# Moving to Universal apps on MacOS



## mcasan (Mar 17, 2021)

It was nice to see Photoshop and ACR move to native mode Apple Silicon by becoming "Universal" apps.    PS was definitely faster on my M1 Mini.    With PS, ACR, and Lr all moved to native mode, we are just waiting for the move of LrC to Universal status.    Hopefully that will also give a performance bump.

Also good to have the new camera profile for Apple ProRAW DNG files.   Terry White had a good video showing how much saturation and contrast the new profile adds compared to use the Adobe Color profile.


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## mcasan (Mar 18, 2021)

I spoke too soon.   ACR on my Mini is still an Intel app.   I guess Adobe will release both ACR and LRC for as Universal apps at the same time.   Hopefully that will be no later than the April product marketing event.


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## mcasan (Mar 26, 2021)

Details about the problems with plugins and CEP extensions.   Plugins need to be updated to run on Apple Silicon.   Extensions previously made for CEP need to be ported to UXP.   


https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/photoshop-for-apple-silicon.html#native-known-issues


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## mcasan (Apr 1, 2021)

Anyone seen or heard anything about any beta testing of ACR and LrC for Apple Silicon?


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## Johan Elzenga (Apr 1, 2021)

As always: those who know are not allowed to say anything, so those who do say something probably don't know.


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## clee01l (Apr 1, 2021)

mcasan said:


> Anyone seen or heard anything about any beta testing of ACR and LrC for Apple Silicon?


Adobe discontinued Public Beat testing several years ago.  (Some might say that they discontinued beta testing all to gether at that time based upon the release of some of the more buggy products released to the paying public.)


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## Johan Elzenga (Apr 1, 2021)

Actually they introduced public beta testing again. Open your CC app and you should see a 'Beta apps' tab in the list. But there is no Lightroom Classic beta in that tab.


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## Conrad Chavez (Apr 1, 2021)

It is true that Adobe did not do public betas for a number of years. But in March 2020, there was an official announcement that Adobe was making public betas available, initially for a range of the Adobe video apps (Premiere, After Effects…) Then later in 2020, after the initial release of Apple Silicon Macs, the Photoshop team posted a public beta of Photoshop running native on Apple Silicon.

Public beta availability appears to be up to the individual product teams, because the video applications and Illustrator are there in the “Beta apps” list in the Creative Cloud app, but Lightroom Classic, InDesign, and others don’t seem to be available as public betas (yet?). (Photoshop was removed from the public beta list, probably because Apple Silicon support is now part of the normal Photoshop installation.)


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## clee01l (Apr 2, 2021)

Johan Elzenga said:


> Actually they introduced public beta testing again. Open your CC app and you should see a 'Beta apps' tab in the list. But there is no Lightroom Classic beta in that tab.


There are no Lightroom Apps at all in that list.  So in a way,  I am still correct.   I enjoyed being a part of the Beta testing in the earlier version of Lightroom.  Bummer!


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## Johan Elzenga (Apr 2, 2021)

clee01l said:


> There are no Lightroom Apps at all in that list.  So in a way,  I am still correct.   I enjoyed being a part of the Beta testing in the earlier version of Lightroom.  Bummer!


AFAIK, Lightroom (cloud) is already a Universal application.


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## clee01l (Apr 2, 2021)

Johan Elzenga said:


> AFAIK, Lightroom (cloud) is already a Universal application.



And so is Photoshop. The issue of offering betas for user testing does not AFAIK apply apply to Universal Applications and did exist in the past for Lightroom (Standalone). 


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## Johan Elzenga (Apr 3, 2021)

I know, but my point is that a having public beta of Lightroom (Classic or otherwise) would mainly make sense if there was something special to test, such as M1 compatibility. It does not make much sense for the general small point updates. So for Lightroom Classic it would make sense, but for Lightroom desktop that has already passed. AFAIK, Photoshop had a public M1 beta, but now the app is universal so I assume the public beta is no longer available (I don't have a M1 Mac so I won't see it if it is still available).


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## clee01l (Apr 3, 2021)

Johan Elzenga said:


> I know, but my point is that a having public beta of Lightroom (Classic or otherwise) would mainly make sense if there was something special to test,.


So here we are with LrC v10.2 and still there are issues that a public beta would have uncovered that are still not fixed. LrC V10.0 WAS the beta. As was v10.1 and 10.1.1. By releasing these as gold versions, Adobe has gotten a reputation for releasing buggy software. People expect to find bugs in the beta releases. People also expect the paid release version to be (relatively) bug free. 
If the upgrade from V9.x to v10.0 had nothing special to test, how come so many existing features that worked without complaint in V9.x. Arrived broken in v10.0? Do you see my point?


