Adobe’s major mid-cycle product release targets enhancements across Flash, HTML5, video, mobile App and digital publishing tools. It also extends workflows to include tablets.
Adobe announced today the new Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 product line, enabling designers and developers to target popular and emerging smartphone and tablet platforms, as the revolution in mobile communications fundamentally changes the way content is distributed and consumed.
Today’s launch marks a significant change to Adobe’s product release strategy for Creative Suite, the design and development software catering for print, video, mobile and online media.
Adobe now plans to have milestone Creative Suite product introductions at 24-month intervals and – starting with Creative Suite 5.5 – major mid-cycle releases between the milestone versions.
Product lineup and pricing
The new Creative Suite product lineup is headlined by Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 Master Collection, which includes, in a single package, all of Adobe’s industry-defining creative tools, such as Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat, Flash Builder, Flash Catalyst, Flash Professional, Dreamweaver, Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects.
These products are available separately or as components of one or more of the five Creative Suite editions.
The complete Creative Suite 5.5 lineup and their estimated street prices are tabulated below, and is scheduled to ship within 30 days. Upgrade pricing, volume licensing and education pricing are also available.
Creative Suite 5.5 Master Collection: US$3159
Creative Suite 5.5 Design Premium: US$2309
Creative Suite 5.5 Web Premium: US$2185
Creative Suite 5.5 Production Premium: US$2065
Creative Suite 5.5 Design Standard: US$1579
Key enhancements
The new Creative Suite 5.5 Web Premium suite sees enhancements in HTML5 and Adobe Flash authoring tools, allowing users to create, deliver and monetize rich content and applications for virtually any screen.
This release helps enable designers and developers to deliver mobile applications on Android, BlackBerry Tablet OS, iOS and other platforms; create rich browser-based content across screens using HTML5; and leverage Flash Player to deliver premium video content, casual games and rich Internet applications.
Tablet devices are now included in the creative workflow, going beyond the desktop computer. A new scripting engine in Adobe Photoshop and an enhanced Photoshop Software Development Kit (SDK) enable developers to build tablet applications that interact with Photoshop from Android, BlackBerry and iOS devices.
Adobe also announced three new iPad applications that demonstrate the creative possibilities of using tablets to drive common Photoshop workflows – Adobe Color Lava for Photoshop, Adobe Eazel for Photoshop and Adobe Nav for Photoshop.
With the launch of Adobe Flash Builder 4.5 – available as part of the Creative Suite 5.5 Web Premium suite – and the Flex 4.5 framework, developers can easily develop and deploy mobile applications to the over 200 million Android, BlackBerry Playbook and iOS devices anticipated to be in market by the end of 2011.
With more than 131 million smartphones expected to have Flash Player installed by the end of the year, Adobe Flash makes it possible to bring rich content to desktops and devices inside the browser.
Flash Player is supported on Android, HP webOS and Google TV today. BlackBerry Tablet OS, upcoming versions of Windows Phone, Samsung SmartTVs and others are expected to support Flash Player in the near future.
For video and audio professionals, Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 Production Premium suite promises breakthrough performance, workflow improvements, creative innovations, and powerful new audio editing capabilities.
The powerful Adobe Mercury Playback Engine, introduced in Adobe Premiere Pro CS5, broadens its graphics processing unit (GPU) hardware support to include laptops and more supported cards, allowing users to open projects faster, get real-time feedback and work more smoothly at higher resolutions.
Creative Suite 5.5 Design Premium suite includes Adobe’s recent product innovations in digital publishing to create slick digital editions for tablet devices. Using InDesign CS5.5, in combination with the integrated Folio Producer toolset, designers can add new levels of interactivity to their page layouts targeted to tablet devices.
Documents can include video, audio, panoramic views, 360-degree object rotation, pan and zoom of images, integration of HTML and HTML5 content and other interactive overlays. Leading to a much more robust and engaging reading experience.
Creative Suite 5.5 is tightly integrated with Adobe Digital Publishing Suite to support publication, sale and analysis of content on an array of tablet devices.
Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 products integrate with Adobe CS Live, a set of online services that accelerate key aspects of the creative workflow and enable designers to focus on creating their best work. CS Live online services include: Adobe BrowserLab; Adobe CS Review; Acrobat.com; Adobe Story; and Adobe SiteCatalyst NetAverages powered by Omniture. Adobe CS Live is free until April 12,2012.
In the meantime, Adobe plans to release an HTML5 update to the current version. The update will make it easier for designers and developers to build websites using the HTML5 Internet standard.
