Aperture's Iris Closing?

[steve_hill4]

I think Apple should stick to computers and the OS. It's hard to beat Microsoft as far as business software, and Adobe and Macromedia as far as creative.

Well, since Adobe took over Macromedia, that effectively means you should leave the market to one company. Without competition, products rarely move forward fast enough.

As for Aperture, I hope this isn't the end. I wouldn't plump down that kind of money for an app I would rarely use, so have never used it properly. I have however seen a full demo of it, (Mac Expo London last year, shortly after announcement), and could see the benefits to those in the industry. Didn't seem sluggish to me though.

 

[swingerofbirch]

I dont know much about running a huge bidness..but why does Apple have a separate team for Aperture and iPhoto? They both do photos, both can handle RAW photos (whatever the heck that is).

 

[MovieCutter]

Except that... didn't they buy out Final Cut Pro?

Edit: Yep, Apple bought the nascent product (originally named Key Grip) from Macromedia. They even tried to sell it back off, and when nobody bought, decided to develop it in-house. They dropped the Windows version, too.

Still, the original point stands.

No it doesn't. Final Cut is one of Apple's most successful and breakthrough software products, regardless of where they got it from. I and thousands of other editors make a living at using an NLE that makes our lives much easier than it would be if we were using Premiere, and we don't have to shell out $30,000 for an Avid. The point of "Apple should focus on the OS and hardware" is incomplete if not idiotic. If that were the case, we wouldn't have iTunes and iLife, we wouldn't have Final Cut Pro, Shake wouldn't be where it is today, and neither would Logic...

 

[steve_hill4]

we're not ThinkSecret's gatekeeper. ThinkSecret tends to get the benefit of the doubt when they publish their stories. They've had a relatively good record over the years, so their significant stories get published.

If this same story had come from an unknown site, then it would have been pushed to Page 2 if posted at all.

arn

Well said. We come here primarily to discuss rumours and when another site publishes a rumour that is relayed here and possibly could harm Apple, people kick off. If we weren't so fascinated by rumours, no sites would print them and/or make some up so the company in question would never feel any knock on effect from false rumours like this one. However, some false and real rumours help to boost stock value of said company, so it works both ways.

In short, I'm sure if we decided not to post TS rumours anymore and other sites did likewise, some would then complain we weren't reporting all rumours. After all, that's all they are.

 

[jettredmont]

Have you even used the thing? Maybe instead of quoting stuff you find on the web, you actually endeavor to understand what you're talking about. What a novel concept.

I copy files off my card onto my laptop. That's one copy. I import those into Aperture. It makes a copy in its library file. That's two copies. Any changes you make from there are incremental, but it makes a full copy of the file in its library. And if you have ever tried pulling the original RAW file out of that library mess, you'll understand why I'd prefer to keep my original RAW files completely separate from Aperture. I have no intention of keeping every photo I'll ever shoot in my laptop's Aperture library.

Hmm. Well, that seems more like it is your problem than Aperture's.

If you really want to have your own external-to-Aperture organization of image files, maybe five minutes researching symbolic links in the file system would solve your problem? I've only dabbled in Aperture (iPhoto is rich enough for me, for now), but so far as I recall, the Aperture library is just a package folder and all your images are stored directly inside it as files organized by date of import. Is there a reason you can't use symbolic links to organize this in whatever more "logical" structure you have in mind? Heck, if your structure is truly logical, you might even be able to do it via a set of Spotlight folders!

Besides which, it seems that the "original file just in case I drop Aperture completely" would go on a (or a group of) backup disk filed away somewhere outside the vagaries of notebook haard drive failures, right alongside the backup of Aperture's library itself. Personally, I have to say that filling half a laptop drive with pictures is a recipe for disaster. Pro photographers I know always back up their card directly first onto one drive, then import it onto their computer; seems to make sense, as it preserves the "this is what I photographed" data perfectly. 'Course, those that do a lot of post-processing aren't as pedantic about forever preserving the straight-from-the-camera raw file and clear out the "original raws" disk once they've backed up from their hard drive ...