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## Johan Elzenga (Apr 4, 2021)

I do see your point and I'm not the one who takes decisions about beta testing at Adobe. My point was that public betas are usually different from normal beta testing, which is done in secret. Lightroom Classic is beta tested before it is released, just like any other application. It's true that normal beta testing won't discover all the bug that could possibly in the software. Some bugs only manifest themselves in very specific setups, some other bugs only show in fairly rare cases. They can slip past a beta testing group which is limited in size, but when millions of people start using the software they will be detected. Such is life.I have yet to see bug free software.  Yes, Adobe could call every release a 'public beta' to avoid criticism, but in the end that would just be releasing the same software under another name. They chose not to do that, and keep a 'public beta test' for special things like a change to a new platform .


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## Johan Elzenga (Apr 4, 2021)

Quite frankly I think that the current situation, where releases are often quite buggy, is a direct negative result of the subscription system. In the past, Adobe would release a major new version every two years or so. Of course there would be many more new features in such a major release than in the current two months releases, but that meant that some new features could be beta tested for almost two years, and other new features for perhaps one year, or at least many months. Only some last minute additions would be tested for a much shorter time, but there was much less pressure. New versions would be released when ready, not at fixed intervals, and it would also be easier to leave a last minute addition out if there were still doubts. Today there is a two month release schedule so _something_ is expected every two months.


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## clee01l (Apr 4, 2021)

Johan Elzenga said:


> My point was that public betas are usually different from normal beta testing, which is done in secret. Lightroom Classic is beta tested before it is released, just like any other application.


In the past, I have participated in the "private" beta testing  conducted by Adobe.  I would not call it secret  but the beta testers are chosen by invitation. .  It consists of a small group of people with a limited  hardware set (usually high end).  Since the testing is not done by the general public,  the broad spectrum of user equipment is never exposed to  the newest compiled code. 

What really irritates me  about  new upgrades and updates  is that they always seem to introduce new bugs in areas of code that have nothing to  with the new feature being added.


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## Johan Elzenga (Apr 4, 2021)

clee01l said:


> In the past, I have participated in the "private" beta testing conducted by Adobe. I would not call it secret but the beta testers are chosen by invitation. . It consists of a small group of people with a limited hardware set (usually high end). Since the testing is not done by the general public, the broad spectrum of user equipment is never exposed to the newest compiled code.


Correct. Even if there is a fairly large group of beta testers, they cannot test on all the possible hardware setups that the general public might use. With 'secret' I simply mean that Adobe beta-testers are not officially listed somewhere and beta-testers aren't even allowed to openly say that they are beta testers.



clee01l said:


> What really irritates me about new upgrades and updates is that they always seem to introduce new bugs in areas of code that have nothing to with the new feature being added.


Yes, it is always irritating if something like that happens. The explanation often is that old code is regularly updated, to keep the product compatible with the latest version of MacOS or Windows. So even if some code has nothing to do with a new feature, it may still have changed and that change can cause bugs. Adobe also rewrites existing code to try to make the product faster. That too can introduce bugs.


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## clee01l (Apr 4, 2021)

Johan Elzenga said:


> ... So even if some code has nothing to do with a new feature, it may still have changed and that change can cause bugs. Adobe also rewrites existing code to try to make the product faster. That too can introduce bugs.


Which is exactly why public betas are necessary. Adobe is still having this “public beta” but using the “.0”, “.1” and “.1.1” releases to ALL paid subscribers. Some customers don’t want to to participate and act as guinea pigs with their mission critical data. Others, like you and I may be more comfortable taking such risks. How many commercial users working on dead lines are installing the Adobe releases only to discover that the recommended update has crashed their machine at a critical part of their workflow. This is an avoidable consequence of not having public betas. If instead of LrC v10.0, Adobes had released the same code as LrC v10.0b (beta) I think customer appreciation for the Adobe products might improve. 


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## mcasan (Apr 6, 2021)

Males me wonder why porting ACR or LrC Develop module to Apple Silicon is taking so long.   Is the delay more than just porting and also has more redesign work to offer significantly more speed or some new features?    Hopefully Adobe can release it by the June WWDC event, if not before.


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## mcasan (Apr 20, 2021)

A major competitor related their beta today for native Apple Silicon and Metal support.    I can only guess that will go live by the end of May.    Let's hope Adobe will soon release LrC and ACR  for native Apple Silicon.


