After a 15 year absence, Autodesk is finally returning to the Mac with the forthcoming AutoCAD® for Mac® software. The Architectural Services industry has been trending back towards an Apple centric world for some time now, so it’s nice to see AutoCAD join the ranks of cross-platform CAD with ArchiCAD and Vectorworks. Of course, we’re still waiting for Revit for Mac. 😉
The real news from Architactile’s perspective is AutoCAD® WS for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. AutoCAD® WS is a “free mobile app that will let you view, edit, and share DWG™ files on your Apple® iPad, iPhone and iPod touch®.” and it’s coming soon to the Apple iTunes App Store. We still don’t think the iOS family of devices is a great place to do detailed design, but we absolutely think having access to drawings on your iDevice in the field will be increasingly common and important. There are a few different solutions out there for reading and (sort of) editing DWG files on iDevices but none are particularly polished. Autodesk jumping into the fray brings credibility and reliability to iDevices as a serious tool for architects. That’s good for architects, good for Autodesk and good for Architactile.
So hooray for Autodesk!