Anyway, just wanted to point out that there is more than one way to do most things on these little computers. Maybe you would be a lot happier using a different method.

 

[bousozoku]

The FCP of the photography world is available today, it's called Photoshop.

Photoshop is one of the most painful applications to use. It's the opposite of what Aperture is trying to be. It's definitely not anything like FCP, except in the most general terms.

 

[greenstork]

Photoshop is one of the most painful applications to use. It's the opposite of what Aperture is trying to be. It's definitely not anything like FCP, except in the most general terms.

I just disagree, Photoshop is one of the most powerful and well respected software tools available on the market today, period.

 

[iTron5]

Quote:
Originally Posted by bousozoku
Photoshop is one of the most painful applications to use. It's the opposite of what Aperture is trying to be. It's definitely not anything like FCP, except in the most general terms.

I just disagree, Photoshop is one of the most powerful and well respected software tools available on the market today, period.


To bousozoku
Photoshop is very painfull to use if you don't understand the 1 billion different features it offers ( that's definitely me ). I would say though that so is final cut pro. I am a perfect example of this. Last weekend i was pulling video from old vhs tapes, final cut pro can't seem to see the video source, but i open imovie and it automatically sees the vcr as a camera and starts showing the video. Now this obviously is completely my lack of understanding regarding final cut pro and it's billion features, but for someone with my lack of experience with final cut, i could make the same assertion that it's painfull to use as well. So i think the original assertion is fairly valid.

To greenstork
It is indeed one of the most powerfull tools on the market but for the people not familiar with it's billion features it can be very difficult to use and understand. Difficult to use and powerfull often go hand in hand atleast until you are very fluent with the application.

 

[longofest]

I also questioned why this is page one, when other stories (the garage band update) have been page 2. If you read the FAQs about page 2, it says something to the effect of page 2 being used for uncertain rumors and those items of lesser (my word) news importance. I see any Apple software update being more important and page 1 worthy. However, Think Secret has been off the mark a bit on their rumors. With something as potentially damaging as this, and only one site reporting, why not put it on page 2?

Just my 2 cents.

Opinions are of course always appreciated. However, the garageband update was simply a minor update, so it did not qualify as front page material. If you notice, many stories by TS and AppleInsider end up on Page2 or not relayed at all. This one was reported on page one due to its impact and credebility of source combined. There's no set formula of course, but a judgement call.

 

[jdurston]

Aperture is here to stay. I disappointed with FUD from thinksecret.com

 

[reyesmac]

Maybe the application would run faster if they made it work with more than a handful of Macs. They need to stop making applications for computers that are not even out yet and instead make them sing on the computers their customers would run it on.

 

[twoodcc]

Aperture is here to stay. I disappointed with FUD from thinksecret.com

i sure hope so. that would make Apple look bad

 

[swingerofbirch]

Maybe the application would run faster if they made it work with more than a handful of Macs. They need to stop making applications for computers that are not even out yet and instead make them sing on the computers their customers would run it on.

I second that, and furthermore add that the applications should run like butter, baby!

 

[Thomas S]

I read an article in Outdoor Photography that talked about how a lot of photographers (both pro and amateur) are so photoshop-centric that it becomes something of a crutch. Instead of trying to obtain quality photos, they thought "No problem. I can fix that up in photoshop." Thus photography becomes less about using a camera correctly and more about experience & skill in Photoshop. I'm starting to see this in my own work and it's worrying me.

I think Aperture tries to take a different approach to digital photography. I've talked with a few friends who are film-centric and they're really interested in getting into digital photography because of Aperture. They said it's more "organic" and that programs like Photoshop confuse the hell out of them.

I'm curious as to how many people here "grew up" with the digital medium and how many people were dedicated film users until recently.

I grew up developing downstairs in a darkroom. While I knew the powers of things such as dodging/burning, I knew that they were just to fix "God's mistakes" as Ansel Adam's once said .