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## mcasan (Apr 21, 2021)

Of course that means any plugins anyone wants to use with that version also needed to be updated for Apple Silicon.   The same would apply to plugins used with LrC, or Ps updated for Apple Silicon native mode..       So if you do use 3rd party plugins and you are on an M1 Mac or are planning to move to an M1 Mac, start asking the plugin vendors for the Apple Silicon version.


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## mcasan (May 4, 2021)

Speaking of plugins....On1 has committed to having Apple Silicon native products this summer.     “We are working on the arm64 port currently. It will be part of a free update to Photo RAW 2021 this summer, probably June.”

So hopefully their full Photo Raw app and the related plugins should then be able to be used in native mode with C1P (native mode should be out by end of May) and with Ps.    When we ever get LrC and ACR on native mode, those On1 plugins should work with them as well.    Should make for an interesting summer and fall.

Not heard any  hints about Topaz or DxO  releasing native Apple Silicon versions.


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## mcasan (May 25, 2021)

Today Phase One had a Facebook session where they were giving some basic benchmark differences of using an M1 Mac vs recent Intel based MacBooks. They mentioned that when they opened up the code to use Metal for M1 machines, they also improved the graphics routines for the Intel machines. They are supposed to have a live session on Thursday with some designers to talk about the technical improvements. This should be part of setting the stage for the pending C1P dot release that supports Apple Silicon.

The important thing about this is that may mean of the developers of photo editing apps could be making improvements to their products that run on x86 when they update for Apple ARM. In the case of C1P, I imagine we know more by the first of June.

Exciting times!!!


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## mcasan (May 26, 2021)

Thursday Phase One will have a Facebook event to talk about the impacts of moving their photo app from x86 to also supporting Apple Silicon.   They hinted yesterday that there will be benefits also for those using x86.   

This might gives us all more info about what to expect and want from a photo app vendor when they add Apple Silicon support to their Mac products.

https://www.facebook.com/events/324...p;notif_t=event_calendar_create&amp;ref=notif


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## mcasan (May 27, 2021)

Today Phase One released Capture One 21 (14.2.0) with native Apple Silicon Support

Capture One 21 (14.2.0) is a release containing new hardware support, new operating system support, new camera and lens support, and important bug fixes.

Capture One 21 (14.2.0) is natively supported on Apple Silicon (M1) machines. Additionally, Hardware Acceleration on Apple Silicon (M1) machines will run through Metal. Hardware Acceleration on Windows and Intel-based Apple machines still runs through OpenCL.


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## mcasan (Jun 4, 2021)

In the C1P opening dialog,  they now state their next step is for iPad in 2022.    Evidently the big work moving from MacOS Universal to an iPadOS app is that you have to redesign the UI for touch screen.   

With WWDC next week, and nothing I know about from Adobe, I have to wonder if Adobe is gonna wait for Christmas to fulfill their commitment for porting to Universal design for PS, ACR, and LrC.


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## clee01l (Jun 4, 2021)

Adobe already has iPadOS apps for Lightroom and Photoshop. With the new M1 version of the iPadPro, it might even be possible to run M1 compiled MacOS apps like Lightroom Classic


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## Johan Elzenga (Jun 4, 2021)

clee01l said:


> Adobe already has iPadOS apps for Lightroom and Photoshop. With the new M1 version of the iPadPro, it might even be possible to run M1 compiled MacOS apps like Lightroom Classic


AFAIK, that won’t be the case. The iPad may have an M1 chip, it runs on iPadOS, not MacOS. So an M1 MacOS application does not run on an iPad, just like an Intel MacOS app does not run on Windows.


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## clee01l (Jun 4, 2021)

Johan Elzenga said:


> AFAIK, that won’t be the case. The iPad may have an M1 chip, it runs on iPadOS, not MacOS. So an M1 MacOS application does not run on an iPad, just like an Intel MacOS app does not run on Windows.



That is not what I mean. Because of the M1 Chip compile, Lightroom Classic might be able to run on an iPadPro running iPadOS. Apple has already said that iOS and iPadOS apps might be eventually running on M1 MacOS laptops and desktops. 

Also MacOS can run virtual on Windows computers and Windows OS can be installed on intel Apples. 


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## mcasan (Jun 4, 2021)

Personally, don't care at all about Lightroom.   We don't have ACR for PS or LrC for iPadOS.


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## clee01l (Jun 4, 2021)

mcasan said:


> Personally, don't care at all about Lightroom. We don't have ACR for PS or LrC for iPadOS.



