Illustrator: Support for Apple Vision Pro

[Trilo Byte]

Apple's newly launched Vision Pro is a pretty exciting tool for content creation and design, and I was hoping that either Adobe would be there at launch with a number of native apps, or at least looking forward to installing and using iPadOS versions of apps on the new spatial computer.

Unfortunately, it appears that Adobe has blocked Illustrator and Photoshop from being installed on Vision Pro.  Can you shed light on why the apps have been blocked, and when we can expect either compatibility with the iPadOS release or a native VisionOS version?

[Bobby Henderson]

I'm not an Adobe employee, so I can't speak for their intentions. But a lot of mainstream content consumption apps aren't even available for the Apple Vision Pro headset at this time. There are good reasons for this. The new headset is a version 1.0 release. It is very expensive. A well-equipped Vision Pro headset plus the $200 case tips the scales at $4000 (before sales tax). That is a lot of money for what is essentially a high end niche product for an "enthusiast" crowd.

Then there is the issue of the headset appearing to be something that is used for fun, be it playing games, watching movies/videos or just casual leisure computing. It doesn't appear to be a product marketed for doing work. Adobe's creative applications are primarily for doing work. There is some obvious potential with a headset like the Vision Pro for creative tasks, such as 3D modeling. Then again, how powerful is the computing hardware in this headset? It doesn't look like something that can contain beast-level performance of a desktop tower computer. In resource intensive work situations, such as 3D modeling and rendering, the headset might need to work in a more passive manner, simply displaying what a more powerful desktop computer is rendering on the fly.

If the price of the headset drops and the customer install base grows that will help increase the demand for Adobe apps to be designed for the Vision Pro headset. For the time being there is a lot of details that need to be worked out.

[Trilo Byte]

It sounds like you may not have experience with either the headset or an understanding of what the device is designed for?

While a lot of reviewers are glomming onto the notion of consuming media, it is not some kind of face-TV.  It's a full featured computer with an Apple Silicon M2 chip and a fair amount of horsepower woth a 10-core GPU.  While it is still a 1.0 product, there are hundreds of thousands of iPad apps (a large percentage of them productivity and content creation tools).  Other developers have drawing and photo editing apps avaiable, as well as Adobe Lightroom runs without any issues.  In fact, Adobe already has a couple native Vision Pro apps (Fresco and another for generating AI art).

I can and already have used Vision Pro with all the desktop versions o Adobe apps via the connect to Mac functionality (as well as Cinema 4D and other content creation tools).  That route uses bluetooth keyboard and trackpad for primary source of input, as well as being within physical proximity of the Mac it's running on.  Since there is already an Illustrator and a Photoshop for iPad, those apps should work.  For some reason that Adobe has not revealed, they went to the effort to choose to block them on the Vision Pro app store.  If it's too insignificant a device or market to bother with, then why bother developing native apps, and why take the time to block some apps and not others.

[Bobby Henderson]

I've never used an Apple Vision Pro headset. With the price tag starting at $3499 (for just the headset and 256GB of storage) I'm not inclined to go checking it out any time soon. The next time I buy an Apple product it's most likely going to be a replacement for my old iPad Pro.

The very notion this headset is primarily running "mobile" sized apps (such as those for the iPad) is a problem. I can blow $4000 on a monster desktop or notebook computer, but I'm not inclined to spend $4000 on an iPad.

You mention the device can be connected "passively" to a Mac. Well, that's another problem for some of us. I do own an iPad. But I use a 17" Alienware notebook at home and a Dell desktop at work. I can't connect a Vision Pro headset to either of those devices.

Adobe can put a lot of resources into developing iPad apps, partly because iPad devices are not priced into the stratosphere. There is a large customer base there. For traditional desktop computing Adobe has been more platform agnostic since the late 1990's, putting roughly equal amounts of development behind the Mac and Windows versions of its apps (as well as making sure creative files can hop between Mac and Windows platforms without much trouble).

Someone from Adobe would have to state officially why iPad apps like Illustrator and Photoshop can't run on the Vision Pro headset right now. My guess is the headset is opening a can of worms that causes issues with those iPad apps. For all I know Adobe's developers could be working on making their iPad apps compatible with the headset. If that's the case the apps obviously aren't ready for prime time on that high end headset. And we all know just how viciously critical customers can be if there are any technical problems. The scenario would be Illustrator crashing in a Vision Pro headset and the user immediately getting online to say how much Adobe sucks for letting that happen.