All joking aside, a photograph should be nailed in the camera if at all possible. When I attended a seminar by Eddie Tapp at Filmet a while ago, he showed us all of these "neat things." One thing they all had in common was time.

No one has time to "fix" everything in the computer. Instead, that time should be spent in the field to grab photographs such as this:



It is a thumbnail from my website redesign project.

I just disagree, Photoshop is one of the most powerful and well respected software tools available on the market today, period.

No one doubts the power Photoshop grants us. However, it is SEVERELY lacking when it comes to photographic tools (archiving, organizing etc.)

Right now I could walk over to our safe, and find a shot I need within 5 minutes (out of thousands of slides) if I know what I'm looking for. Photoshop, or Bridge for that matter, doesn't offer me anything like that.

Aperture is the closest thing to that yet.

 

[rt_brained]

I dont know much about running a huge bidness..but why does Apple have a separate team for Aperture and iPhoto? They both do photos, both can handle RAW photos (whatever the heck that is).

You hit on a good point. They don't have separate teams; and that's just why Aperture is in trouble. The next generation video iPod, which also handles photos, is now delayed—so you have to figure that Jobs is cutting his losses. They also need to get Boot Camp finished in time for the new OS release and...hellooo...how are they doing with getting the Intel chip in the Power Mac?!

You got 3, maybe 4 guys working on that many projects at the same time...folks start taking extra-long breaks, showing up late for work...delays, delays, delays.

 

[Di9it8]

Me. Although still in beta and a bit rough around the edges, this is an outstanding application. It runs quite smoothly on my lowly Mac Mini 1.25Ghz / 1GB even with it's Radeon 9200. Aperture would not even install on this machine, so I cannot compare the two.

I was sent a copy of Aperture from Apple, but it would not even install on my 17" PB!!!
I have yet to see it running well, although I like the interface design

 

[ChrisA]

I dont know much about running a huge bidness..but why does Apple have a separate team for Aperture and iPhoto? They both do photos, both can handle RAW photos (whatever the heck that is).

They have several teams. One team maintains Apple's "core image", another the basic building blocks of all user interfaces, another team on the files system and so on.

The Aperture team uses the products of serveral other teams as does the iPhoto team. If you design things right there is little overlap. I doubt theve designed it so perfectly that there is no overlap but that is the basic idea.

 

[JGowan]

Curious...

I think it would very un-Apple like to on the one hand, deciding to kill off Aperture and then showcasing it on the front of their website...

Pro on the Go
RAW performance for the Universal version of Aperture.

There's two versions,... one showcasing Final Cut Pro and one showcasing Aperture. I really believe if the software was getting the ax, they would remove it from such a prominent place.

Also... they need a very pro program like this to help sell two 30" displays at a time! When I first saw the Aperture Quicktime movies, I was blown away by the beauty of the photography on such an impressive setup. I think there are are tons of professionals who would easily love to work with great software on such an amazing computer luxury. I believe a $250 piece of software could sell thousands of dollars in hardware. I don't believe Apple would let this go. It helps push their hardware.

 

[mcarnes]

Hey Thomas, no offense, but maybe you should use PS to fix the distracting blown highlights in the bottom left of that flower shot. Guess you couldn't nail the exposure in camera, or it was out of your camera's DR, so PS to the rescue...

 

[ClimbingTheLog]

Halls of Cupertino

What's this I hear about Aperture being dog slow?
Some users have complained about..
What are we doing about it?
We've had the engineers take a look at it and they say it's as fast as they can make...
What are they f**king crazy? It's a go**amn photo sorter. We have apps that run 30 HD frames a second over in Video Apps on the same hardware.
Maybe the engineers over in Video could take a look...
D**n right they can - have them tell the Aperture guys how to do their jobs.
=== days later ===
The Video guys say the image processing code is done all wrong. They say it doesn't fit the Core Image model at all and is unnecessarily complex. They made a set of suggestions for the Aperture guys.
So when's it going to be fixed?
Well, actually the Aperture guys say that the Video guys' suggestions don't really fit their model all that well.
What other solution are they offering?
They don't have one right...
The whole team agrees?
The senior engineers are pretty adament - the junior programmers aren't part of this process.
So I have one team that can make decent software saying one thing and another team that can't saying something else. Get rid of the idiots and move the junior guys to other teams. Tell the Video guys they have until we ship the Mac Pros in August to get it fixed.
And what about the Video schedule?
It doesn't matter - NAB is over - hire some more programmers for the Video team and get it done.

