Adobe has been at the vanguard of the publishing world since Photoshop first appeared back in the early '90s. However, over the past two years its visibility and influence has slipped somewhat: magazine publishing (its bread and butter) went into decline, and the online publishing landscape changed dramatically thanks to the introduction of the iPad, Apple's abandonment of Flash and the massive, unexpected reverberations that these events had on publishing. For the past two years, publishers have been scrambling to publish apps and websites optimized for iPads and other mobile devices. But Adobe's huge array of publishing programs did not cater for this particularly well. That looks set to change with the launch of Creative Suite 6 (CS6).

CS6 brings with it several new features, including a subscription model, Cloud benefits and, what I'm going to concentrate on, new apps and features which specialise in mobile publishing. Rather than sounding like a big Adobe advert, it's worth dwelling on why this new suite could actually revolutionise publishing. I think it will. And Adobe certainly isn't paying me to say that.

Apps

At present, many large publishers are outsourcing the development of iPad apps because making one in-house requires highly-specialist skills. This proves expensive and means that creating apps for other, less-popular platforms (like Android) becomes prohibitively expensive because of the additional development costs. Consequently, Android, which has far-less market share, loses out on content. But one of CS6's key features is the ability for InDesign (the program which lays out the majority of the world's magazines and newspapers) to convert a magazine into an iPad app (and most other platform's apps) at the press of a button. Specialist iPad app coding companies are about to go the way of the type setter and colour separator - unless they can introduce new and innovative features faster than Adobe can copy/automate/implement them.

The process converts the page layout to how it would appear on the screen of an iPad. Press another button and you can adjust how the page is formatted when the iPad is turned into landscape mode - you can choose how the text reflows while anchoring and reformatting pictures. Adding elements like mini slideshows and videos is just a case of inserting objects. Thumbnails, vertical and horizontal scrolling is all taken care of. But that's not the greatest potential.

Android

Because Android apps are almost always a secondary concern to publishers with strict budgets, the number of publications available on Android is significantly lower than with the iPad. For some time I've been looking for a killer reason to buy an Android tablet - this is the first time I've seen hope on the horizon. Indeed, pressing another button resizes the iPad app screen size so that it fits in with Android screen layouts and resolutions. Just by pressing a button! A few quick formatting tweaks is all that's required to publish to Android devices. Tailoring content for every different screen size and resolution (and there are a lot in Android's fragmented market) is a breeze. Could this be the content boost that Android tablets have been waiting for? I certainly hope so. Apple seriously needs competition in the tablet market where it rules supreme thanks to superior content and website tailoring.

Websites

Another killer feature of CS6 appears in Dreamweaver. Dreamweaver is one of the most popular web design tools around. The new features allow you to see what your website looks like on a computer screen, tablet screen and phone screen and set elements to behave differently depending on what device the reader is using. It does this using a simple column layout which tells text areas and images how to display depending on how big the screen is. With some 40% (and growing) of web content being consumed on mobile devices, the simplicity of creating one web page that fits all, without having to develop a separate mobile site, should be a huge boon to publishers.

HTML 5

When Apple announced that it wouldn't support Adobe's popular Flash platform on its mobile devices it caused uproar. Many accused Apple of being disingenuous in that Flash would allow non Apple-sanctioned Apps to appear on its platform - and Apple HATES the thought of that. How true that might have been is still up for debate. But ultimately Apple had a point - Adobe's Flash sucked hard on mobile devices, and despite promises for years that it would be fixed, it simply never has been. In the meantime the point became moot because the iPad and iPhone market grew so massive that having Flash on your website meant that a large proportion of your readers wouldn't be able to access it. Everyone moved (or is in the process of moving) to the newer HMTL 5 - even though it doesn't quite match Flash in some areas. For instance, HTML code is visible whereas Flash code is hidden. This is a good or bad thing depending on who you are in the coding and security world. What HTML 5 doesn't let you do is stream video but that's what Adobe's new Creative Cloud fixes. More on that below. [Note. Flash still has its place - it's particularly popular with mobile games, for instance. However, with the future of online looking set to be mobile, it's a fair bet that its usage will decline rapidly over the next decade].

