I assume pigs are currently merrily soaring through the air, because Photoshop has arrived for iPhone. A mere 16 and a half years since the App Store’s inception, Adobe has deemed our smartphones worthy of its flagship app. (Well, Apple ones. An Android release is due later.) This, we’re told, is the final frontier. The ultimate proof that, yes, even a phone can now handle ‘proper work’ and is no mere plaything for mainlining bite-sized videos until you go boggle eyed. Right? Well… it’s complicated.
There’s no doubt Photoshop matters. To the history of computing. To the wider gadget ecosystem. It’s a giant, so ingrained in the world of tech that people use ‘photoshop’ as a verb – until Adobe’s lawyers hear you and mete out just punishment by bludgeoning you to death with a boxed copy of Photoshop 5 while screaming “I’ll adjust(ment layer) YOUR FACE”. But as I installed Photoshop on my iPhone and spent a few hours messing around with it, a nagging sense of unease settled in. In 2008, Photoshop in your hand was the mobile dream. Here in 2025, I’m not so sure.
Back to the future
This isn’t because I’m a card-carrying Photoshop hater. That’s fashionable in certain circles, but my relationship with the app is long and (mostly) healthy. Adobe unleashed Photoshop 35 years ago, at which point the height of tech I had access to was a Commodore 64. But my school’s shiny new graphic design suite then bought a few decidedly unshiny beige Macs, on which Photoshop was duly installed. Alongside a horrendously expensive laser printer, this set-up felt like a glimpse of the future. Adobe’s app was subsequently rarely far from my digits.
I spent a terrifying sum of cash on a boxed copy when I got my first Mac while at university. By that point, Photoshop had layers (magic!) and blasted forth from my Trinitron in glorious full colour. My first job saw me wrestling with Photoshop, coaxing web design layouts from its throng of windows and menus. I may have jumped for joy when, in 1998, version 5 introduced layer effects. I could suddenly create then-seemingly-mandated hideous bevelled buttons in a fraction of the time. And even as my life as a web designer later began to fade and Adobe moved to – hiss! – subscriptions, I dutifully continued to pay my monthly fee.
PhotoSTOP
So: Photoshop on an iPhone. It’s surprisingly good. Much of the familiar toolset is present, optimised for touch. But I fast realised none of that mattered. As Stuff ‘Editor In The Big Chair’ Dan Grabham suggested to me the other day, surely most people just want to crop photos and remove unwanted objects? Loads of free apps exist for the former, and Photoshop makes you pay for the latter. Worse, it fumbles the execution; in my tests, it lagged behind Apple’s freebie Photos in terms of speed and finesse.
Even the painting tools gave me pause. They aren’t locked behind payments, but the free Sketchbook is just as capable; and if you seek true digital artistry on mobile, Procreate – even in its ‘Procreate in a shoebox’ iPhone incarnation – is superior.
Maybe it’s just me. Perhaps this app is for the jobbing pro user who’ll one day find themselves on a train, with only a phone to hand, desperately needing to adjust a gradient for a demanding and impatient client. If that’s your reality, rejoice. You’ve got your wish. Mine was for apps like Photoshop to come to mobile years ago. They did. Adobe didn’t. Now, Photoshop has arrived, fashionably late to the party, only to find out everyone else is wearing better outfits.
