Adobe has released its popular Photoshop editing app for the iPhone, the first smartphone release of the industry-leading creative software.

The mobile launch adds to Adobe’s Photoshop app for Apple’s iPad and the company plans a release for Google’s Android later in the year, it said on Tuesday. Many of Photoshop’s core features are available in the free version, including generative AI that can fill gaps in an image or editing photos in layers, and there’s a US$7.99 subscription that adds premium features.

San Jose-based Adobe has long been a leader in design and creative software on the desktop. However, it hasn’t found great success in translating that strength over to mobile platforms.

The competition for photo editing apps on smartphones is fiercer, and Photoshop ranked only 29th in its category in downloads in the US after its launch.

Top of the photo and video category were ByteDance’s CapCut video editor, Instagram and Canva’s editing app. Adobe’s own Lightroom, tailored for processing photos, ranked ninth on Wednesday.

Adobe has made an effort to give users a robust set of tools even without signing up for a subscription, and its premium plan includes access to Photoshop on the web and additional features on mobile and iPad.

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The iPhone app marks a major expansion of the company’s reach and will be a test of the appeal of Adobe’s artificial intelligence-powered features with a broader consumer audience. — (c) 2025 Bloomberg LP

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