The main thing about CS6's online elements is that they're designed with HTML 5 in mind as the primary platform for all of the main web-related features. As such there's a new program called Adobe Edge which acts similarly to Adobe Flash - allowing you to create easy, Flash-like animations and websites which work on all mobile devices. This, and the HTML 5 enhancements to Dreamweaver, should mean that websites in general can start looking more dynamic again - they don't have to become more simplistic by throwing out glitzy Flash animations and replacing them with mobile (and especially Apple) friendly static designs. It also means that adding touch-friendly swipe-to-navigate features are much easier to implement and that they will work on all platforms.

The thing to note here that is Edge is only available using Adobe's subscription model and not to people who buy CS6 outright. The reason given for this is that features will change constantly because HTML 5 constantly changes. It's Adobe policy to not introduce major new features into a full release and so it's available separately. I can't help feel that Adobe could have made an exception to its policy here though - especially for a brand new program that hasn't any market traction. It will subsequently be unavailable to many people who will have spent a fortune on their software.

Phones

Adobe's acquisition of Phonegap means that phone apps can be more-easily made by people who are used to regular HTML coding. For instance, programmers can easily set the phone to call a number when clicked on within the web browser - something that normally requires a separate code for each phone platform. Phonegap automatically builds the device-specific code to make this happen.

I spoke to some of the ABC's developers about the potential of this. Apparently the problem of Phonegap is that it makes apps look basic and very samey and consequently there's still likely to be a market for phone-specific app development for a while to come. The problem is, however, that while the ABC might like to tailor its Android apps to specific devices - for instance, those that use the latest version of Android, or people who own a Samsung phone which offers proprietary and unique features - the fragmentation of the Android phone market makes a generic, basic app look attractive. For instance, Android 4.0 provides a new button layout: it builds three buttons into the operating system so that phones don't need hardware buttons anymore. But four buttons are used on models running earlier Android versions. On top of this, the HTC One X (and presumably other forthcoming phones) uses three hardware buttons as well as Android 4.0 while older phones, which upgrade to Android 4.0 but which currently have four buttons and Android 2.3 will have another layout altogether. In short, a one-size-fits-all Android app is almost impossible. Generic apps for Android phones look set to be with us for some time until the platform matures and most devices on the market start working in a similar way.

Creative Cloud

I won't linger on all the new features of Creative Cloud. The main benefit for publishers and designers here is that Adobe now offers you the choice to buy the software outright (as usual) or subscribe to it (using the Cloud) on a month by month basis.

For one thing this means all designers can easily try the new programs before deciding whether to upgrade. It also means publishers can choose whether to save up and buy a whole heap of expensive licences in one go (Capital Expenditure) or count the monthly cost as an Operating Expense. More importantly, it means that publishers with a big work project that requires a heap of temporary staff brought in for a launch project, don't need to buy all of their temporary workers a full software licence - they can use a temporary subscription.

Missing in action

What is still missing is a way of implementing the new design tools with existing Content Management Systems. It's all very well building a great webpage and having it simply optimise itself for different platforms, but virtually all significant publishers have CMS's which are incredibly picky about how information gets integrated into their publishing environment. Adobe's acquisition of CQ5 apparently will address this down the line. However, it's unlikely that we'll see too many massive changes on existing major websites for some time as updating a CMS infrastructure is the work of Satan. A very rich Satan at that.

Adobe's biggest issue

Adobe is one of the worst offenders in Australia for charging a Nice-Beaches tax. Past excuses involve localizations, exchange rate hedging and local support. However, with the exchange rate having been above parity for some time now (it was around 60c to the US dollar with its last major realease), there's little justification for the massive price hikes that Australians must pay:

Photoshop CS6 US$699 vs $1168

InDesign CS6 US$699 vs $1168

Master Collection CS6 US$2599 vs $3949

Creative Cloud subscription US$50 vs $63

That's a two-thirds mark-up for the individual products, and a 50% mark-up for the Master Collection. Even taking into account the lack of GST on US prices, that's an astonishing hike. That said, the Cloud Price is far more reasonable. Two years of subscribing to the Creative Cloud costs $1512 and gives access to even more features than CS6 Mast Collection. Perhaps this is Adobe's way of pushing virtually all of its customers onto a subscription model without making them feel like they're being pushed?

Conclusion

All in all the ease of creating mobile apps and mobile-optimized websites means that CS6 has huge potential to change the market. It levels the playing field by putting affordable app development in the hands of the masses and means that publishers can finally stop focusing on the iPad. It won't happen overnight but at least other mobile platforms can stop being looked down upon as poor alternatives to the iPad in terms of tailored content.