At the Apple Special Event on October 30th in New York, Apple and Adobe revealed the new line of iPad Pros will support Project Aero, a new feature within Adobe’s flagship product Photoshop that streamlines AR production allowing users to create, manipulate and layer virtual objects in the real world.
Real-time AR experience creation happening on stage at Apple’s event.
“Creating 3D assets for use in AR and VR is not a new concept,” said Geno Mallo, creative director for Th3rd Coast Media Solutions, a company that specializes in VR and AR production. “But so far, the workflows have been slow and tedious. This collaboration between industry giants has the potential to streamline processes and bring XR production to the mainstream.”
Between jabs at competitors and updates to the Macbook Air and Mac Mini product lines, the Cupertino-based tech giant revealed that the latest iPad Pro will sport the A12X Bionic Chip – a massive leap ahead of the A12 Bionic in the iPhone XS, XS Max, and XR released just a month prior. Single-core CPU performance is up to 35 percent faster compared to last year’s iPad Pro chip, and 90 percent faster in terms of multicore performance, in large part thanks to a new performance controller that allows the chip to run all processor cores simultaneously. Advanced cameras, sensors, and improved four-speaker audio combine with the power of A12X Bionic to turn iPad Pro into a powerful AR device.
All of this new power under the hood allows for the Photoshop engine to run natively on iPad Pro, with optimization for tablet-based workflows (including compatibility with the Apple Pencil). Powered by ARKit 2 in Project Aero (Adobe’s AR authoring tool that’s still in development), users can turn the individual layers of their Photoshop projects into AR objects, with the ability to apply animation to those objects for further immersion.
The new iPad Pro models and other devices revealed at this event are available to order starting today from Apple’s website, with expected availability starting Wednesday, November 7, in the US and more than 40 additional countries and regions. The iPad Pro’s pricing begins at $799.
Project Aero and Photoshop will be coming to the App Store in 2019. Pricing, specific release date, and support for other tablet devices for those applications have not been released as of this writing.
