Adobe officially announced Creative Suite 5.5, a new mid-cycle upgrade for its creative applications, bringing subscription pricing and new multi-touch iPad applications for operating Photoshop.
The Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 family marks a major change to Adobe’s product release strategy for Creative Suite. Adobe said it now plans to have milestone Creative Suite product introductions at 24-month intervals and — starting with Creative Suite 5.5 — significant mid-cycle releases.
As part of Creative Suite 5.5, Adobe has launched a subscription-based pricing plan. Subscription Editions ensure that customers are always working with the most up-to-date versions of the software without the upfront cost of full pricing. Subscription pricing allows users to access flagship products like Adobe Photoshop for as little as $35 per month, Adobe Design Premium CS 5.5 for $95 per month, or Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 Master Collection for $129 per month.
In addition, Adobe announced three new iPad applications that demonstrate the creative possibilities of using tablets to drive common Photoshop workflows — Adobe Color Lava for Photoshop, Adobe Eazel for Photoshop and Adobe Nav for Photoshop. THese are designed to enable users to create custom swatches, paint and drive popular Photoshop tools from tablet devices.
The applications are a part of the Photoshop Touch Software Development Kit, which allows developers to create mobile and tablet applications that interact with Adobe Photoshop CS5 and Photoshop CS5 Extended software. The Photoshop Touch SDK and new scripting engine will allow Android, BlackBerry Tablet OS and iOS applications to drive and interact with Photoshop on the desktop.
[via: Appleinsider]