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New Participant
February 14, 2020
Answered

When will Adobe InDesign would be available on IPad Pro

  • February 14, 2020
  • 5 replies
  • 95207 views

Hi Does anyone know whether Adobe are planning on developing InDesign for the iPad Pro? 

 

***** Title renamed by Moderator "VS" *****

Correct answer Dov Isaacs

You aren't going to see InDesign on iPad anytime in the near future. Stop holding your breath. Quite frankly, I don't understand what is “boring” about a MacBook (or for that matter, any Mac or Windows system). The real issue is working on a platform that is appropriate for the job.

 

5 replies

New Participant
October 28, 2020

Adobe has just launched Illustrator for the IPad Pro-is it such a stretch for InDesign? If they can figure out how to make a person appear younger or older with just a slider-you think they could translate InDesign to the IPad Pro or any other tablet.

Dov Isaacs
Brainiac
October 28, 2020

Read the rest of this thread!

 

It is absolutely not a matter of “translating” InDesign to the iPad!!!

 

Unlike Photoshop and Illustrator that primarily deal with one type of file format, raster and vector respectively, InDesign is at the heart of some very complex production workflows in which content of multiple types both from local file systems and the network is placed into InDesign documents. Often, many gigabytes of content (text, vector, raster, and mixtures of same) using many different fonts (and font styles) and ICC color profiles come together into an InDesign document and InDesign-based workflow with output directed to screen, print, or both (either directly or through a bunch of other file formats).

 

It isn't a matter of translating high level language code from Intel-based processors to ARM-based processors, but rather, trying to deal with the exceptionally limited operating system services and user-accessible features that iPadOS provides compared to either Windows or MacOS. Problem areas include font (a four letter word beginning with an ‘f’) support, color support including support for ICC color management profiles and spot colors, and general hierarchical and network file system support.

 

Yes, one could put together an InDesign Junior program that supports a limited subset of InDesign features or a version that is somewhat incompatible with InDesign on Windows and MacOS, but we strongly suspect that our users would be screaming about the actual usefulness of such a product.

 

It has been pointed out that Adobe now has iPadOS versions of both Photoshop and Illustrator, but the feature sets of both including the ability to deal with all graphic arts assets is somewhat limited. It is very easy to demo such iPadOS product versions dealing with simple designs without external dependencies (including myriads of fonts, profiles, plug-ins and scripts), but you would find an iPad an exceptionally-challenging environment for complex designs and real world production workflows where Wacom tablets, keyboards, and large (and multiple) high-resolution, color-calibrated monitors reign supreme (even large screen notebook computers running Windows or MacOS don't really cut it in those environments).

 

May I recommend the following:

 

(1)    Go to https://indesign.uservoice.com/  and vote for such a version of InDesign (with justification and real use cases) or if there isn't already such a request, start one. Adobe's InDesign product mangement and engineering doesn't officially monitor these communities. Here, you are primarily talking to other InDesign users.

 

(2)    Directly lobby Apple to extend iPadOS from it's “walled-garden” environment to one that can host real world production environments that require file system access and support for user-installed fonts (other than by store purchases and special services), profiles, scripting, plug-ins, etc.

 

- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
federicos45176481
New Participant
August 26, 2020

Ok inDesign will be a dream on iPad for a long time, well.
But update Adobe Comp to open the iD files, at least the one page ones..

New Participant
June 18, 2020

I just spoke on chat with a rep that said it was in the works but no date for release. Hope so, because I thought I could do everything from adobe and got an iPad Pro but now I'm stuck!!! Not very pro when a pro can't use it the way they need. 

Dov Isaacs
Brainiac
June 18, 2020

Here at Adobe we'd be very interested in knowing what “rep” you had a chat with gave you such erroneous information.

 

At no point has Adobe ever promised or even hinted at InDesign on iOS or iPadOS. As I have personally explained earlier in this thread, there are any number of very important reasons why anything resembling a full version of InDesign could not be readily implemented on an iPad.

 

- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
Goofy Foot Press
Inspiring
June 19, 2020

I explored this question extensively before deciding to include an iPad Pro as part of my workflow, and I can't remember a single instance of anyone saying that InDesign works competently (or even works at all) on iOS or iPadOS. Quite to the contrary, most sources talked about about the problems iOS and iPadOS have with handling hierarchical file systems which are a key part of InDesign.

Dov Isaacs
Brainiac
February 14, 2020

Adobe doesn't generally pre-announce products.

 

That having been said, implementing InDesign on an iPad had numerous challenges including:

 

(1)  Poor or almost non-existant support for hierarchical file systems that may be readily accessed and manipulated by users. This is critical for a paradigm where documents depend on linked content either on the local “system” or on an accessible server. It would be very difficult to move a packaged InDesign document to the iPad as the file system currently is and to allow other applications access to the linked contents.

 

(2)  Poor support for user-installed fonts.

 

- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
New Participant
May 5, 2020

HAD numerous challenges, meaning development is underway?? I hope so, I'd like to keep my iPad Pro but I'll have to trade it in for a boring MacBook if there's no hope.

Derek Cross
Community Expert
May 5, 2020

I think you'll be waiting a long time!

BobLevine
Community Expert
February 14, 2020
I doubt it. If you want to see what it would look like try Adobe Comp or find a friend with InDesign on a Windows touch device.

It's very basic. You can throw a layout together but trying to do real work is not a lot of fun.