform? Do you want it to come back before you die of old age? Or is it actually that, no, this isn't for for-realsies work, this is for the kind of dabbler who won't notice that, and for-realsies work should stay on a Mac until they kill it and we go back to Windows and Linux? And please don't get me wrong: I'm acting as if the plugins that big-boy apps host are sometimes a decade old and are effectively out of support, because nothing in the Photoshop (or, indeed, most production) universe dies unless, well, Apple kills it. It's even more common for Office plugins and, as mentioned by another poster, it's literally more common than not for audio apps. (Gonna replace VSTs with x-callback-url? We binary-bolt this stuff together because a millisecond is a long time, remember...)