Let's also not forget that things are pretty weird in Silicon Valley at this time. Apple's Vision Pro headset may be really cool. But "AI" is a much bigger deal right now. And there are things going on with the economy that are killing tech jobs by the thousands or tens of thousands.

With all of that going on, I would just recommend being patient. Just about anyone who has $3500-$4000 to blow on Apple's new headset probably has a bunch of other perfectly functional, near-new Apple branded computers and other devices.

[Trilo Byte]

If you don't know the answer ad are not at all familiar with the thing in question, it is perfectly acceptable... even preferable... to just not respond than to write a lengthy reply with no knowledge or understanding.  Further, rather than taking the response as a correction, or an opportunity to admit your lack of knowledge or familiarity and apologize for misspeaking, you're doubling down on another lengthy post of uninformed best guesses and pretending to know the company's priorities and intentions.  It's okay to just not know the answer.  If you're not interested in the product or the answer you could just move on to a subject you're interested in or know something about.  I appreciate all the time you've put into your replies, but uninformed guesswork and conjecture isn't helpful.

[Bobby Henderson]

Being rude and dismissive is not helpful either. If you want to say I don't know what I'm talking about let's have some specifics. Yeah, I am sorry I wasted my time on this.

I did get a good laugh from the Jimmy Kimmel Show last night showing video of people wearing those big headsets out in public.

[ejcarta]

The Apple Vision Pro has an Apple M2 Pro desktop-grade processor as well as the R1 Spatial Computing co-processor. It's price is consistent with similarly specced MacBook Pro/Mac Studio devices. It is not made, marketed, or sold as a "mobile" device.

[Monika Gause]

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@Trilo Byte  schrieb:

While it is still a 1.0 product, there are hundreds of thousands of iPad apps (a large percentage of them productivity and content creation tools).  

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600 apps, to be precise 

600 apps are built for the goggles. The other ones are just "compatible", whatever that means  -probably that the goggles do not crash when you open the app.

I can imagine the goggles being quite useful when you build 3D in actual 3D space. Is that what you did? Immersing in 3D space and claymodelling with your hands or 3-dimensional  input devices? If not, I would say that you are missing out.

I would be interested in getting to know a real-life usecase which would make sense with Illustrator in 3D space.

[Trilo Byte]

600 apps optimized for Vision Pro, and over a million iOS/iPadOS apps that work (don't have problems running or have not been blocked by the developer, as appears to be the case with Photoshop and Illustrator). While a majority of those are most likely games, the number I've heard from Apple staffers familiar with app store is that there are over a quarter million productivity and utility apps.

Yes, I've been able to work on 3D modeling in 3D space, and also quite usefully I've been able to use it to review existing 3D models by placing them in the room and move around to see them from all angles, or rotate with simple hand gestures.  Of course I can review content in a desktop app, but requires more fiddling with controls and is not quite so intuitive.  I look forward to a day when the Adobe Substance team supports this kind of thing for tools like Substance Painter.  Being able to move around a 3D model in physical space and paint/texture it  would be great.

I can imagine a few use cases for Illustrator.  Just using the app on a much larger display is quite handy (I've been doing that now for the last few days), though I'd prefer to not have to connected to the desktop machine to do so.  I'd also like to be able to use gaze & tap input over trackpad, as well as using gestures.  A few other apps also allow adjusting a level of transparency with the real-world vision, for times when you either want to trace something, or make something new that picks up at the edge of an existing drawing.  When working on industrial design projects, I still very much use Illustrator to do things like design parts of a project that will be cut with CNC tools, and then I take those same Illustrator files to pre-viz in Cinema 4D... The Illustrator files get imported into 3D software and turned into 3D parts, and then repeat the process for all the parts so it can be virtually assembled and you can be assured that everything will fit together once cut and assembled.  Being able to show the pre-viz model to clients is a great way to make sure everyone's on the same page, and helps to ensure that wood/metal materials don't go to waste on pieces that don't fit as intended.

In the early days of iPad there weren't Adobe solutions for those things, and using other software was kind of a pain.  Since Adobe has come around to embrace mobile and new technology, I'm hoping that history doesn't have to repeat itself.

