Yesterday, Adobe released the Lightroom Apple TV App. With this App installed on your 4th generation Apple TV you can log in with your Adobe ID and access/view any of your sync’d collections/photos.
Why Lightroom Apple TV is a big deal
The more Adobe Photoshop Lightroom becomes the center of my photography, the more I will want “Lightroom EVERYWHERE!” I already have Lightroom on my computers, my iPhone, my iPad Pro and the web. The next logical frontier was the living room. I use Lightroom not only to organize my photos and do non-destructive edits on them, but I also use Lightroom to “show off” my photos. I can do that one-on-one with my various “portfolio collections” via my iPad or iPhone or I could share a link to a specific collection allowing anyone to view on the web.
With the Lightroom Apple TV App this means that I can also show off my photos on the big screen anywhere in my home. There’s no need to export my photos and load them onto another device. There’s no reason to tie up my iPhone/iPad via AirPlay. I can just fire up the Lightroom Apple TV App, choose a collection and hit the Play button on the remote.
See it in action from setup to delivery
Yesterday I did a FIRST LOOK via Facebook Live showing off the new App. Here’s the replay:
It’s not about editing photos
I must admit that I was a little taken back by some of the stories I read about the app and even a tweet sent to me. People were talking about the lack of editing capabilities. I was like “huh?” If I didn’t work for Adobe and you told me that a Lightroom App for Apple TV was coming out, my response would be “cool, this would be a great way to show my photos.” The last thing I would think about would be doing editing on my TV. No more so then when I see an App that shows videos that I would think about editing video on my TV. TVs and Apple TV is about consumption. It always has been. I can see that because it’s called “Adobe Photoshop Lightroom” and not something like “Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Viewer”, that there would be some confusion. It just never entered my mind that there would be an expectation of editing on a TV.
The Bottom Line
The Lightroom Apple TV App is a natural extension/addition to the Lightroom ecosystem. It’s one that I welcome and I look forward to more advances in this space. You can get the Lightroom Apple TV App from your 4th generation (or higher) Apple TV App Store. As a Lightroom Creative Cloud member you can sync an UNLIMITED number of photos to Lightroom mobile and enjoy them on your Apple TV, smartphone, tablet or the web.
Looks like you can zoom in on photos. Maybe you can demo that at some point. Thanks!