Adobe Photoshop Elements 15 Comes To The Windows Store
by Brett Howse on November 25, 2016 11:45 AM EST- Posted in
- Software
- Adobe
- Windows 10
The Windows Store is Microsoft’s big bet, combining software purchases, updates, and installs into a single place. Although it continues to grow, it still doesn’t offer anywhere near the number of big name apps as iOS or Android. Windows still has a massive library of applications, or course, but they are bought, installed, and updated outside of the store.
Clearly one of the ideas is that Microsoft will take a cut on any app sales in the store, so there is motivation for them to make this succeed, but for the end users, it’s been well proven that a solid Store model works for ease of use, and especially updates.
Recently (and possibly today) Adobe Photoshop Elements came to the Windows Store, as pointed out by Paul Thurrott and Windows Central. This is an important app for the Windows Store, where previously only a much lighter version called Adobe Photoshop Express was available. Elements is not the crown jewels of Adobe’s suite, but it’s still an app that many people use.
Although we don’t have official confirmation of this, Adobe Photoshop Elements is almost certainly using Microsoft’s Desktop App Bridge, codenamed Project Centennial. Update 2016-11-28: Microsoft has confirmed this is using Project Centennial. This bridge allows developers to bring older Win32 apps to the Windows Store, and if they so choose, begin to convert them to the Universal Windows Platform. Although Centennial was announced quite a while ago, it wasn’t until the Windows Anniversary Update that Windows had all of the frameworks required. Photoshop Elements certainly isn’t the first Desktop Bridge app to make it to the store, but it’s surely one of the biggest.
By offering this through the Store, end users get the benefits of the store. The app is automatically updated through the store, so you won’t need any Adobe update services running on your PC, and best of all it can be installed on up to ten devices, rather than the two activations that you would get if you purchased this as a traditional software download.
Centennial also packages the app into a container, so the install process is incredibly quick. Elements doesn’t need to install for thirty minutes as it writes files all over your PC, and in your registry. Everything is kept in the container, which also makes uninstall very simple and much cleaner. I just installed Elements, and after the download was complete, it installed in just a few seconds.
With the launch, the software is also on sale for a limited time.
If the Windows Store is going to take off in a meaningful way, apps like these are going to be an important first step. With Windows 10 on over 400,000,000 devices now, there is an incentive for developers to leverage tools like the Desktop App Bridge to utilize the store. For me, the Store model has enough benefits that I would prefer to purchase an app like this through it. It’s worked before on the PC with stores like Steam and Origin as well, and by bringing big name Win32 apps to the store, Microsoft has an important tool to bring existing devs into their new platform.
Source: Windows Central, Thurrott.com
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jabber - Monday, November 28, 2016 - link
The biggest drawbacks to Linux are - The online info is all written for folks who have been using Linux for 5+ years and skips the first 7 stages cos...you should know it already. Then the next is if you then go asking for the initial 7 stages on any Linux forum you get "Go learn this stuff NOOB!"Oh yes and once you say you've installed Linux you get told by 15 neckbeards that you installed the wrong distro.
BrokenCrayons - Monday, November 28, 2016 - link
There's a steep learning curve and yes, there are points where you have to go digging for resources that actually have the information you're looking for, but there are lots of beginner-friendly publications out there AND forums have much more mainstream/helpful people in them than you're implying. Although people do have preferred distros (Mint is my favorite, for example) but that kind of response from others about a choice of a particular distro is really uncommon. People just aren't like that and those few who are generally keep to themselves or are easily ignored.Had this been 1998-2002 or so I might have agreed with you that the Linux user community was caustic. Some elements of it still are, especially when it concerns women getting into development because many of the programmers feel like they can say whatever they want because they're working basically for free, but the user-facing and user-supporting portions if the community have gotten more mainstream and much better in the past decade and a half. I'd say it's about equal to the mix of vitriol and reason that you find anywhere else on the Internet, including the comments section of AT.
I've dabbled in Linux since the late 1990s and only fully converted (except for one desktop PC I dumped in a corner with no monitor that I use for Steam streaming to my Linux boxes...which is itself becoming progressively less useful with the number of Linux-friendly games on a sharp rise in Steam) after Windows 8 and 10 were looking more and more like Microsoft telemetry and data mining tools than operating systems. It was a rough conversion for a few months while I spent time learning and tapping into resources to find useful information, but I don't regret it. However, I also don't really recommend people try to dive right in all at once or even at all depending on their comfort level with computers. Its certainly not an OS for everyone and I'm not sure it ever will reach that point, but with new installs of Windows 7 having problems with update services that are very broken and my lack of desire to mess with 10's more aggressive data collection, it might be the right choice.
jabber - Monday, November 28, 2016 - link
Nah still mainly overly aggressive neckbeards in my experience.BrokenCrayons - Monday, November 28, 2016 - link
Sometimes people don't realize that their own behaviour is ultimately the cause for their poor treatment from others. Then again, sometimes they do and relish in that sort of thing. Take a look inside with as little of your own personal bias as possible and you might discover one of those two possibilities is the case. :3Alexvrb - Friday, November 25, 2016 - link
The concept of a software repository wasn't earthshattering stuff when it first hit Linux. You already had websites that were essentially repositories. Modern app stores have taken it a lot further over the years, including improvements to compilation (local OR cloud) and packaging/containers, updates. With that being said, there was a lot of resistance to an Apple or Google style App Store for Windows for various reasons. Some were companies like Steam who didn't want to share a cut, and others were silly like users who didn't want anything to do with a program that wasn't Win32 and didn't come on floppies (or some such other nonsense, who can concentrate on what crusty diehards say). MS really had an uphill battle on their hands.bug77 - Sunday, November 27, 2016 - link
Application stores have little to do with Linux repositories. Application stores are first and foremost about money and monetizing software as much as possible. Their license agreement comes with restrictions on what an application can and cannot do (e.g. it cannot point you to buy something from a 3rd party store).Meteor2 - Friday, November 25, 2016 - link
It's been a bit quiet on Anandtech this week. Surprised there was no coverage of SC16.Ian Cutress - Wednesday, November 30, 2016 - link
Unfortunately timing didn't work out, otherwise I'd have been there.shumicpi - Friday, November 25, 2016 - link
Yes I've seen it, bit pricey for me, When I'm thinking about Affinity Photo.zepi - Saturday, November 26, 2016 - link
Does this mean that it has a decent touch-interface or is it just a win32-app that is next to impossible to use without a pointing device?