Apple Ending Development on Aperture as Upcoming Photos App for OS X Will Replace iPhoto

[Tumbleweed666]

I already disable Photo-stream on all my devices because it's a stupid solution that creates needless duplication. Sure, let me see what's on my phone on my Mac but don't create a separate bunch of photos in the cloud in addition to what's stored locally on my phone. That's just dumb.

You wont think its dumb if you lose your phone before you had a chance to copy those pictures to your Mac. Or you wished to look at the pictures you took on your phone on your iPad. Or would you regard copying photos from your phone to your Mac as "needless duplication"

 

[FrozenDarkness]

i highly doubt apple will ever create a web only solution in the near future because it's stupid

 

[Rygaard]

Great i Just bought this

Great I just Bought Aperature like 4 month ago - Fantastic..

[url=http://cdn.macrumors.com/im/macrumorsthreadlogodarkd.png]Image[/url]

Image​

Apple will no longer continue development on its professional photography application, Aperture, reports The Loop. Instead, the company is working on the Photos app for Mac that it introduced during the Worldwide Developer's Conference. The Photos app, which was shown off only briefly during WWDC, will combine with iCloud Photo Library, replacing both Aperture and iPhoto. While Photos will allow users to store, search, and edit photos via the cloud on Apple devices, it is unlikely to include the more robust, professional-oriented tools found in Aperture.

Aperture, which has long lagged behind competing software like Lightroom from Adobe, saw its last major version update to 3.5 on October 22, 2013, and since then, the software has seen just one last minor update. One of the major complaints about Aperture has been its infrequent updates, and many users have wondered if and when Apple would release Aperture 4. With no plans to continue development, professional photographers will want to find another solution, such as Lightroom.

According to TechCrunch, Apple will continue to provide compatibility updates to allow Aperture to run on OS X Yosemite, but development will stop.

Article Link: Apple Ending Development on Aperture as Upcoming Photos App for OS X Will Replace iPhoto

 

[bobright]

I don't use Aperture but use iPhoto, so what happens to my pictures? They are all integrated within the app so confusing to get to

 

[GrumpyTrucker]

You wont think its dumb if you lose your phone before you had a chance to copy those pictures to your Mac. Or you wished to look at the pictures you took on your phone on your iPad. Or would you regard copying photos from your phone to your Mac as "needless duplication"

To be fair, as things stand with Photostream, if you lose your phone before you get home/to work/ to the office you haven't got the photos in Photostream anyway since it only uploads over WiFi. That's one of the problems I've always had with it. If I'm away from WiFi for few hours and take a few photos, sometimes it works perfectly but sometimes it only uploads the most recent two or three photos leaving me to manually upload the others using a different 'shared stream'

I hope this new 'photos everywhere' system will give me the 'option' to use cellular data to upload like just about every other solution does.

 

[LV426]

...all the signs are Apple are trying to make us Cloud dependent and "locked in" just like Adobe and Microsoft. To this end they will fail if it's not in the consumer's best interest.

What signs? To the best of my knowledge use of iCloud is entirely optional. Unlike Adobe's recent software, no Apple software is required to periodically 'phone home' in order to carry on working.

Personally, I make extensive use of iCloud for syncing contacts, messages, purchased movies and music, appointments etc. But only because I choose to do so. And I choose not to use Photostream, as it's not really much benefit to me.

Photos for iOS and OS X will certainly work without the cloud, you can pretty much guarantee that.

 

[Ploki]

Looking at the FCP X Launch debacle, I would not hold my breath that the new Photos App will offer even 5% of the functionality Aperture has. At least during the first 2-3 years. I just hope, Aperture still works then on the latest OS and hardware. If not, then one could imagine the how much time one has to spend to move library, edits, etc to a new software or database.

To be honest, FCPX was the same as Logic X half-finished, and they're both gaining on features and fixes slowly. FCPX 10.1 is what 10.0 should've been, bit it took them a while to get here. Not enough cash in the development it would seem.

Pages, Numbers... These really took a kick in the stomach. Bigger documents aren't really manageable in Pages anymore.

I'm sad about aperture though, I started taking photography little bit more seriously half a year ago and chose Aperture in favour of Lightroom because I preferred its workflow.
Too bad apple neglected it and let it die a slow painful death

 

[Burger Thing]

Comments like this baffle me. First of all, no question, Apple is all about the $$$. It's a company, not your best friend. I'm sorry if people feel disappointed by this. Now the way business usually works though is that Apple doesn't make money if enough people are disappointed so I wholeheartedly agree you should tell them with your wallet.

