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Apple is actively looking for retail employees that are "passionate photography enthusiasts" to test the upcoming Photos app for OS X, reports 9to5Mac.

newphotos-800x449.jpg
We are seeking a technical and passionate photography enthusiast to join our Quality Assurance team working on Photos for OS X. You will be part of a fast moving team of specialists tasked with delivering the next generation of photography tools for Apple.
Photos for OS X was briefly introduced at WWDC 2014, as Apple will launch the software early next year. It was also reported last month that the new Photos app will be replacing Apple's existing iPhoto and Aperture programs. Apple revealed that Photos would feature a number of professional-grade features, including image search, editing, effects, and support for third-party extensions.

Apple has invited retail employees to try pre-release software for the past few years. Last year, the company offered beta access to OS X Mavericks and iWork for iCloud last year, which followed access to OS X Mountain Lion in 2012.

Article Link: Apple Searching for Retail Employees to Test Upcoming Photos App for OS X
 

iRalph

macrumors member
Jun 8, 2012
37
87
Miami, Fl
Really looking forward to the Photos app on OS X.. I never saw much sense into having iPhoto on iOS without it having a sync functionality with the OS X version.
 

adamw

macrumors 6502a
Sep 22, 2006
744
1,787
Looks nice. The more testing the better final product we should have!
 

alvindarkness

macrumors 6502a
Jul 11, 2009
562
397
Why not search for a few photography professionals to test the app and provide feedback as well. No offense to the enthusiasts that may work at Apple retail stores.
 

the8thark

macrumors 601
Apr 18, 2011
4,628
1,735
Internal beta testing. Nice.

And tot he comment about pros testing this. I say they want prosumers testing this. This app had to be very user friendly as well as have all the features for more advanced things. Apple is making the right moves here.

I am waiting to see how this app does photo books. I don't want to make one in Aperture then have to re-make it all over again in Photo. Also I might not be able to make it as good in Photo. I don't know. But photo book creation in Photo is exactly what I am looking out for info on.
 

danielsutton

macrumors 6502
Jun 13, 2011
386
159
Why not search for a few photography professionals to test the app and provide feedback as well. No offense to the enthusiasts that may work at Apple retail stores.

I agree, while it may be fun for an enthusiast to test the new software, and while it is cost-effective for Apple to not have to pay them, a professional photographer would be a much more seasoned beta-tester, and would know what to look for in recommending new features and spotting bugs.
 

512ke

macrumors 6502a
Sep 10, 2003
577
186
Here's hoping some of the testers have thousands of photos already filed under iPhoto and they need to maintain logical simple access to them.

The filing of photos into folders on iPhoto is a Byzantine mess leaving this user scratching f his head while trying to find his pics in the finder.

Apple please don't abandon us longtime iPhoto users who have 1 TB of photos in iPhoto. There should be a path to normalize at least the finder storage of iPhoto's pics.

Thanks
 

mw360

macrumors 68020
Aug 15, 2010
2,032
2,395
Why not search for a few photography professionals to test the app and provide feedback as well. No offense to the enthusiasts that may work at Apple retail stores.

First, you don't know that they haven't, but sadly second, they're probably more interested in the enthusiast feedback than the professional. For all too obvious reasons...

----------

Here's hoping some of the testers have thousands of photos already filed under iPhoto and they need to maintain logical simple access to them.

The filing of photos into folders on iPhoto is a Byzantine mess leaving this user scratching f his head while trying to find his pics in the finder.

Apple please don't abandon us longtime iPhoto users who have 1 TB of photos in iPhoto. There should be a path to normalize at least the finder storage of iPhoto's pics.

Thanks

You can see from the screenshot your photos will be organised into 'moments'. Ah, how romantic and totally non-nauseating. And really appropriate for a day shooting pack shots of dog food, or crime scene photos.
 
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MonkeySee....

macrumors 68040
Sep 24, 2010
3,858
437
UK
Why not search for a few photography professionals to test the app and provide feedback as well. No offense to the enthusiasts that may work at Apple retail stores.

