Oftentimes when we talk about the impact of mobile technology in graphic communications, it's in reference to using the mobile channel for marketing. While using mobile technology to deliver marketing for client is important, it is also becoming a prominent option to utilize throughout the entire production process to centralize and optimize a variety of tasks. Software vendors are developing mobile interfaces and applications to complement their existing products, pushing useful information and greater capabilities into the hands of executives, production managers, and operators. While mobile production management is still in its infancy, it is poised to have a significant impact over the next decade as mobile technology is elevated in use in personal and business environments.

If you walk into a room during a conference session, either in our industry or outside of it, and ask how many people don't have smartphones to raise their hand, you would be hard-pressed to find more than a few people that would respond (perhaps sometimes out of apprehension). BlackBerrys, Androids, iPhones, and many more makes and models of high-tech mobile gadgetry dominate the business world today. Tablets (primarily the iPad) are also making inroads in business at a brisk pace. The printing industry is no exception to this trend, as users seek more convenient ways to access information and suppliers look to innovate in new and different ways.

At the beginning of each year, all InfoTrends services release a Road Map as a guide to what we think the top trends will be for that year. At the beginning of 2011, the Production Workflow and Customized Communications Service, which tracks the graphic communications software market, stated in its Road Map report that the number two top trend going into 2011 was "Production Workflow is Going Mobile". From the report:

"Mobile applications are booming and print industry vendors are not ignoring this trend. Last year at IPEX, many vendors showed or talked about iPhone or iPad applications. With mobile phones getting processing power that matches those of personal computers, they are becoming increasingly suitable to drive business applications. In addition, the mobile device is becoming a constant companion to individuals inside and outside the workplace."

There are a number of examples across the entire workflow where mobile technology is being leveraged to help manage and optimize production.

Creative
The mobile environment has seen its fair share of creative applications become available over the past few years. Many of these apps are associated with photo editing and manipulation, while apps like "Brushes" cater to those that require a more open canvas. With the tablet's larger screen size and touchscreen interface, more production-level creative applications are starting to appear that are more practical for the everyday designer.

With the recent release of Adobe's Creative Suite 5.5 came a variety of mobile apps for Apple's iOS that extend the capabilities of the Photoshop product in particular. Adobe Color Lava can be used to mix colors and create new swatches and palettes that can be synced up with Photoshop. Adobe Eazel utilizes the fluid dynamics engine now available in Photoshop to enable designers to blend colors and create paintings. Adobe Nav integrates directly with Photoshop, allowing users to access toolsets to create and edit files via an iPad, acting as designer's companion.

"The mobile device is becoming a constant companion to individuals inside and outside the workplace."

Adobe also released a new software development kit called Photoshop Touch, which opens up incredible potential for new, intuitive, useful mobile apps to be built outside Adobe's own four walls. Expect to see a lot more activity in the professional creative area related to mobile, especially if Adobe extends its mobile capabilities beyond Photoshop to other Creative Suite applications.

Premedia
Most mobile platforms are fairly "closed" to end-users versus their desktop counterparts, meaning that users have generally less control to manage and tweak specific settings. This factor rings especially true for something like color management, which is something that really can't be adequately managed by users of most mobile operating systems. Therefore, at the moment, color management needs to be excluded as a controllable factor for mobile development, although that's not stopping some companies from trying to innovate with premedia for mobile.