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

Did anyone read the TS story??.. TS did not state that Aperture will be killed, only that it is in trouble. They state that it is possible a new team will completely rewrite aperture and get it right in version 2.0. You guys should sometimes click on the link the article references and read the original for yourselves

That is my hope. Or as a message on the AI site mentioned, maybe Apple is poised to buy Adobe? Stranger things have happened.

It makes sense that Apple buy Adobe, thus sealing up the photo end of the business by forcing users to go with the MacIntels for photo work and using Boot Camp for the rest.

Just hopeful thinking maybe.

 

[ChrisBrightwell]

That is my hope. Or as a message on the AI site mentioned, maybe Apple is poised to buy Adobe? Stranger things have happened.

Yeah, like Adobe buying Macromedia.

If Apple could take the Adobe/Macromedia product lines and integrate them as well as Final Cut Studio or iLife are integrated, they would destroy the competition. Will that happen? I somehow doubt it.

 

[notjustjay]

No it doesn't.

Whoops, I am an idiot

I was misreading a few quote levels of the thread up to and including the post you made that I replied to. (See what happens when you skim MacRumors instead of working...)

I agree with you. Apple does a heck of a lot as a software company -- though not everything they do, either, is original. Like Microsoft, Apple is also prone to occasionally buying out a good technology and reselling it as their own.

 

[SalsaShark]

If you really want to have your own external-to-Aperture organization of image files, maybe five minutes researching symbolic links in the file system would solve your problem? I've only dabbled in Aperture (iPhoto is rich enough for me, for now), but so far as I recall, the Aperture library is just a package folder and all your images are stored directly inside it as files organized by date of import. Is there a reason you can't use symbolic links to organize this in whatever more "logical" structure you have in mind? Heck, if your structure is truly logical, you might even be able to do it via a set of Spotlight folders!

I love how almost everyone defending Aperture has never actually used it or only "dabbled" in it. I think that's pretty telling right there. Aperture takes each image and buries it 4 or 5 folders deep inside its library, and renames it. Symbolic linking is not practical here.

Besides which, it seems that the "original file just in case I drop Aperture completely" would go on a (or a group of) backup disk filed away somewhere outside the vagaries of notebook haard drive failures, right alongside the backup of Aperture's library itself.

When I return from location, I archive all my photos to two external drives and occasionally DVD-R, but I don't trust optical media enough for serious storage. What's at issue here for me is the ability to work with my files in the field and still be able to archive them for easy retrieval later, which should be what any working photojournalist needs.

Maybe you would be a lot happier using a different method.

Yeah, like I said, Lightroom.

Someone nailed it earlier when they said Aperture is only really useful on a beefy setup in a studio. Even on my MBP, when I've got thousands of photos a day to wade through and up against a deadline, Aperture simply doesn't cut it. Don't get me wrong. I was thrilled when I originally heard about Aperture. I don't want it to fail, but that's all it's done so far. I hope as a result of this shakeup they turn out a wonderful product down the line. Adobe needs the competition. Right now, they're not getting much, even up against a free beta.

 

[Play Ultimate]

I remember (I'm dating myself) trying to use MacDraw or MacWrite for certain things, but ended up having to use Aldus Pagemaker... All great programs, but Pagemaker did what I really needed to do.

I miss Pagemaker and have yet to find a replacement as good. I especially liked the "Make Booklet" function.

Back on Topic...
Something is definitely going on. However, I doubt that Apple will throw in the towel yet on this software. Apple traditionally has been quite stubborn about abandoning products. It may just linger though without further update.