Adobe braves the Mac App Store with Photoshop Elements
Looks like hell froze over last night. Adobe Photoshop Elements is finally on the Mac App Store. To be fair to Adobe, it’s great to see the company release this product in this manner, because it’s useful, affordable and therefore certain to be useful for a large number of Mac App Store browsers. And while Apple hasn’t pushed the Mac App Store as the only way to install software (unlike in iOS), you can bet it will become a de-facto default for anyone but tinkerers over the next year. In other words, where the future of Mac software sales is concerned, you’re on the App Store or you’re nowhere. Before today, Adobe was nowhere. Today it isn’t.
So, how about Office, Microsoft? Or are you prepared to just let the iWork apps RONCH your Mac marketshare?
Interesting, seeing as Apple also approved the Google+ app in recent days… a genuine change of direction?
Not really. Apple was never blocking Adobe, but it makes certain demands over how software is distributed. You can’t do ‘suites’ and you can’t have installers. PSE’s obviously been a little retooled to deal with this.
As for Google+, it’s a client for a social network, so there’s no way Apple could have booted that app, bar it breaking other rules (which, ironically, given its crashy nature, it somewhat did).
Is there any particular reason why Microsoft would avoid selling Office via the Mac App Store?