I have used Adobe products for years. I run a typesetting and design company that runs on the Creative Suite, and I teach web design and development using Adobe products. Overall I have found Adobe to be a very responsive company whenever I have needed customer service, and the Creative Suite products all generally work out of the box.

That is one of the reasons I am so disappointed in the Adobe Touch apps. I run a Motorola Xoom with Android 4.0, and I have purchased both Debut and Ideas.

From a testing point of view, it seems that corners were cut on some of the products. One of the major problems is the fact that those of us using Android 4.0 cannot log in to the Creative Cloud from Debut. Those of us with this setup are also not able to import PDFs from the Gallery. In addition, everytime I select the Gallery in Debut it takes an inordinately long time to display the files and folders. These are issues that should have been caught much earlier. I know Android 4.0 officially rolled out after the Touch apps, but it was available in beta long before that.

Even if these issues were not caught in testing, they should be fixed much quicker than they are being fixed. The ICS problem with Debut has been known for at least two months, but no solution has come out.

What I find even more bothersome is the listing for these apps on Android Market. Adobe Ideas does not support layers on Android, even though the features list on the market says it does. Android customers have been asking for layers in Ideas (something that is already available on iOS) for over a year, with very little response from Adobe. We are told layers are coming but they don't know when. This should not have been an issue, as the app had no business being released before layers were added, since that is a central part of the functionality.

And although Adobe knows that some Touch apps are having problems with ICS, they still market the app to people with ICS. When an app is put into the market, the developer can indicate which versions of Android are and are not compatible. Since Debut is basically not compatible with ICS, it shouldn't show up when I search for it on the market. At the very least, the market should contain a message informing potential buyers that if they run ICS, Debut is all but useless on their device.

If these were free apps, we customers would have little cause for complaint. But given that Adobe is charging us $10 a pop--which is higher than the vast majority of apps on the market--we have every right to be upset that we were sold the products via misleading advertising and are on our own when it comes to customer support.

The Touch apps division of Adobe could stand to learn from the excellent people who create and service the Creative Suite. At this point, it almost seems like a tale of two companies.

With hopes of remaining a loyal Adobe customer,

Kevin A. Wilson, Ph.D.