Recently Adobe released a new product called “Adobe Shadow”. Adobe Shadow enables the web developer who is developing for multiple devices to view changes live simultaneously on as many other devices as they wish. As you test on PC you get live updates of the look and feel on all devices hooked up to your computer via wireless.

One Drawback which I am sure they will fix in time is that Adobe Shadow only works for iPhone iPad and Android devices. This does cover the majority of mobile devices so is still well worth the look.

Adobe Shadow is currently free to download and use because it is still in testing stages.

Adobe Shadow: Browse Websites on Multiple Devices Simultaneously

Adobe Shadow was developed for Front end web designers to give them a fast easy way to check how their websites appear on multiple websites simultaneously. The developer simply connects each device he or she needs to test to their computer wireless using Shadow and then browses their website in Google Chrome. If the website does not appear as expected on one of the devices the developer can then single that particular device out for remote inspection and debugging. Previously we needed to use emulators or keep refreshing the page for each device every time we made our changes, however Adobe Shadow removes the need for those unreliable emulators.

Adobe shadow is a stand alone product. It does not require any other Adobe software products to work with so it does not matter what editor you use in designing your websites you can still make great use of this new product.

Although Shadow does take a few minutes to connect a device up to it does remember devices previously hooked up to it so they can be effortless connected back to your computer.

Installation and Links

Setting up Adobe Shadow on your computer requires you download and install it on your computer (PC or Mac). Once you have this if you don’t already have Google chrome you will need to download and install it. Without Google chrome you will not be able to hook your devices up to Shadow. You then need to download and install the Google Chrome extension below.

You now need to set up Bonjour however this comes packaged with Adobe Shadow. For instructions on installing this please go to Adobe Forum Docs.

That is your computer setup ready to go. From there you simply download and install the Adobe shadow app on each of your mobile devices. There is an app available for both iOS and Android.

Adobe Shadow for OS X and Windows (required) is available from Adobe Labs: http://adobe.com/go/shadow

Adobe Shadow Google Chrome extension is available for download from https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ijoeapleklopieoejahbpdnhkjjgddem
Adobe Shadow for Android: http://adobe.com/go/sd_android_app
Adobe Shadow for iOS: http://adobe.com/go/sd_ios_app