Adobe Lightroom Returns to the Mac App Store
Adobe Lightroom is back in the Mac App Store. It was last available in 2012, around the time when App Sandboxing became a requirement, and Adobe Creative Cloud was ramping up. The version that’s in the Mac App Store today is of course the new “Lightroom” version, and not the full-featured “Lightroom Classic”:
The Mac App Store version of Lightroom is the “new” Lightroom formerly known as Lightroom CC, which syncs with complementary mobile and tablet apps and has a different UI to what is now called Lightroom Classic.
This is an interesting solution to the sandboxing dilemma: It’s impossible to sandbox Lightroom Classic, just as it’s impossible to sandbox every other industry-leading creative application. So this is a way to get these applications into Apple’s ecosystem while continuing to offer the full-featured versions to professionals: Make a stripped-down version with a similar name, and add that version to Apple’s ecosystem. I bet Adobe’s upcoming Photoshop for iPad will follow this model closely. (In case you’re wondering, Lightroom Classic continues to be updated.)