Lightroom for iPad

[MikeFromMesa]

I am a subscriber to the Photography Program so I do have Lightroom on my Mac, but I almost never use it, being more familiar and comfortable with both Dxo's PhotoLab and CaptureOne and perhaps that is why I don't know the answer to this question. Does the Photography Program include a copy of Lightroom for the iPad?

Before posting this I logged onto the Adobe account to try to determine if there was an iPad download that clearly said it was free to me as a member of the Photography Program, but I did not see that. I did see a download for it, but it was not clear to me if it was part of the program or not so I thought I would ask here. I have the same question for Photoshop for the iPad.

One more question. If they are part of the program would they also work on a non-pro iPad? My wife, who does not do photo editing, has an iPad Pro and I, who does the editing, but on my Mac, have an iPad mini. They both have the A12 chip, but the iPad Pro also has the bionic GPU and I don't know if either LR or PS, if available for the iPad as part of the program, will work well on a plain iPad.

[JohanElzenga]

Lightroom for iPad is free, but to use it you need a subscription (that you already have).

[John Waller]

One more question. If they are part of the program would they also work on a non-pro iPad? My wife, who does not do photo editing, has an iPad Pro and I, who does the editing, but on my Mac, have an iPad mini. They both have the A12 chip, but the iPad Pro also has the bionic GPU and I don't know if either LR or PS, if available for the iPad as part of the program, will work well on a plain iPad.

Lightroom for mobile works on the iOS mobile operating system - so any iPad, although your experience will obvious vary depending on screen size etc.

I have the same question for Photoshop for the iPad.

Adobe is currently working on full Photoshop for iPad. It's due for release sometime in 2019. Everyone is keenly waiting for it. There are questions in these forums every week asking for a release date. So keep your eyes out for news online.

Adobe introduces real Photoshop on iPad, coming in 2019 | Macworld

In the meantime, Adobe offers mobile apps such a Fix, Mix and Express for iOS via the App store. They are nothing like full Photoshop but they're all we've got for now.

[MikeFromMesa]

> Lightroom for mobile works on the iOS mobile operating system - so any iPad, although your experience will obvious vary depending on screen size etc.

I apologize. I was not clear in my question.

All new iPads are running the same iOS version so I assume any software that runs on one should run on any other one. What I really meant to ask was whether Lightroom would work reasonably well on an iPad like my mini that does not have a dedicated GPU. I assume it should work properly on my wife's iPad Pro, and was probably designed for a device like that, but I really have no idea how hobbled an iPad mini is compared to an iPad Pro.

Similarly I am not familiar with iOS works compared of OSX so I do not know how the configuration might affect its ability to process, given a high requirements of software like Lightroom.

[JohanElzenga]

Lightroom for iPad has existed for much longer than the iPad Pro. It runs fine on most iPads (except perhaps the very oldest) and does not require a dedicated GPU.

[Conrad_C]

MikeFromMesa  wrote

What I really meant to ask was whether Lightroom would work reasonably well on an iPad like my mini that does not have a dedicated GPU. I assume it should work properly on my wife's iPad Pro, and was probably designed for a device like that, but I really have no idea how hobbled an iPad mini is compared to an iPad Pro.

I can at least tell you that Lightroom for iOS works well enough on my iPad mini 2. I'm not sure how much slower it might be on an original iPad mini.

You're correct that there isn't going to be any problem running Lightroom on an iPad Pro.

Note that for iOS devices, you don't think in terms of, or worry about, a "dedicated GPU." The main A-series processor in iOS devices is called an SoC (System on a Chip) because it combines the CPU and GPU chips into a single unit.

MikeFromMesa  wrote

but the iPad Pro also has the bionic GPU

Bionic is not a GPU. Bionic is just a name for the Apple A12X processor, to distinguish it from the A12.

As far as I can tell from the specs on Wikipedia, the reason the iPad Pro is faster is because the A12X Bionic provides:

• Four high-performance CPU cores instead of two in the A12
• Six GPU cores instead of four in the A12

(Both also have four high-efficiency CPU cores, no difference there)

But again, Lightroom works fine without all those extras. It would just run a lot smoother on the iPad Pro.

If you have one of the first 2 or 3 generations of iPad mini, Lightroom will probably seem a lot slower than on the Pro because they're older dual-core CPUs and GPUs.

[MikeFromMesa]

> Bionic is not a GPU. Bionic is just a name for the Apple A12X processor, to distinguish it from the A12.

My assumption that the Bionic part of "A12 Bionic" came from a discussion I had in Best Buy with an Apple rep. I asked him what the difference was between the "A12" and the "A12 Bionic" chips and he told me that the A12 Bionic had a dedicated GPU, so I assumed that was the difference. Unfortunately I did not take the time to look it up online when I returned home.

I am not questioning your information. I am sure it is correct, and I guess that the rep, looking at this old guy asking him these questions, decided to dumb it down enough so that he thought I would understand.

I have seen this from time to time since I retired and since the people where I now live have no idea what I did for a living before I retired, so thanks for the information.

[Conrad_C]

You should know that I wasn't totally sure of the answer when I started writing my reply. While I knew that iPads and iPhones didn't use the same "integrated vs discrete" GPU model of desktop computers, I was fuzzy on the details about that, and about what Bionic meant. So I did some quick research, and learned a lot. That's one reason I answer these questions…sometimes I end up learning as much as the person who asked the question!