Adobe DPS wins?

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While busy with the latest Port iPad app I’ve taken my eye off DPS developments at Adobe, so a quick catch-up session at their Maidenhead offices last week provided some useful insight.



First, some figures: this time last year there were 13 apps in the Apple app store that had been created using Adobe DPS – there are now 1300; 14 of the top 20 grossing iPad apps have been created using the Adobe tools; the New Yorker app has taken $1.2m in digital subs, including a number of new non-print readers.

Highly selective I’m sure (do they count apps created using Woodwing, another supplier recently taken over by Adobe?) but even allowing for Adobe pushing the most useful figures forward these are positive numbers. For now at least,* Adobe DPS has established itself as the default magazine app tool.

And the tools themselves? I worked with the Beta version at the end of 2010 and haven’t looked at it since, primarily due to the initial pricing structure (though the new single edition price makes does make a difference now). The latest DPS tools are far more integrated with InDesign, and share a common look and feel with the parent software. It’s satisfyingly simple and slick in operation, even if some of the quirks from before remain. The uneditable presence of the two control bars at top and bottom of the screen stills grates with me, for instance. But as a quick and easy add-on to the existing magazine production workflow it’s a solid, efficient tool. No wonder so many publishers are using it.

As for the end product, looking through a few apps made with DPS I got a sense that the initial rush to use every single capability on every screen has receded. The UK Wired app is looking particularly strong, and as Jean at the Magaziner tweeted yesterday, is looking considerably better than the US edition app. (I enjoyed the flash on a promo screen, above, in the UK edition app, that confidently subverts the usual ‘also available on the iPad’ line).

I’m about to start a new app project using DPS and will share what I find.





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