As you've likely read today, Adobe XD has announced its plans to officially bring Projects Napoleon and Mighty -- a drafting ruler and cloud-connected stylus for iPads -- to retail in 2014. Rather than make the consumer-facing hardware itself, the company's relying on Adonit's manufacturing prowess. Creative professionals can rest assured that the tools will function with Creative Cloud. The retail versions will be much like the prototypes, except that Adobe ditched Bluetooth in the 'short ruler,' Napoleon. It now uses only capacitive touch and a single button (see above) to act as a selector for options within apps. Mighty will ship with a non-replaceable tip that's just under 2mm, but it's otherwise the same and includes a lipstick-style carrying case / charger.

On top of all that, Adobe's introducing Projects Contour and Parallel as its next serious experiments in the area. They will serve as reference apps to highlight the kinds of functionality the tools could afford designers. Contour is Adobe's take on a draft-sketching app, while Parallel is an iPhone app that lets you grab photos of objects in real life and instantly convert them into vectors -- as you'd expect, both intermingle. No word on whether these apps will make it out of Adobe's in-progress lair just yet, but a rep gave us a coy smile and note to stay tuned. You'll find a video of the apps after the break, as well as our early hands-on with Napoleon and Mighty from June.