Adobe unveils Photoshop Touch for iPad 2 at MWC, slate-style photo editing for $10

Keeping its promise to include iOS users in the Photoshop-enabled slate party, Adobe has announced the arrival of its Photoshop Touch iPad app today at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Sporting a number of core PS features and new tools especially designed for use on tablets, the new release joins the Adobe Touch Apps family with further iOS software expected to drop in the coming months. This mobile version of Photoshop enables users to create layered images from several different photos, make edits, apply pro-style effects, touch up photos and carry out several other essential tasks directly on their Apple slate.

A Scribble Selection Tool makes for easy deletion of unwanted objects simply by scribbling on what’s a keeper and then on what needs to go. Refine Edge technology offers some help for those tedious soft-edged selections and integration with both Facebook and Google Image Search makes sharing your edits a breeze. The aforementioned upcoming iOS releases include Collage (moodboards), Debut (presenting and reviewing work), Ideas (sketches), Kuler (color exploration) and Proto (web and mobile application prototyping). But for now, you can snag Photoshop Touch for your iOS 5 wielding iPad 2 from the iTunes App Store for $9.99. If you’re in search of some more details before taking the leap, hit the gallery of screenshots or the full PR below.

Rumor: Lenovo Prepping 10-inch Quad-Core Ice Cream Sandwich Tablet

The rumor mill never stops turning. Today, we have word from Engadget that Lenovo is prepping a new 10.1-inch tablet for release later this year. Why the fuss over a Lenovo tablet? Because this one will supposedly include Nvidia’s speedy new 1.66-GHz quad-core Tegra 3 processor and 2GB of RAM. And to top it all off, this mystery tablet is also expected to run on Google’s Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

Other tidbits include a rear-facing camera, a fingerprint scanner that could also be used as an optical joystick, and a USB port complete with the bane of our tech-centric lives, a port cover. Covering the tablet will be what Engadget referred to as a “Special Fusion-Skin Body” coating, although we’re still not too clear on what that means.

The last two Lenovo tablets we reviewed, the IdeaPad K1 and the ThinkPad Tablet, were both solid offerings that fell just short of being truly great devices due to their poor audio quality and bulky size. Here’s hoping this new 10-incher doesn’t suffer from the same flaws. There’s no word on when the tablet will be released here in the U.S., but we’ll let you know when we find out.

via Engadget

ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime becomes official, packs in quad-core Tegra 3 and a 10-inch display

We have been hearing a lot about the Transformer Prime. First ASUS chairman Jonney Shih displayed it at AsiaD, then some more live shots surfaced, then came the FCC images, after that the benchmarks and the last we heard of it we found out that it will be delayed and coming in December instead. But now we finally have the official announcement that we have been waiting for.

ASUS today announced the Transformer Prime or the Eee Pad Transformer Prime, as it is officially called. It will be the first device in the world to pack in the new Nvidia Tegra 3 processor that has a quad-core CPU and 12-core GPU. Apart from that it also has 1GB RAM, a 10.1-inch IPS display, with a wide 178° viewing angle and Corning Gorilla Glass protection, micro HDMI port, 1.2 megapixel front camera, 8 megapixel rear camera with flash, 1080p video recording, auto-focus, F2.4 lens and backside illuminated CMOS sensor. All this in a device that is only 8.3mm thick and weighs 586g.

It will be available in 32GB and 64GB capacities and will also have a microSD card slot for additional storage space. It will be priced at $499 and $599 respectively. The keyboard dock will be an optional extra and will cost an additional $149.

The claimed battery life for the Transformer Prime is 12 hours but when combined with the keyboard dock it can be extended up to 18 hours. It will be sold in two colors, Amethyst Gray and Champagne Gold.

Initially the device will be sold with Android 3.2 Honeycomb with built-in apps such as SuperNote and Polaris Office but ASUS has promised that it will be getting the Ice Cream Sandwich update by December.

Source

Adobe Pushes Into Tablet Space With 6 New Apps And “Creative Cloud”

Adobe’s had a busy day. Along with the acquisition of Nitobi Software and TypeKit, the company has also made a clear push into the tablet space, looking to bolster content creation. At the Adobe MAX 2011 conference in Los Angeles, Adobe officially announced the Creative Cloud — its very own cloud storage offering — along with with six new Adobe Touch apps for Android tablets and the iPad.

