The iPad Finally gets Adobe Reader

The iPad has always been a slick, convenient tool for accessing documents and information on the move and you would have thought that native PDF reading capability would be a given. Just about every other platform out there comes with the ubiquitous Adobe Reader and it often comes as a shock to new iPad owners when they discover that Reader does not appear amongst the 140,000 iPad apps in the app store. So for some time now iPad users have had to settle for the minimal functionality of iBooks or go and buy a 3rd party reader from the app store.

However, now things have changed. Adobe announced yesterday (17 Oct 2011) the release of Reader 10.1.0 for iOs. This now finally plugs a glaring gap in the iPad portfolio. Version 10.1.0 is not only a major step forward for iPad users, it also brings significant additional functionality to the more fortunate Android users who have had the luxury of the Adobe Reader for some time already. Both the iOS and Android version offer some major new enhancements for mobile users:-

• Support for PDF Portfolio and PDF packages.
• Support for Annotations and markup.
• Sticky note support.
• Opening of password protected files.
• Full support of Adobe LiveCycle Rights Management, including 256 bit AES encryption
• A great set of slick gesture-based interface tools
• Text based searches
• Copy and paste capability
• Wireless printing from iPad via AirPrint
• The ability to share and email files

 I will be posting a seperate blog entry on the new rights management capabilities later.

You can download Reader from the Apple App store or Android Market. Further information on Reader for iOS can be found at the Adobe Acrobat Blog here:-

http://blogs.adobe.com/acrobat/2011/10/adobe-reader-ios.html