iPhoto is dead.

They definitely did not refer to the new app as iPhoto, but am wondering if it will have the same function just an upgraded name

I'm thinking that Aperture takes over for iPhoto. There's definitely no need for three photo apps, but definitely a need for something more advanced than Photos.

NukeIT said:

They definitely did not refer to the new app as iPhoto, but am wondering if it will have the same function just an upgraded name

Click to expand...

I wasn't sensing any changes in terms of basic functionality, although I'm concerned about the degree of integration with iCloud. I don't currently have iPhoto installed because I want to organise my raw/xmp/jpg files myself, but I've a horrible suspicion that photos.app is going to be a prerequisite for just about any transfer/sync of images between devices.

I only use iPhoto for my iDevices... Which it works well for that.

For RAW/DSLR work I use Lightroom. So am not too concerned.

Does this mean we are losing faces?

mojolicious said:

I wasn't sensing any changes in terms of basic functionality, although I'm concerned about the degree of integration with iCloud. I don't currently have iPhoto installed because I want to organise my raw/xmp/jpg files myself, but I've a horrible suspicion that photos.app is going to be a prerequisite for just about any transfer/sync of images between devices.

Click to expand...

Apple is staking out its turf in the iphoneography market. They are not blind to the fact that courses are springing up like daisys to capture consumer use and hundreds of millions of iphones were sold last year. The stats from the point and shoot market and dslr market say that too. The trick for Apple will all be in rate of adoption of 10.10 and reaction to new iCloud pricing and how they want to include real camera users in this new paradigm. There will be room for us real camera users, because there are too many legacy mac/ios hardware users and the route for web sharing outside of icloud, photo books, and other tail end uses were not discussed, and there are way too many mac users who have cameras and video hdw to be just left hanging. Just because they did not include this category of user does not mean they will not be included going forward. Yes, all in all what was presented in the WWDC keynote was, while sketchy at best, most disruptive, but there is more to be defined by Apple about the full product offering. This story is not over...yet.

We shall see.

iPhoto died (see: was removed from my MBP) the week after I installed Lightroom 4. Hasn't been missed either.

Not that I used it (was using Aperture prior to Lightroom), but watching it get worse after every update was getting painful.

Indeed, if they're really going to implement all the editing features they discussed at WWDC into the Yosemite photo's app, it probably will be dead I think.

mentaluproar said:

Does this mean we are losing faces?

Click to expand...

Hope so

So if Photos replaces iPhoto (OK by me) does Apple add in "plugins" to Photos to give more advanced capability and create the new Aperture?

The photography story from Apple is anything but clear at the moment.

On its last gasp...

iPhoto v7.1.5 [part of iLife 08] was the last useful iteration of this software. I still use it everyday on my Snow Leopard MBP 15 to manage 15,000 photos. Works a treat - very snappy performance - and imports all the latest Nikon Raw nef files too. Aperture has never impressed me... which is I guess why they had to strip the functionality out of iPhoto.

Razeus said:

Stop right there. You're completley missing the point of the Photos app for Mac. There will be no plug ins. It'll simply be a timeline/Shared iCloud/albums view with some basic editing features. This is iPhoto dumbed down. Way down.

I''m still curious on what they will do with iPhoto. Of course, being Apple, they leave us photographers hanging. This is the reason I push Adobe to people. Apple is simply to vague or won't say anything. Something as simple as iPhoto development will continue or Aperture will be out this fall, but we can't even get that. At least with Adobe, I know exactly where they stand at all times and I can make decisions accordingly.

Click to expand...

How do you know there will be no plugins? Craig showed how it would work with third-party plugins on iOS. It would have been great if he could have done the same on the Mac. There are discussions going around that Apple may have an API for plugins to edit non-destructively. What he demoed wasn't iPhoto dumbed down but cloud-hosted photos in a new interface that won't be ready for 6 months at best.

Basically, it seems that both Aperture and iPhoto are dead, and Photos will be something new, cloud-hosted. If it uses Apple's excellent DAM and provides the option to use plugins non-destructively, it will be very interesting.

We know you're firmly in the Lightroom camp but none of us know for sure what Photos may bring. At least now, we know that sometime early next year, we'll definitely know whether professional photography at Apple is dead or not.

I don't think iPhoto is dead, but I have always felt it was quite slow and bloated for what most people want to use it for - quickly viewing, managing and sharing their photos on a PC. Maybe we will see it gain more functionality, now that it has been decoupled from being a mere "photo viewer".

Honestly, i think Apple realised this and went back to the drawing board...

iBloat was just getting bigger and slower with more issues created than solved. They had the chance to start again now with 10.10, it was a no brainer....and I'm glad they are doing it.

Taking the i away represents a new beginning.

The question is now, Aperture 4 later this year or Lightroom 5 now...

hm.

Extensibility will allow programmers to write apps that can access and be accessed by Photos. We used to call them plug-ins, but they avoided the term.