Creative Cloud lets users sync, share and view files from both the Adobe Creative Suite (desktop) and the Adobe Touch apps. It offers 20GB of free storage, though pricing and availability won’t be announced until November. However, the Creative Cloud (once it’s in action) will certainly boost the value of the six new Touch apps, most notable of which is Adobe Photoshop Touch.

Here’s a quick run-down of each of the new apps:

• Adobe Photoshop Touch: This is the beast of the new apps, since just about everyone can have fun in Photoshop. The app allows users to layer images, edit in most of the same ways they do in Photoshop, and add effects to their imagery. Adobe also added a new feature only available on the tablet-based apps called Scribble Selection Tool. It lets users pull objects from an image by “scribbling” over what to keep first, and then over what should be removed. Facebook and Google Search have also been integrated with the app, letting users search for images and share their creations quickly.
• Adobe Collage: This app seems pretty cool. It lets users collect images, drawings, and text to build what Adobe is calling a “mood board.” It features a customizable pen which allows for four different types of drawing, along with the ability to import photos, add text, and apply color themes. Thanks to Adobe’s new cloud-syncing tool, users open up these files in Photoshop and do what they will with them.
• Adobe Debut: This one’s for the creative professional. Adobe Debut offers a way to present clients with tablet-friendly versions of Creative Suite files, including Photoshop layers and Illustrator art boards. From there, clients can give feedback using the markup pen tool, which adds notes and drawings right on top of the work.
• Adobe Ideas: Adobe Ideas is a vector-based drawing app on steroids. With either a stylus or finger, users can doodle to their hearts’ desire, but with the added ability of choosing color themes and importing tablet-friendly images which can function as separate layers.
• Adobe Kuler: This app pulls from Adobe’s Kuler web-app which lets people create and share different color themes. Within the app, users can create themes based on a single photo, or by simply pulling their favorite shades together. The Adobe Kuler app already has hundreds of thousands of themes ready to roll courtesy of the Kuler community, and users can rate and comment on themes straight from the app. After themes are created they can be exported as color swatches for use in different Adobe projects.
• Adobe Proto: This is the developers’ app. It allows users to develop interactive wireframes and prototypes for mobile apps or web sites. The finished product can be exported in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Just like the Creative Cloud, these new apps won’t roll out until November. Worse, iOS availability seems to be a bit behind, with Adobe expecting to announce iPad availability in early 2012. Each app will cost $9.99 from both the Android Market and the Apple App Store.

Source: techcrunch

Photoshop on the iPad

Photoshop comes to the iPad and the Creative Cloud announced

Some interesting announcements coming out of Adobe MAX – its annual developer conference in LA. First up is the Adobe Creative Cloud. The company describes it as “a major new initiative that radically redefines the content creation process.”
In essence, it’s a cloud service where you, or your studio, can access your work or indeed your Creative Suite apps (expected in 2012) from anywhere. The Creative Cloud will, according to Adobe, become the hub for the viewing, sharing and syncing of files created by Adobe Touch Apps and Adobe Creative Suite, and includes 20GB of cloud storage.

So what are these Adobe Touch Apps? Well, there’s six in total for iOS and Android: Photoshop Touch, Collage, Debut, Proto and refined Ideas and Kuler apps. Photoshop Touch (above) enables you to transform images with core Photoshop features in a custom-built tablet app. According to the company, with simple finger gestures, users can combine multiple photos into layered images, make popular edits and apply professional effects.The tablet-exclusive ‘Scribble Selection Tool’ enables you to extract objects in an image by scribbling on what to keep and then what to remove. Additionally, the app helps users quickly find images, share creations and view comments through integration with Facebook and Google Search. Using the syncing capabilities that are a component of Adobe Creative Cloud, files can be opened in Adobe Photoshop.

Adobe Debut (above) also looks very interesting – enabling users to present designs to clients virtually anywhere. According to Adobe, Debut “quickly opens tablet-compatible versions of Creative Suite files for convenient and beautiful viewing on the tablet, including Photoshop layers and Illustrator art boards”. Feedback is gathered using a markup pen tool to add notes and drawings on top of the work.

