Adobe Project Mighty, Project Napoleon to leave a mark in first half of 2014

Adobe announced today that it's moving into the hardware business by signing on the dotted line with Project Mighty and Project Napoleon.

The company's cloud pen and digital ruler have graduated from "technology exploration" to "planned project" and the pair are scheduled to be released in the first half of 2014.

This is great news for freehand artists who are looking for a pressure sensitive digital pen that is able to draw natural and expressive lines on an iPad canvas.

The pen was first demoed at the Adobe MAX conference earlier this year with the ability to carry personal digital assets, application settings, colors and brush across devices.

Adonit drawn in

Adobe, known primarily as the software company behind Photoshop, partnered with Adonit to put its pen (and ruler) to digital paper.

Adonit is manufacturing Adobe's Bluetooth smartpen and ruler having created a line of Jolt smartpens for the iPad.

Adobe, meanwhile, is focusing new iPad software to work with its "little ruler," Napoleon. Project Parallel is a drafting app, while Project Contour is described as Adobe Kuler for shapes.

Contour will allow Napoleon wielders to take a photo of a favorite object or shape on an iPhone and access it with Napoleon on the iPad to simplify architectural line sketching, drawing and ideation.

Adobe Creative Cloud subscription numbers

As Adobe unveiled new creative hardware tools, it announced that its software business is no slouch.

Creative Cloud subscriptions have reached over one million in the third quarter of this year, according to the company's latest fiscal earnings press release.

With an increase of 331,000 subscriptions in just three month, it's drawing in a healthy number of users even before the more exciting hardware tools take shape.

Matt Swider