Mode Studio

The iPad is a window - a window into convergence. I wrote that convergence happened, but clearly there is more to come. Digital cameras and video cameras have come together on all fronts, from both the photographer and the videographer side. Input/Output and the user experience are the next steps in the workflow. Let’s look at input/output here, which inevitably leads to workflow.

Input/Output:  Right now this may be the lesser side of the iPad news story. Anyone that has ever tried to get a photo into their iPhone knows it’s not an easy matter. The iPhone OS, which the iPad runs, doesn’t allow the device to show up as a drive on your computer’s desktop. You have to use iPhoto or Image Capture to download photos. Neither of those hold a candle to Adobe’s products, particularly Bridge and Photo Downloader which come for free with any Creative Suite application, such as Photoshop CS4.

Getting photos into the iPad may not be so easy or discoverable. With the iPhone you need to sync photos using the iPhone’s Pictures tab in iTunes. You can sync a folder from your computer to upload photos to the iPhone, but you cannot edit (say in Photoshop Mobile) and then easily return the photos to your computer. One way to get photos off of the iPhone and to your computer is to email the photo to yourself. Another way is to first email the photo to yourself and open the email on the iPhone, and save on the iPhone. Do some editing in Photoshop Mobile or Tiffen’s PhotoFX. Then the photo will appear in an iTunes sync and you can download it back to your computer. It’s convoluted and because Apple has a lock on the process, 3rd party apps aren’t able to better streamline the process of input/output (or upload/download).

What does that mean for the iPad? Until we can have a hands-on look at the new iPhone OS that the iPad will run, I can’t really be sure. There is hope for better input/output because of the camera and SD card connectors that are accessories to the iPad. If a camera is meant to be hooked up to the iPad then there must be a photo download app built into the OS. What remains to be seen is whether that capability will be ColorSync aware, RAW aware, etc. If I upload a raw file with Adobe RGB profile, then download/sync that file to my desktop, or email that file, will it retain RAW format and color profile? That’s if RAW files will be able to be downloaded at all since the iPad will likely not have any RAW processing ability. (Or will it?)

Any photographer that has seen the iPad (which is probably the entire population at this point) is imaging ways they can incorporate the iPad into their workflow. Much remains to be seen once the iPad is released. As long as Apple controls the pipeline for photos in and out of the iPad, and 3rd party developers are shut out of that part of the equation, there will likely be a lot to be desired about the iPad’s photo functionality. But Apple could have one trick up it’s sleeve - Aperture. Because Apple already has a professional imaging application, could there be an iPad Aperture app in the works? I can’t imaging that any of Apple’s Aperture developers are unaware of the potential of this device for photographers. We’ll soon see.

Posted by Steve Weinrebe