When I first saw Khoi Vinh’s collaborative design app Mixel, I wanted to throw up—from jealousy.

I’d first met Khoi while moderating a Layer Tennis match between him & Nicholas Felton, and at the time I was brainstorming about designers’ needs for tablet apps. “What about ‘Photoshop Volley,'” I asked Khoi, describing a totally non-destructive, cloud-backed design environment centered on playful exchange of ideas & artwork. It turns out he was working on something very similar, so we went off on separate paths. My team ended up building Photoshop Touch (a far more traditional app than I wanted to make), and Mixel launched as much more what I had in mind.

Sadly the app didn’t take off, but Khoi has continued to think about ways for tablets to help designers think & share better. He’s been working with Adobe on a new iPad app call LayUp, letting you make quick sketches that can evolve into styled renderings, and the response looks pretty enthusiastic. Check out some demos:

The sketch-to-shape tech reminds me of (and almost certainly was lifted from) Adobe’s innovative Adobe Proto (for sketching wireframes that turned into real code), the moodboarding aspects recall Adobe Collage—apps that were launched 3 years ago, then summarily executed some months later. Maybe LayUp’s export of native PSD, AI, and InDesign files, its Typekit integration, and its cool history feature will change the game this time.

What do you think? Will LayUp earn a place in your design process?