Are you getting tired of staring endlessly at the plethora of dials and sliders in Lightroom and Photoshop? Do you wish you could simply tell your computer what you want to do with a photo, minimizing your editing time?
Me neither, but now, there's an app for that!
PixelTone, a collaboration between Adobe Research and University of Michigan, allows you to "talk" to your iPad, which will then perform the edits that you command. According to the app's developers, you can even identify people within your photos, and say things like, "Brighten John", or "Increase Cindy's contrast". Additionally, you can teach the program what items are, like a "shirt", as in the above video, and further do some minor adjustments. Just how extensively you can edit photos remains unclear, but it seems to be able to perform things like retro filters (sigh), gradient editing, and color replacement. Basically, this looks like a fun way for the iPhoneographer (iPadographer?) to better control their photos; I doubt professionals will be using this as an on-the-go replacement for the likes of more advanced software.
"Heavenly"? Really? All a matter of taste, I guess...
No word of a release date or even a release at all, but I have full confidence that this app will do just fine. If history is any indication, perhaps Apple will buy patents the involved and will be employing this service in the next release of iPhoto. Until then, if you're clamoring to speak your edits, you'll have to wait for this app to hit the market.