I can used Lightroom on my iPadPro to share to Photoshop on the iPad Pro. I don’t need a separate ACR. Personally I think the ACR interface is antiquated and stale compared to the interface used in Lr and LrC. 
PS on iPadOS is like it’s Lightroom partner lacking in functionality compared to its more mature MacOS counterpart. But since it is not so complex as the original, it find it easier to use. 


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## Johan Elzenga (Jun 4, 2021)

clee01l said:


> That is not what I mean. Because of the M1 Chip compile, Lightroom Classic might be able to run on an iPadPro running iPadOS. Apple has already said that iOS and iPadOS apps might be eventually running on M1 MacOS laptops and desktops.


Yes, but that is the oposite and that is what Apple is going to suport. They did not say they will support running MacOS apps on iPadOS one day, and it is unlikely that Adobe will try to do that on their own. Adobe already has Lightroom for iPad, so they have no incentive to make Lightroom Classic run on an iPad too. My bet is that this is never going to happen. It would make much more sense to improve syncing between Lightroom Classic and the Lightroom cloud ecosystem, and they even refuse to do that much!

ACR for iPad is another matter. Adobe has Photoshop for iPad, but that app cannot open raw files directly. It makes sense to port ACR to the iPad, so that photographers who do not use any version of Lightroom (there are quite a lot of photographers who use Bridge / ACR / Photoshop) can still work with raw files in Photoshop for iPad.


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## clee01l (Jun 5, 2021)

Johan Elzenga said:


> Yes, but that is the oposite and that is what Apple is going to suport. They did not say they will support running MacOS apps on iPadOS one day, and it is unlikely that Adobe will try to do that on their own. Adobe already has Lightroom for iPad, so they have no incentive to make Lightroom Classic run on an iPad too.



Once Lightroom Classic is compiled to run with M1, then It might not be too difficult for Adobe to create an iPadOS version.
You are correct that Apple has not indicated the M1 MacOS apps will run on iPadOS but they have not indicated that these will not. Apple already has its office version of apps running on iPadOS and MacOS.  It seems reasonable that the same Apple office app would be running on MacOS and Apple only supports one compiled version and Intel disappears from the Apple line up.

This whole thread is about speculation.  So, you can speculate the way you want and so can I.


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## Johan Elzenga (Jun 5, 2021)

clee01l said:


> Once Lightroom Classic is compiled to run with M1, then It might not be too difficult for Adobe to create an iPadOS version.



I doubt that. Apple (and many others) have MacOS and iPadOS versions of certain apps, that is true. But the iPadOS versions are real iPadOS apps, not simply MacOS apps ported to iPadOS. They are optimized for touch, and do not rely on right mouse button clicks, just to name one major difference of these two OS-ses. Adobe already has an iPadOS version of Lightroom. It simply does not make sense for them to create yet another version, and certainly not a version that won't run very well on an iPad because it is a ported MacOS version.

Speculation? Yes sure, but you can base speculation on common sense and common sense tells me that Lightroom Classic for iPad is not going to happen.


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## Conrad Chavez (Jun 5, 2021)

Johan Elzenga said:


> I doubt that. Apple (and many others) have MacOS and iPadOS versions of certain apps, that is true. But the iPadOS versions are real iPadOS apps, not simply MacOS apps ported to iPadOS. They are optimized for touch, and do not rely on right  mouse button clicks, just to name one major difference of these two OS-ses.


Very true. Simply porting the Lightroom Classic code to iPad OS would probably be the easy part. Having that pile of code be productive on iPad OS is the real challenge. The UI is a major problem. Some Lightroom Classic controls are so thin or tiny that they are easy to miss even on a Mac or PC with a high precision mouse, like resizing a side panel or hitting the sync icon…those controls are absolutely not usable with touch in their current form. And like Johan said, you can’t use computer gestures like right-clicks and hovers (unless supported when a mouse is connected to the iPad).

There is another issue. For the current Lightroom on iPad, one reason Adobe went with storage of masters on the cloud with Lightroom on the iPad is that iOS does not seem to support path-based referenced files, which are required for local storage of masters in Lightroom Classic. Even though the Files app appears to present hierarchical folders, I can’t think of an iPad app that lets you work with its files using paths. I don’t know the technical details behind this, but iOS seems to require all apps to use their own sandboxed storage that makes traditional path file referencing impossible.