[Monika Gause]

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@Trilo Byte  schrieb:

I'm hoping that history doesn't have to repeat itself.

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I still have an Apple Newton. Pain of the early adopter. Whether or not the goggles will be a success is written in the stars.

I don't understand why it shoudl be a bad thing that this needs to be plugged into a desktop. So have that desktop do the work and the goggles are just the interface. Makes a lot more sense if you ask me. Then everyone can plug in whatever goggles they can afford. It works on Windows as well and making it work with a new interface could be easier than porting the app to yet another device.

I don't know why Apple is wasting everyone's time yet another time. And yes, I am an Apple user. 

[a.c. ivy]

cant knock it till you try it. in the making since 2007. the things truly amazing. if you limit yourself based on your own judgements, then that's your own problem and you live in a bubble. 

[Mylenium]

Adobe uses a ton of custom libraries for UIs and the actual program functions and they may simply require to be adapted for genuine technical reasons or just to pass Apple certification. Just getting the activation system to work on a device that is already heavily locked down could be a pain. Outside that it's really one of those "0.0001 percent of users" questions. It's apparently not the answer you like to hear, but any company has to ask themselves whether it's worth to invest the resources just to cater for a tiny fraction of the potential crowd. And let's be real - until the Vision Pro has been launched in huge markets like Japan, Europe, China and so on a lot of people and companies aren't going to bother. Small developers will wait until they have the money, big companies will evaluate how it affects their development cycles and pretty much everyone will try to avoid getting entangled in Apple's atrocious and restrictive development and certification rules for as long as they can.

Mylenium

[ejcarta]

This is an M2 Pro device. My wife upgraded to an M3 MacBook Pro and, for the same price, I opted for the M2 Vision Pro. Similar specs, with the Vision Pro being sold as a "Spatial Computer" that could run iOS, iPadOS, and MacOS apps, all on one device (just a simple opt-in for developers!). Half a year later, Adobe hasn't flicked the bit to let their apps exist on this expensive computer, verses that expensive computer. This is Adobe's game to lose, and they're fumbling the ball in the first quarter.

[Bobby Henderson]

And the sales numbers of the Vision Pro headset are what? What's the install base? The headset appears to be priced only for people who can afford giant homes and yachts (or middle class people who have strange priorities with their money). I don't see Apple moving these high priced goggles in the tens of millions of units.

[ejcarta]

Same price as MacBook Pro with better usability. The sales numbers are in line with expectations. Adobe just needs to check a box. Why are they letting this slip through their fingers?

[Bobby Henderson]

Starting price is $3500 for a model with 256GB of storage. That's not cheap. The price rises considerably from there for an acceptably ample amount of storage (like 1 terabyte). Again, I can't imagine large numbers of Mac users replacing their notebooks or desktops with a pair of goggles. It looks like more of a supplemental periphreal device. Adobe isn't going to pursue tailoring a bunch of their apps for a high priced niche device unless the install base numbers are high enough to justify the effort and expense.

[ejcarta]

Again, a MacBook Pro with similar specs is the same price. You refer to this device as "Goggles", as if that's some sort of an insult. That does illuminate my view on why Adobe seems to be so blasse about losing the future. That is the Meta Effect, I guess. Meta's race to the bottom of VR has jaded people on this tech. The Vision Pro is a MacBook Pro with a better display and more use cases than an actual MacBook Pro. Adobe may yet put up the best apps on these computers, but given their lack of enthusiasm, I'm not holding my breath. I love Adobe, and still pay for a sub, but this is the future of computing and I hope Adobe will still be around for it in a year or two.

[Monika Gause]

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@ejcarta  schrieb:

Again, a MacBook Pro with similar specs is the same price. You refer to this device as "Goggles", as if that's some sort of an insult. That does illuminate my view on why Adobe seems to be so blasse about losing the future. 

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This forum is 95% not Adobe staff. You are talking to users here. And this is the opinion of a large portion of the market about those Goggles. Why would anyone wander around in their apartment doing two dimensional stuff? That doesn't make sense.

Those Goggles might make sense when you are creating in 3D or doing environmental stuff. But maybe you can explain what would be the advantage of using Illustrator in a spatial environment? Maybe you can enlighten us why we should have a pair of those goggles? I'm a Mac user, so why should I get them? What do they improve in my work? Are they supported on Blender - I'm currently learning it. What will get better in my work with them?