Autodesk’s AutoCAD is Back on Mac. Also Plans on Launching App For iPhone and iPad!

If you still remember (or use?) the Autodesk CAD program released for MAC operating systems in 1992, this bit of news may be something you have waited for long. 18 years to be precise, but the fact is that AutoCAD is back for the Mac OS X.

And make the comeback even grander, Autodesk also plans to launch an AutoCAD app for the iPad and iPhone. So, if you are into computer aided designing, you can do your stuff on the go from now on.

CAD programs from Autodesk are the best available right now and so Mac users were missing out until now. But that’s about to change because Autodesk is targeting professional users of Apple devices like never before. After all there has been tremendous growth in the use of Macintosh computers in the corporate sector.

Till date you may have used AutoCAD as a virtualized or BootCamp installation, which has been the only way to access AutoCAD on Mac since Apple started using Intel processors. And since this change in 2006, Mac has been growing at a phenomenal rate as far as business usage is concerned. The latest quarterly reports show shipments growing by 50% for Mac, while the industry average is only 15.7%.

This is just for business consumers and shipments to government have grown at the rate of 200%! So it is no wonder that powerful tools such as the AutoCAD are returning to Mac, because a lot of potential for symbiotic growth is there. After all, despite the impressive growth figures, Mac’s overall share in the global computer market is a paltry 4%. Most certainly therefore, sky is the limit!

As far as the iPad and iPhone app is concerned, AutoCAD is treading tested waters because the Sketchbook Mobile and Sketchbook Pro apps it launched earlier this year, are doing really well. But they are basically consumer tools while AutoCAD is focused towards power users. So there is very little scope of these three apps coming in each others way.

AutoCAD for Mac will be made available for pre-ordering on the Autodesk site.

Written by Jay Shah on September 1st, 2010

Nurturing a lifelong love affair with machines, Jay simply loves any tech that can make life easier, better, faster and more enjoyable. And with hundreds if not thousands of Gadgets, Apps, Games being launched everyday, there's more than enough out there to keep this hardcore techie occupied and obsessed!