Adobe Elements on the Mac App Store: 5 Implications
Adobe and Apple have come to an understanding with a new app store era
Today Adobe announced that both its photo software, Photoshop Elements 10 and the video software, Premiere Elements 10, are now available on the Mac App Store. The full Photoshop Elements software appearance in the Mac App Store will help anyone take advantage of stunning photo effects or utilize impressive techniques for memorable videos.
The Mac App Store, a standard feature of recent versions of Mac OS X, lets Apple account holders download software to their computers the same way they might download apps for their iPhones. There might be five implications of Adobe using the Mac App Store compared to traditional ways of selling software.
Bye-bye boxed software
First, and most obviously, it accelerates the move to software distribution by download. Adobe has been doing this for years through its own site, and plenty of other software arrives over the Net, but some folks are still accustomed to getting CDs or DVDs in a cardboard box. That's especially true it comes to mammoth downloads like Photoshop Elements, at 1.21GB, or Premiere Elements, at 924MB.
Apple as gatekeeper
Second, those prices indicate growing comfort on Adobe's part to rely at least in part on Apple for that distribution. Adobe has sold several iOS apps on the App Store used for iPhones and iPads, and it offers the free Carousel app for editing and sharing photos on the Mac App Store, but the Elements products are closer to the company's core business.
Mac App Store adjustments
Third, the Mac App Store hasn't yet caught up with some basic aspects of software sales. For one thing, you can't buy the Elements bundle of both apps together on the Mac App Store. Online pricing at Amazon puts that package deal at about $135, which is substantially cheaper than the $159.99 you'd pay for both at the Mac App Store.
Buy once, run on multiple computers
Fourth, there's a possible tension in paying for multiple copies of the software. Apple's Mac App Store gives permissions to run software based on the user account, so if you have three Macs in the house, all three of them may run the same software downloaded from the Mac App Store.
Fluidly updated software
Fifth is a byproduct of online software distribution: the shift toward fluidly updated software. The more we're used to getting software online--as with smartphone apps and Web browsers, for example--the more ordinary it is to expect a constant series of bug fixes, security patches, and even new features added incrementally.
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