The title of this post is a little misleading, but I chose it on purpose to vent a little steam. But first things first.
What happened ? Adobe released a mobile version of Lightroom, which brings it to the iPad. That is just great and just what I was waiting for. LR mobile syncs with the desktop version of Lightroom, but only the library and the preview images are copied to the iPad (Raw files would bust the limited storage capacity on the mobile device quickly). Thanks to so-called smart previews now you can sit on your couch, sort, rate and retouch images. When you are finished you sync again and all changes made on the iPad are applied to the files on your desktop computer.
What’s the problem ? After the release of the Creative Suite 6 Adobe changed their business model. Now there is Creative Cloud, which is a subscription-based sales model. You don’t buy the software, you rent it. There are different packages depending on what your use case is, each one with a different price. Lightroom mobile comes together with Photoshop CC and Lightroom 5 when you subscribe to Creative Cloud at the cost of 9,99 USD a month (or 12,29 € in Europe; around 17 USD because Europeans love to get kicked in the nuts). If you have bought Lightroom or Photoshop as a regular software package – bad luck. LR mobile is only available to Creative Cloud users.
Of course Adobe is free to do so, but it is absolutely not customer friendly and shows an attitude which is just geared towards making money and even more money. Surprise surprise one might say now, welcome to capitalism. I don’t criticize Adobe for wanting to make much money. I criticize them for forcing customers into buying a new product even though they already have the same product at home. I _own_ Lightroom 5, I _own_ CS6. And now I am excluded from buying another product because I don’t have a subscription ? I surely won’t pay again for what I already have. And from the making-even-more-money- standpoint this makes even less sense. Here is a customer who wants to spend money ! And he is not allowed to.
Closing remarks. I know this post won’t change anything, but it helped to vent some steam. I am also totally aware of the fact that what I complained about in this post is a premium first world problem but I wanted to share my five cents about it. Not having of LR mobile shall not ruin my day and neither shall it ruin yours.
So keep on shooting and enjoying photography ! And in the next post I will show some images again.
