My understanding is that Adobe's previous cloud offerings download the programs to your machine, where they execute locally, saving files to the cloud. Is this how Photoshop works here? Or are they doing VNC/remote desktop style access?
I really hope it's the former - having virtual machines / LXC instances synchronized down to the Chromebook would solve those last few use-cases. (For me, my IDE is the only thing missing from a Chromebook and stopping me using it as my primary machine).
The current version of Creative Cloud is really just a different license; indeed you do still download (say) Photoshop, it just pings the Adobe servers to ensure that you have paid your monthly or annual licensing. To call it "the cloud" is really in name only, as it's no different than the Photoshop that you pay a one-time fee for and install from DVD.
This is totally different, as you suggest, it's a VNC-style access for Photoshop. (Since there is no Photoshop for Linux.)
Really the cloud offering in the name applies to their storage (20 GB as individual, 100 GB as a business account [1 TB should be standard at this point imo]), Typekit and Kuler. The applications, like you said are pretty much the same as always with full local installations.
But this suggests Adobe might move to remote execution SaaS at some point in the next few years.
I wouldn't be surprised if that's always been the ultimate goal of CC.
A lot of SaaS is waiting for faster broadband. CC Saas will be limited at 10MB, but as speeds creep up to 100MB and beyond it's going to start making more sense.
I think the rent-your-cycles model sucks for users, and is against everything personal computing was supposed to do.
But it's a no-brainer for corporates with a captive audience for life, zero piracy, and easy surveillance.
No, they specifically say that if your internet connection is terminated you will need to reconnect and restore your session. It is a virtual machine running in the cloud and you are VNC'ing in from your browser.
I really hope it's the former - having virtual machines / LXC instances synchronized down to the Chromebook would solve those last few use-cases. (For me, my IDE is the only thing missing from a Chromebook and stopping me using it as my primary machine).