WWDC through the lens of a professional photographer fed up with Adobe!

Good day, Steemit! It’s been a breakneck day and I’m just sitting down now to write. I’ve been looking forward to WWDC for months. Months! I’ve been patiently awaiting the announcement of new iPad Pro’s and other aluminum rectangles with Apple logos. Yesterday afternoon was spent at Caffetto, glued to the WWDC live stream. This blog is going to offer a summary for WWDC, honed specifically through the eyes of a photography/illustrator and how yesterday’s announcements could impact artists.

Some backstory is an order, I suppose. The morning the iPad Pro was released, I was at the Manhattan Beach, CA Apple Store when the doors opened. It had been rumored for years and I’d followed every rumor with bated breath. This was the device I’d once dreamt up, 10 or 15 years ago. As most of you know, I’m a photographer, but my first “dream job” was comic book illustration and design. My proclivity for technology lead me towards digital art and I fantasized about a device that would allow drawing, sketching and painting at professional standard. A Wacom Cintiq, more or less, but portable.

The iPad Pro, Apple Pencil and Procreate by Savage Interactive did deliver that for me. During the last 18 months, I’ve drawn more than I have in the last 10 years. I’ve become so comfortable with the software, and the feel of the pencil. I highly doubt I could return to paper or traditional media. In the last 6 months, Apple has released updated iOS API’s that unlock the ability to export high resolution, 300dpi. Even during the initial iPad Pro commercial, famed illustrator James Jean was featured putting the iPad Pro to work. 

Today I’m able to do 95% of my necessary workflow on my iPad Pro. 300dpi export and RAW editing capability […for my photography] needed to become a reality for that to be possible, but both were included in iterations of iOS 10. All my illustration is done on my iPad Pro, most of my writing and even video editing. The single hinderance that always returns me to my MacBook Pro, the sole reason I must still put it in my bag, is photo editing. This unfortunate truth rests solely on the shoulders of Adobe. 

I’m convinced Adobe intentionally handicaps it’s iOS apps. My theory is that they believe a mobile Photoshop app with full desktop capabilities will cannibalize their desktop software. Even with CC, the suite of iOS apps are meant to support the work you do on the desktop, rather than giving you the ability to actually WORK on an iPad. Over the last year, I’ve tried at great length to adapt my workflow through Lightroom, and Photoshop for iPad and it is not possible. Photography is most of my living, so the Adobe inadequacies is the only obstacle from using my iPad Pro day to day.

During yesterday’s WWDC2017, Apple’s Greg Joswiak announced the updated iPad Pro 9.7” and 12.9” models, then introduced a new 10.5” model as well. New iPad Pro’s will be bumped with an A10X processor and get the same True Tone displays as the 9.7” iPad Pro debuted with last March. Wide color gamut, ultraslow reflectivity glass, 50% brighter with 600 nits brightness and HDR video. ProMotion is a new feature in the iPad Pro lines, boasting 120Hz refresh rate per second. For a digital artist, this may be the most important feature for next generation iPad Pro’s. The ProMotion implementation means that latency for Apple Pencil has been reduced to an industry best 20ms. I am still blown away by the engineering of the Apple Pencil so an improvement to it’s performance is something I have a hard time fathoming. 

Shortly after the announcement of new hardware, Jos handed off a demo of the new iPad Pro over to Ash Hewson of Serif for a look at Affinity Photo. Take a minute to watch the demo, but Hewson showed of an incredible example of what photographers can do with Affinity Photo, at once point selecting individual hair with a mask tool! In three minutes, Affinity showed more power, concern and capability for photographers than anything Adobe has been able to offer in 18 months! To my earlier point, these emerging companies are moving in and eating Adobe’s lunch, and they have no one to blame but themselves. For over a decade, I’ve done all my drawing and illustration in Photoshop, but through shear necessity, I’ve had to seek out other solutions for drawing and sketching on the iPad Pro. That’s how I found Procreate, and over the last year and half, that app has matured. It’s become comfortable and cemented itself in to my illustration workflow. 

Affinity Photo was available for download immediately following WWDC. $20 is steep for an app these days, but Adobe’s luke warm approach to my needs as a professional looking to work exclusively on the iPad Pro has created a situation where I’d gladly pay that, assuming they offer a legitimate desktop Photoshop alternative. In one night of messing with Affinity Photo, I think they hit that mark. I’ll have an in depth review of Affinity Photo for iPad posted here on Steemit after a couple of weeks time with the app, but initially, this feels like it!

Additionally,  to the hardware and third party apps, Craig Federighi ran down a preview of features coming to iPad with iOS 11, releasing this fall. Finally, drag and drop is coming to the platform. This is going to cross a bridge that kept the iPad Pro from true desktop productivity. Some statements in the next version of iOS even seem to acknowledge an unspoken merger of iOS and MacOS, like a new dock that swipes up from the bottom of a horizontal iPad Pro. Seeing it there, once can’t help but to see a familiar OS X UI. Also, saved spaces and most importantly, we’re finally getting a file system!

I believe that last 5% of my iPad Pro experience is about to close, finally giving me a full realized, mature platform to work digitally across both visual mediums of photography and illustration. Steemit is a integral part of my next steps in professional work with iPad Pro. With only 200.000 STEEM, I can cover the price gap of what I’ll be able to get for my current iPad on CraigsList and the next generation iPad Pro hitting stores a week from today. Of course, additionally giving me the opportunity to post new work, tutorials and insights with new applications […such as Affinity Photo] in future blogs.