Collage (above) is essentially a tool for creating moodboards that can then be transferred to Photoshop, and Proto enables the development of interactive wireframes and prototypes for websites and mobile apps on a tablet.Adobe tells us that “ideas are communicated and shared with teams and clients using a touch-based interface. Gestures quickly express a design concept, explain website structure or demonstrate interactivity.

The wireframe or prototype then can be exported as industry-standard HTML, CSS and JavaScript, and shared in popular browsers for immediate review and approval.”Kuler, which we’ve seen before, aims to make it easy to create colour themes; and Ideas – already available on the App Store – enables you to quickly sketch out ideas and send them to Photoshop or Illustrator for further refinement.In other Adobe news, the company has announced Digital Publishing Suite, Single Edition. An extract from the press release reads as follows:”Single Edition allows users to publish single-issue content such as a brochure, highly-visual book, annual report or personal design portfolio as an application for the iPad. As an extension of the Digital Publishing Suite line, Single Edition enables users to leverage Creative Suite 5.5 workflows to create an application for the iPad.

This gives freelance designers access to many of the same creative and publishing technologies that leading publishers, such as Condé Nast, have used to reinvent their publications for delivery on tablet devices.”So basically you don’t have to be a big publishing company to publish with the DPS tools any more. No UK pricing as yet, but in the US for a single folio it costs $395.And there’s more: Adobe has also announced that it has acquired Web font company Typekit, Nitobi – creators of PhoneGap and has struck a new deal with WoodWing. The latter means that WoodWing will cease the sale of its Reader app and integrate Adobe DPS into its Digital Magazine workflow.

Source: computerarts

Cheap Tablets and Phones: Penny Wise, Tech Foolish by Avram Piltch

If you bought a craptastically cheap mobile device in the past year, I have just two words for you: I’m sorry. I’m sorry that you’ve had to carry a piece of unresponsive, slow-moving junk with you when you could have either spent a few more dollars  or waited a few months for prices to drop. On second thought, I take back my apology. You got what you deserve. If it looks like a cheap gadget, it is, and you get what you pay for.

There’s simply no good reason—other than a unique combo of impatience and stupidity—to buy a bargain-basement tablet with performance issues. Last Wednesday, we learned about the $199 Amazon Kindle Fire, which, with its dual core CPU and extra-bright screen, should hammer the final nail in the coffin of tablet pretenders such as Coby, EFun, Pandigital, andVizio. But even before the discovery of Fire, there was no excuse to throw good money after bad slates.

Imagine how bad you’d feel today if you bought an Archos 7 tablet last year. Sure, it gave you Android for less than $200 at a time when a $500 iPad was the only other consumer slate out there, but you’d break your finger trying to tap the resistive touchscreen and the back was hot enough to sterilize Kevin Federline.

Fast forward a little more than a year. How would you feel now if last fall you’d foolishly purchased the Viewsonic G Tablet,whose slow-poke Tap n’ Tap (and tap and tap and tap) UI and bulky plastic chassis made it feel much cheaper than its $399 price tag? Today, an Eee Pad Transformer with a gorgeous Honeycomb UI and a dual-core CPU costs $399 or less.

Purchasing a feeble phone such as the small-screened Sharp FX Plus is even worse than buying a bargain-basement tablet, because you have to pay for data and carry the handset with you every day for a minimum of 1.5 to  2 years. Meanwhile, you’d be paying the same data fees per month for a state-of-the-art handset like the Samsung Galaxy S II.

Serving 18 to 24 months with a slow, low-res phone is worse than doing that time at the state pen with an overly affectionate cellmate. Over the course of 24 months, the typical wireless plan on one of the major four carriers will cost you anywhere from $1,700 to $2,400. So why on earth would you compromise on features or performance to save $100 or even $200, when the cost of the phone itself is less than 10 percent of your investment and you plan to use it every single day?

I can’t help but think about a friend who, in 2009, chose an HTC Droid Eris over a Motorola Droid, because the Eris—which had a much slower processor and lower-res screen—was free and the Motorola Droid cost $200. She’s been regretting her decision ever since, as her underpowered phone crashes constantly and makes molasses seem fast, but in 2011 she’s stuck paying for service on that clunker until the contract is up.