All of the automated sliders demoed for editing had drop down levels of control that looked like they were manually adjustable. The Secret Word I wanted to hear (but didn't) was RAW support.

Dale

Stop right there. You're completley missing the point of the Photos app for Mac. There will be no plug ins. It'll simply be a timeline/Shared iCloud/albums view with some basic editing features. This is iPhoto dumbed down. Way down.

Click to expand...

Personally I would not care if iPhoto disappears. No need. I have LR and Aperture.

I guess we have to wait for the fall launch of Yosemite and 8 to get a complete story of how consumer and pro photography are to work in the new ecosystem.

Razeus said:

Stop right there. You're completley missing the point of the Photos app for Mac. There will be no plug ins. It'll simply be a timeline/Shared iCloud/albums view with some basic editing features. This is iPhoto dumbed down. Way down.

I''m still curious on what they will do with iPhoto. Of course, being Apple, they leave us photographers hanging. This is the reason I push Adobe to people. Apple is simply to vague or won't say anything. Something as simple as iPhoto development will continue or Aperture will be out this fall, but we can't even get that. At least with Adobe, I know exactly where they stand at all times and I can make decisions accordingly.

Click to expand...

I suspect your are right. They are building software for the masses and pretty much will ignore the few percent who still use something other than a cell phone to take pictures.

What I need is a good DAM that handles all media types. I want stills, video and audio in ONE library that I can search and I want that library to be DISTRIBUTED across several storage devices and computers and I want it to be MULTIUSER.

I doubt Apple will do this. Who will?

Designer Dale said:

Extensibility will allow programmers to write apps that can access and be accessed by Photos. We used to call them plug-ins, but they avoided the term.

All of the automated sliders demoed for editing had drop down levels of control that looked like they were manually adjustable. The Secret Word I wanted to hear (but didn't) was RAW support.

Dale

Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure Raw will be accepted.
From MacRumors transcript: "11:20 am All photos and videos, original format and resolution.".
I understand original format as meaning all the Raw formats supported by iPhoto/Aperture.

I also agree about the drop down levels of control. The one thing I didn't see was brushes, but if they offer pro features, they'll include some level of selective retouching.

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Just some sessions at WWDC this year:

- Photos Framework Lab
Learn how your apps can manage the Photo library and get details about writing photo editing extensions from the Apple engineers. Bring your code and your questions.

- Advances in Core Image
Core Image lets you create amazing effects in your camera and image editing apps. Learn about the advances in Core Image for iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite. Get introduced to writing custom image processing filters for iOS and see how they can be used in Photos extensions. Walk through the enhancements for working with large images, and get details about the newest filters and detectors.

As I've said before, I think it would be wise for those on the fence to wait and see what Apple comes up with...

It would make sense that Apple is working on a brand new Photos framework that will be the basis of Photos and Aperture X, just like the new iMovie and FCP X, which also share common code between the Mac and iOS versions.

InfiniteLoopy said:

::snip::
Basically, it seems that both Aperture and iPhoto are dead, and Photos will be something new, cloud-hosted. If it uses Apple's excellent DAM and provides the option to use plugins non-destructively, it will be very interesting. ::snip::

Click to expand...

I'm not sure why Aperture would be dead - both Aperture and iPhoto currently integrate with iCloud, no reason to think the dualism of local/cloud storage couldn't continue. My theory is that iPhoto users will be migrated to Aperture. There are other possibilities.

But if we were to extend the iPhoto/Aperture is dead logic to the rest of Apple's software offerings... who really needs Pages, isn't TextEdit enough? Who needs FCP, isn't iMovie enough? Would closed-systems Apple ditch its "serious" apps and let platform-independent Microsoft, Adobe, and Google pick up the crumbs? Hardly.

Every time something happens on the consumer side (is it "dumbing-down," or "user friendliness?"), pros and serious amateurs consider it a sign that Apple is abandoning the pros. For the most part, that hasn't been the way it's worked. The last "abandonment" I can recall is pro server hardware, and that was quite a few years ago. We still have the traditional line-up of pro applications, we have a brand-new Mac Pro design, MacBook Pro...

Apple has more than one constituency, and it's true that the numbers skew heavily in favor of the masses. Sure, if something had to go, it'd be the smaller niches. The question is whether anything has to go, especially when Apple is as profitable as it is. As long as there's a reasonable justification (trickle-down of high-end R&D, maintaining a pool of "key influencers," etc.), it fits into the profitability equation.

There are few better endorsements than, "This is what the pros use." You can see it in all of Apple's ads - pros doing really cool things alongside amateurs doing stuff that's nearly as cool. Pro usage is "aspirational" for the masses. Canon and Nikon have been using this approach for decades. Still, both Canon and Nikon make their real money on p&s and "serious amateur" gear. Do we worry that the latest Canon p&s is a harbinger of doom?

All Apple is doing is adding a new bottom rung to its ladder. They have no need to remove the top rung of the ladder to make that happen.