Maybe they are but they need staff who will most likely use iPhone and iPad and Mac to test the software across all platforms.

Its much better to have lots testers who are full on Apple to get all the intergration perfected.
 

katewes

macrumors 6502
Jun 7, 2007
462
139
Why not search for a few photography professionals to test the app and provide feedback as well. No offense to the enthusiasts that may work at Apple retail stores.

Maybe this is the writing on the wall. Apple throws professionals under the truck. The type of person Apple are targeting are enthusiasts who are not advanced enough to be a paid-Pro, but the sort of person who likes photography but has a different day job. That tells you where the app is headed, i.e. not a replacement for Aperture.
 

msandersen

macrumors regular
Jan 7, 2003
217
31
Sydney, Australia
Why not search for a few photography professionals to test the app and provide feedback as well. No offense to the enthusiasts that may work at Apple retail stores.
What makes you think they aren't? They'd be under a non-disclosure agreement, so we won't know til it is released and they start blogging about it or post reviews. Very early days, it wouldn't be feature-complete, and if history is a guide, version 1.0 won't be either, but the features that are ready should work well. Even so, I'll watch keenly and can't wait to play with it, but will wait switching until I read actual user reports of any issues with existing iPhoto/Aperture libraries, inc all existing edits and books/slideshows.

Maybe this is the writing on the wall. Apple throws professionals under the truck. The type of person Apple are targeting are enthusiasts who are not advanced enough to be a paid-Pro, but the sort of person who likes photography but has a different day job. That tells you where the app is headed, i.e. not a replacement for Aperture.
A bit harsh without knowing what they're planning; all we have is a screenshot, a demo of the iOS version, WWDC videos of PhotoKit, and a statement that the existing Aperture libraries will import complete. The screenshot shows most of the sliders we have in Aperture now, what it doesn't show is the library management, book and slideshows, but then it is just one screenshot. The WWDC workshop video shows Apple takes photography very seriously, a lot of the power of Aperture will instead be in PhotoKit and CoreImage including lens profiles, advanced noise reduction, and 3rd party non-destructive editing plugging straight into the system Raw converter. Not only Photos, but 3rd party apps can take advantage of it, and extend Photos.app's capabilities via plugins that won't require a round trip into another format and another program, but done internally and non-destructively, all synced across devices like iPads. If they can deliver on a fraction of this for Version 1.0, I don't care if they call it Pro or Prosumer.
 
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SvenSvenson

macrumors regular
Jul 17, 2007
218
162
If this pile of do do is image destructive apple can go jump for all i care.

As you already know that it's a "pile of do do", then I guess you've tested it extensively? I'd hate to think you're talking rubbish.

Image destructive? It'll certainly support RAW and if it could change RAW files, then that'd be a pretty neat rick.
 

LV426

macrumors 68000
Jan 22, 2013
1,831
2,256
If this pile of do do is image destructive apple can go jump for all i care.

It's not. Apple have said several times that Photos for iOS and OS X will make use of non-destructive edits.

'Pile of do'? Tried it, have you?

----------

Maybe this is the writing on the wall. Apple throws professionals under the truck. The type of person Apple are targeting are enthusiasts who are not advanced enough to be a paid-Pro, but the sort of person who likes photography but has a different day job. That tells you where the app is headed, i.e. not a replacement for Aperture.

Here's the writing on the wall: "a fast moving team of specialists tasked with delivering the next generation of photography tools".

Said team includes seasoned professional developers who, I'd wager, know a bit more about digital imaging than you (and most end-user photographers) do.
 

chiefsilverback

macrumors 6502
Jul 25, 2011
458
438
The filing of photos into folders on iPhoto is a Byzantine mess leaving this user scratching f his head while trying to find his pics in the finder.

Apple please don't abandon us longtime iPhoto users who have 1 TB of photos in iPhoto. There should be a path to normalize at least the finder storage of iPhoto's pics.

