The Lightroom Mobile image editing app from Adobe is now available as a standalone app for iPhones and iPads, no longer requiring any subscription or desktop ties.
Adobe's Lightroom Mobile was more of a companion app for the desktop tool, allowing mobile users to edit their images on their phone or tablet as long as they had the desktop app and a Creative Cloud subscription. The companion app was free to download, but it didn't work on its own.
Adobe has now launched its popular Lightroom Mobile app for iOS as a standalone app, which means that mobile users will be able to tweak their photos without needing the desktop tool or a subscription to Creative Cloud. In fact, iOS users don't even need an Adobe ID to use the new Lightroom Mobile image editor.
The change is part of Adobe's wider efforts to appeal to more consumers. With a slew of other standalone image editing apps currently available on the market, Adobe needed something to stay competitive and lure more customers to its own app.
As a result, iPhone and iPad owners can now use Lightroom Mobile locally on their smartphone or tablet without needing to install anything else. Adobe plans to extend the same courtesy to Android users as well, but the option has yet to hit Google's platform.
"Lightroom for mobile for iOS can now be used on your phone or tablet without a paid membership, coming soon to Android," Adobe notes on its blog.
This is an important move for Adobe and its Lightroom suite, especially in this mobile-driven era in which smartphone cameras often replace traditional ones. While professional photographers or creative enthusiasts will still rely on DSLRs and more serious editing software, others are simply amateur photographers who want to edit the images they took with their smartphone camera.
For the latter, Lightroom for mobile may be a perfect solution as a free, standalone app. It's worth pointing out that users will now be able to choose whether they want to participate in the Creative Cloud Photography Plan trial, as opposed to the previous model that activated the trial as soon as users checked out the mobile version.
More specifically, up until now, downloading Lightroom for mobile used to automatically kick off a 30-day trial for the Adobe Creative Cloud Photography Plan. If users did not become paid members by the time the trial expired, they could no longer use the mobile app, either.
The new and improved strategy bringing Lightroom Mobile as a free standalone app no longer sets such limitations.
"Free Lightroom! Unleash your creativity with free access to Lightroom for as long as you'd like on your smartphone or tablet," Adobe further boasts.
The software also gets several neat tweaks, improvements and new features, aiming to further enhance the overall experience. iOS users can find the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom app available as a free download for iPhone or iPad.