That might explain why we have not (as far as I know) seen any iOS application that uses path-based file links on Mac/Windows, such as Adobe InDesign, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects, Apple Final Cut Pro, QuarkXPress, etc. None have made it to iPad. Adobe has released Photoshop and Illustrator on iPad, but…they are cloud storage only, just like cloud Lightroom: When you open a file into iOS Photoshop or Illustrator it is always uploaded to the cloud (to Adobe Cloud Documents, which works like Lightroom Photos online). If you open a file from local iOS storage into iOS Photoshop or Illustrator, there is absolutely no way to avoid it being uploaded to the cloud and being edited from there from that point on…just like cloud Lightroom on iOS. Porting Photoshop and Illustrator to iOS did not preserve the ability to save their documents to any local folder.

Of course, I’m interested in whether any of those iOS restrictions will be lifted in iOS 15…if they are, we might hear about it at WWDC 2021 two days from now.

In short, If Lightroom Classic ever appears on iPad OS, it will require a _complete_ redesign, and the possible loss of several features that can’t be properly supported on iPad OS (Will plug-ins work? Publish services? Printing with profiles?). There is no guarantee that a user of Lightroom Classic on Mac/Windows will recognize or enjoy using an unavoidable total redesign of Lightroom Classic for iPad OS.

If the way things are in iOS 14 doesn't change soon, it’s more realistic to hope that the current Lightroom on iOS gains more Lightroom Classic features.


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## clee01l (Jun 5, 2021)

The current IPadOS release of Lightroom does support some gestures. Right Click in MacOS brings up the context menu. Context menus are not really applicable in iPadOS. Other gestures that might work with a Lightroom Classic could be added. Since iPadOS v13.x, Apple has supported files and attached storage. Lightroom Classic uses a catalog file to store the information about the managed images Lightroom on the iPad, sends this same information to the cloud. My M1 iPadPro when it arrives will have 1TB of storage as well as the ability to mount external volumes. My iMac has a 1TB primary SSD. You can see where I am going with this. If I were writing code for M1 MacOS and M1 iPadOS, I would want to maintain only one set of code. Already Adobe has one or nearly one code set for Mac and Windows. 
Intel Macs are on their way out and it will be just a matter of time before Apple and Adobe cease to support intel based apps. 


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## Conrad Chavez (Jun 5, 2021)

clee01l said:


> The current IPadOS release of Lightroom does support some gestures. Right Click in MacOS brings up the context menu. Context menus are not really applicable in iPadOS. Other gestures that might work with a Lightroom Classic could be added.


Yes, I think it’s safe to assume that, as with existing iPad OS apps such as Photoshop, if Lightroom Classic came to iOS it would take advantage of the mouse and keyboard shortcut support already present in iOS. But to be a true iOS app, Lightroom Classic would have to be productive even when no mouse or keyboard is attached, and that’s a big reason a complete redesign would be needed. Unless Adobe took the non-standard step of mandating a keyboard and mouse in the system requirements for the iPad version.



clee01l said:


> Since iPadOS v13.x, Apple has supported files and attached storage.


But with the deal-breaking limitations mentioned above: Right now on the iPad you can have Lightroom and Photoshop open a photo from external storage, no problem there. But there is absolutely no way to use Lightroom to manage the original files on that external storage, so the photo you open is immediately uploaded to the Lightroom Photos cloud as the master…with no further connection to the original you imported from external storage.

Despite support for external storage in iOS, currently Lightroom can use that external storage only as a big holding area for importing, not as master storage. For example, this is a problem if your iPad has only 256GB internal storage and you have 1TB of photos on an external SSD. If you tell Lightroom to import all the photos on your external SSD, although I haven’t tried this it sounds like Lightroom will attempt to upload your 1TB of imported photos to cloud storage as soon as it can, but in stages because it cannot copy all of the 1TB of photos into the 256GB iPad at once. And Lightroom will never again look at the originals on your external storage.

This appears to be the behavior across a wide range of iOS apps, from Photoshop and Illustrator to LumaFusion to Affinity Photo. They all “support” external storage, but only in terms of access for import and export. Not editing. If you want to edit a file on external storage, they always copy it to their own internal iPad storage first. On iOS we can’t use external drives to provide more space for files being actively edited by iOS apps, and until that changes, that’s another reason we don’t have a true Lightroom Classic on iOS.


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## mcasan (Jun 6, 2021)

It will be interesting to see how Phase One will address this in their iPad app next year.   Their advantage is that they do not have web-centric version, like Lightroom CC, to protect.   Lets hope we never see a web-centric version of C1P, Affinity Photo, Pixelmator.....etc.


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## Johan Elzenga (Jun 8, 2021)

Adobe has just released Lightroom Classic 10.3. Guess what is new...


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## mcasan (Jun 8, 2021)

Apple Silicon support....Universal mode!


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