This month’s hot superphone is next month’s low-cost sale item. So why not take advantage? While you’re gawking at the $79.99 LG Enlighten with its pokey 3G connection, low-res 480 x 320 screen, and slow 800-MHz CPU, both the HTC Thunderbolt and the Samsung Droid Charge—big-screened LTE phones which cost over $200 when they came out in spring—are available for free on Amazon.com.  You’d have to be huffing screen wipes behind the Verizon store to choose a brand-new budget phone over a slightly older flagship device.

The golden rule for electronics purchases is this: If you want a gadget and can’t afford a decent one, either splurge or wait for a price drop. Never compromise on something you plan to use every day.

Source: blog.laptopmag.com

Samsung unveils Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus, packing 1.2GHz dual-core CPU and coated in Honeycomb

Samsung has just unveiled a rather unexpected addition to its fleet of tablets, with the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus. Available in both 16GB and 32GB varieties, this new slate is fueled by a 1.2GHz dual-core CPU, runs Android 3.2 Honeycomb and features a seven-inch LCD with 1024 x 600 resolution. It also packs a two megapixel front-facing camera, along with a three megapixel shooter that supports 720p video, boasts 1GB of RAM and ships with Sammy’s TouchWiz UI baked-in. In terms of connectivity, you’ll find support for quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, 3G with 21Mbps HSPA and the usual smattering of Bluetooth 3.0 and GPS capabilities. In addition, this little guy offers WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n at both 2.4GHz and 5GHz, along with support for channel bonding and apt-X Codec for Bluetooth. Pricing has yet to be announced, but the 7.0 Plus is slated to hit Indonesia and Austria by the end of October, before rolling out internationally. Slide past the break for more details, in the full PR, or check out the gallery below for more images.

Samsung offers Apple a deal to allow Galaxy Tab 10.1 sales in Australia

Could Apple and Samsung’s Australian patent battle be nearing an end? We’re not sure yet, but things are looking slightly rosier, now that Sammy has approached its rival with a proposed compromise. As theWall Street Journal reports, Samsung offered Apple a deal today that would allow its Galaxy Tab 10.1 to hit the Australian market as early as next week. Justice Annabelle Bennett pointed out that the agreement wouldn’t allow Samsung to receive a final ruling on the dispute, but attorney David Catterns explained that it would at least allow the manufacturer to sell its slate ahead of this year’s holiday shopping rush. Less clear, however, is what Apple would stand to gain from any compromise. The company’s lawyer, Stephen Burley, acknowledged that “[Samsung's] inconvenience would be diminished and we would be comforted” by an agreement, though the details behind Samsung’s offer remain unclear, and Burley declined to elaborate upon Apple’s stance after today’s hearing. As always, we’ll keep you up to date with the latest.

The Wall Street Journal

Amazon Introduces $200 Kindle Fire Touch Tablet, $79 Kindles, and More

Amazon introduced the Kindle Fire today, a 7-inch Android tablet for $199— a good three hundred dollars cheaper than the iPad. Amazon also will be offering regular and touch Kindles at seriously attractive prices, starting at $79. Further sweetening the pot, free 3G will be offered in the Kindle touch 3G.

Amazon’s making it almost impossible not to own a Kindle in one form or another. If you just want an ereader, the $79 Kindle is 30% lighter (5.98 ounces) than previous Kindles. A $99 version will add touch navigation. And the top-of-the-line Kindle touch 3G is $149, with the free 3G access. All three models still sport the e-ink technology.

The Kindle Fire Tablet is the big announcement, today, however. This souped-up Kindle is also an Android tablet with dual-core processor, a multi-touch IPS display, and light 14.6 ounce weight. To get to the inexpensive $199 price point, Amazon left out a camera and microphone, and it will only be available with Wi-Fi, not 3G. Some neat details:

• The Whispersync technology that brings ebooks quickly to Kindles will work to sync movies and TV shows from Amazon’s growing library to the Fire.
• A new Silk browser, which partially resides on Amazon’s cloud servers, pre-loads pages to speed up browsing.
• Starts shipping November 15; you can pre-order today.

What do you think? Will you be buying a Kindle?

Source: lifehacker

Lower prices on iPAD 2 for today only from x-cite