Thanks
Why do you need to find your pics in Finder? Find them in iPhoto/Aperture and export/share them, that's the whole point of the application to take you out of the file structure and give you a nice logical interface. The underlying image file never moves it will be in the library file (if you have managed masters) stored by Year>Month>Day.

Aperture even has a 'show in Finder' option if you right click on an image!
 

throttlemeister

macrumors 6502a
Mar 31, 2009
550
63
Netherlands
Maybe this is the writing on the wall. Apple throws professionals under the truck. The type of person Apple are targeting are enthusiasts who are not advanced enough to be a paid-Pro, but the sort of person who likes photography but has a different day job. That tells you where the app is headed, i.e. not a replacement for Aperture.

That is extremely condescending. There are a huge amount of people out there that are certainly good enough photographers to make money out of it, but choose to just do it as a hobby. There are also plenty of so-called pro photographers out there that charge money for their services that should sell their gear and do something else.

The differentiation of wether or not someone makes their living out of photography says little to nothing about their skill levels as a photographer or their demands for post-processing software. If it were, most people would be using iPhoto instead of Lightroom and only pro's would be posting on 500px.
 

Janichsan

macrumors 68040
Oct 23, 2006
3,030
11,006
You can see from the screenshot your photos will be organised into 'moments'. Ah, how romantic and totally non-nauseating. And really appropriate for a day shooting pack shots of dog food, or crime scene photos.
In how far is that worse for these occasions than the "Events" you currently have in iPhoto? It's just a name.

Anyway, they have already said and shown that it is possible to organise the photos manually in albums, so it seems likely that at least some of the organisation done in iPhoto and Aperture will carry over.
 
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zedsdead

macrumors 68040
Jun 20, 2007
3,401
1,148
Still very worried that it will not handle folders at all. Organization is not an iOS strongpoint, and the Photos app in iOS does not have enough.

And since this is based on the iOS version, I am not confident in a folder-sub-folder structure like Aperture has.
 

alexgowers

macrumors 65816
Jun 3, 2012
1,338
892
Great at least apple is open on the software side to having input from someone. It's sometimes hard to see apple making mistakes here when the hardware side is so close to perfection. Yosemite is looking super ugly so we should at least get some iOS<>osx compatibility to compensate.

I think this is the photo version of what happened with the iLife suite, keynote, pages etc last year.

It makes sense to have mac and iOS on par in terms of functionality and interoperability. The iPad is a full computer after all and deserves to work together with apples other lines seamlessly.

Aperture is great and all but there is no point hanging onto something old when you don't even know what this new app is capable of? There seems to be a lot of moaning when you can stay with aperture or lightroom or whatever you want no one is forcing you to try something new.

I personally think this will be an amazing addition to the lineup where currently multiple apps are available that don't talk to each other or work over the internet in the way they should. You might even be able to do new things or even the older things with more ease. If you really want ultimate control you have camera raw, adobe bridge photoshop and full access to nikon or canon raw processors.

Both lightroom and aperture aren't fully fledged photo editors anyway and you are fooling yourself if you think they are the be all and end all of photo packages.
 

bpcookson

macrumors 6502
Apr 6, 2012
484
90
MA
This:
And to the comment about pros testing this. I say they want prosumers testing this. This app had to be very user friendly as well as have all the features for more advanced things. Apple is making the right moves here.

Lots of angst in this thread about Aperture's impending demise, for sure, and it's clouding everyone's logic. But how exactly does employing an enthusiast to do some user testing necessitate a feature-poor product? It doesn't. What it really implies is that Apple is very interested in prosumer usability and they want someone who is innately familiar with Apple's design language and aesthetic to be able to figure this thing out despite the complexity available to them.

Folks are reading this simple job posting as if this tester will be the core designer responsible for what features ship, as if features s/he doesn't understand will be stripped, and as if his/her opinions shouldn't be considered because s/he just won't be as 1337 as you.

For crying out loud, go sob in a corner and get it out of your system. Even if Apple stumbles for a year, this is going to be good for everyone in the long run.

*tl;dr in bold
 
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