Most development isn’t done in a vacuum but it sure seems like since Apple’s M1 Mac announcements that Adobe has gotten shot in the arm when releasing its apps for ARM-powered platforms.
Adobe announced today that it’s ready to release a native Lightroom app for Apple M1and Windows on ARM. The Lightroom release follows a beta version of Photoshop hitting both platforms last month in November. Adobe is making it clear that it’s working quickly to support applications on ARM meant for heavier desktop computing needs.
I’m excited to announce that the latest version of Adobe Lightroom is now a native app for both Apple M1 and Windows Arm platforms.
We rebuilt Lightroom to take advantage of the newest performance and power efficiency benefits of the Apple M1 and Qualcomm Snapdragon (for Windows 10) processors.
For anyone still a bit gunshy on using this new version of Lightroom for ARM, Adobe reassures that Classic Lightroom has been certified to “well” with Apple’s Rosetta emulation and that the company is working to bring a version of Lightroom Classic natively to Apple’s M1 Macs.
In addition to a native M1 and WoA client, Adobe users are also receiving some other feature updates that include:
- ProRAW format support. You’ll be able to import and edit images taken in the Apple ProRAW format in the December updates to Camera Raw, Lightroom Classic, or Lightroom (desktop, iOS, Android, lightroom.adobe.com). ProRAW is built using the Adobe DNG file format and specification.
- New Lightroom widgets for iOS14. Quickly take photos and selfies using the Lightroom camera, explore Discover Edits and In-app tutorials from the Widgets screen. You can even drag these onto the Home screen for easier access. (Lightroom iOS only, requires iOS14 and later)
- The free Lightroom Starter plan is now available for Lightroom desktop (Mac and Win). Available only in Australia and New Zealand, new customers can start for free and use core Lightroom features, such as the Sensei-based Auto or the Light and Color editing sliders, without a subscription or trial limits.
Microsoft recently updagraded its Surface Pro X hardware with an evolved SQ2 chip which has delivered some graphical performance boosts over the original SPX releases which benefits GPU dependant applications such as Adobe’s Creative Suite. Holistically looking at the upgraded SQ2 chip, this native Lightroom app, native Photoshop beta, and the promised emlation layer improvements, we can start to see a future where Pro X and Pro converge.
