Bloomberg:

Adobe Inc. is nearing the consumer launch of Photoshop for Apple Inc.’s iPads a year after it was officially announced, however the company and early testers have said that the application will lack some key features from the desktop version.

Adobe has been testing Photoshop for iPad under the codename Rocket with a small group of beta testers since earlier this year. Participants have told Bloomberg News that some beta versions don’t include well-established features they expected to be part of the release. They complained about less advanced or missing features around core functionality like filters, the pen tool and custom paintbrush libraries, vector drawing, color spaces, RAW editing, smart objects, layer styles and certain options for mask creation.

I know for a fact that both beta testers and “people at Apple’ are pissed at Adobe for dragging their feet on this launch. But Adobe feels it has no “real” competition in the space and hasn’t made the iPad app a priority at the company. The first version of Photoshop for iPad will be functionally useless for professional users.