Adobe just released a Premiere beta for Android, but Googlebook will need much more

In case you missed it, I recently wrote about a leaked Lenovo render that hinted that Adobe Premiere is coming to the upcoming Googlebooks. But as I was digging deeper into the research, I actually stumbled across a Reddit thread from Adobe announcing that an Early Access version of the Premiere app is already available for Android.

Naturally, I had to try it out. I managed to get it downloaded on a Chromebook to see what the experience is like on a larger screen. And while it is technically downloaded and opened, it has me a bit concerned about what exactly we will get when these new Google-powered laptops hit the market this fall.

A mobile app on a big screen

According to the Reddit post from an official Adobe account, this early build is built on Google’s latest Android media frameworks (like Jetpack Media3) with the goal of making a “fast, capable mobile editor for social and short-form creation.”

And it definitely feels like a mobile editor. While it does download and open on a Chromebook, it clearly looks like an Android phone app that hasn’t been optimized for a larger screen. The UI is stretched, and trying to import files kept throwing a metadata error for me. So if you decide to track this down and install it, proceed at your own risk.

To be fair, this is a very early beta specifically targeting Android phones, but I sincerely hope this is not the version that eventually rolls out on Googlebook. The timing of this release is definitely a bit suspicious, though. We know the first wave of Googlebooks is right around the corner, we just saw a leaked render showing Premiere sitting on the app dock, and now Adobe announces an Early Access beta for Android. It could just be a coincidence, but I am keeping my fingers crossed that there is a different version waiting in the wings for this fall.

Why perceived value matters

As we have discussed previously, John Maletis from Google has made it very clear that they are working closely with major developers to optimize applications for the Googlebook platform. My hope is that Google is working closely with Adobe on a fully optimized version of Premiere for Googlebooks because a stretched-out mobile app simply won’t cut it.

We expect this first fleet of Googlebooks to start in the $700+ range. For that asking price, Google needs to launch with a proper, desktop-class version of Premiere. Editing video on a Chromebook has historically been one of those massive friction points that cause potential buyers to hesitate. Whether a user actually edits video every day or just wants the option to trim family clips doesn’t really matter—it is the perceived value that drives the purchase.

If someone is shopping around and looking at a $700+ Googlebook, they are comparing it against a MacBook Neo running a full-blown version of Final Cut Pro, or a similarly priced Windows laptop running the full desktop version of Premiere Pro. If Googlebooks want to be taken seriously, we need a fully-featured, desktop-class version of Premiere at launch.

I am still incredibly hopeful that the purple Premiere icon we saw on that Lenovo dock is the real deal, but this mobile beta scared me a bit, to be honest. Let’s hope that there is a different version that they are building for Googlebooks that’s being finalized now and prepped for the big reveal in a few weeks.