Adobe Defends Photoshop for iPad’s Poor App Store Reviews

Adobe’s most highly-anticipated Photoshop app finally made its debut on the iPad earlier this week on the eve of the Adobe MAX 2019 conference. However, due to the lack of some key capabilities, the app has so far received a poor user review rating of just 2.3 out of 5 stars in the App Store.

a real-time v1 lesson: you’ve gotta ship an MVP to start the journey, but it will be painful at first. by definition, it won’t please everyone (and if it’s a reimagination of a 30yr old popular/global product, will displease many) pic.twitter.com/LaJ6oJlwcD

— Scott Belsky (@scottbelsky)

November 7, 2019

Defending the app’s “painful” early reviews, Adobe Creative Cloud’s chief product officer Scott Belsky has tweeted that it makes sense that a re-imagination of a popular 30-year-old product would displease many.

“Excited to RT this someday soon with a different pic, as the Photoshop team ships the amazing roadmap of features ahead, w/ our customers’ input. heads down and off to the races…,” Belsky continued:

“Such feats require customer feedback to truly exceed expectations. You must ship and get fellow passionate travelers on board. But for a team with the right vision and commitment, being doubted and critiqued is motivating and informing.”

Belsky also recommended iPad users to try Adobe’s drawing app, Fresco. While it’s hard, it’s important to build products “with customers” rather than “hidden in the lab,” he noted.

Photoshop for iPad is available in the App Store as a free download and comes with a 30-day trial. After that, it will cost $13.49 CAD per month to use Photoshop on the iPad for Canadians.