FCPX was also a massive failure on Apple's part and honestly I have no idea what they were smoking at that time.

However, I don't agree that when you buy a piece of software, you buy future developments and upgrades. That's insane. What if a company goes bankrupt? What if that department is no longer profitable? Companies aren't banking their future because you paid money for their past work. Aperture isn't suddenly going to break tomorrow, you got your monies worth.

Now, if you said you spent time to buy into the system and Apple let you down. I, once again, agree with your sentiment. I think you should wait for Apple to release Photos before you pass judgement. Everything I've seen says that it looks more like aperture than iPhoto. Apple has also been furiously calling photographers that have a web presence so Apple obviously cares about this group of professionals. Passing judgement at this time is pre-mature.

I actually think, if the assumptions are true and Photos is a free App, that Apple is forgoing profits completely, which would go against your theory that they're all about the money. They can easily just release another version with minimal updates and try to milk your money. That'd be much easier and more profitable, I presume, than completely rewriting their photo apps from the ground up.

Of course Apple is there to make money, I don't dispute that. However I would argue that with the insane amount of cash Apple is hoarding, it wouldn't hurt apple much to offer, let's say, top of the line specs niche laptops, like a 17" MBP, or software for professionals. I doubt that they would lose money. But offering these products would mean, that they are slightly less profitable than mainstream laptops and simple, easy to develop consumer software only.

Apple had once a reputation of offering equipment and software for graphic professionals. I certainly believe that reputation lured in tons of hobbyists and prosumers. Can't this billion dollar company really not afford to offer a few non mainstream products?

And about the upgrades I wholeheartedly disagree with you. So when you buy or install a new App or OS, you don't expect upgrades further down the line? Oh boy, then certainly nobody would have ever bought FCPX when it was released. I certainly do expect, that when I buy a several hundred dollars worth of a software, that it will be getting Bugfixes, upgrades, etc. In case of a company like Apple, I would expect years of commitment. Well, not anymore.

I'm sad to see Apple slipping into a company which solely cares about profit and mainstream.

 

[Zendokan]

I'm not understanding Apple Inc modus operandi anymore

They killed
- Front Row, I had to replace it with xbmc , because the clone Equinox MediaCentral is €60/5 Macs

- the database app when AppleWorks was replaced with iWorks, I replaced it with Bento (through the Apple Inc subsidiary FileMaker Inc), but FileMaker discontinued Bento, I'm now looking into Tap Forms which will cost me again money

- iDVD, while iMacs and MBPs that still contain internal SuperDrives are still supported, heck they even still sell an external SuperDrive. Apple Inc doesn't even have to develop iDVD further, just keep it downloadable in the App Store for now. I ported it from OSX 10.7 to 10.9, it still works, but I installed Burn as back-up app.

- Shake...where's Phenomenon? I'm still waiting for its replacement app /s

and now that are going to "replace" iPhoto and Aperture with one program called Photos? So one app for consumers, prosumers and professionals? Depending on which group you ask, it will be too complex or too dumbed down.
So I'm expecting more people to flock to Adobe's Lightroom.


The strength of Apple was the symbiosis between hardware and software, especially the internal developed software, so I really don't understand why they are killing that off piece by piece.

 

[stevielatphoto]

We have to be responsible for our own backups. The images won't exist only in the cloud, but also on our hard drives where the usual backup regimes will still be in place.

Having repsonsibility for our own backups goes without saying. I am talking about longer term access to files, as Apple's Aperture library system is different to any others that i know. As i said in my original post, i exported my files as aperture libraries when i should have exported them as individual files.

 

[dilbert99]

I already disable Photo-stream on all my devices because it's a stupid solution that creates needless duplication.

I think its great, I open Aperture all my iPhone photos end up in a permanent folder, one for each month. I can then quickly delete the photos I don't need, quickly compare and then I don't care what happens to the photos on my phone. If I need extra space, I simple delete some photos. It simplifies my iPhone photo handling.

I just wish the same thing happened for movies and for other iPhones in the family (multiple phones - 1 Aperture library).

----------

Having repsonsibility for our own backups goes without saying. I am talking about longer term access to files, as Apple's Aperture library system is different to any others that i know. As i said in my original post, i exported my files as aperture libraries when i should have exported them as individual files.

The images are still readily available as single files, you'd just need to do a little digging, e.g. files available by date structure (but most likely without edits) in my aperture library when I show package contents as /Users/me/Pictures/Aperture\ Library.aplibrary/Masters/2014/06/29/20140629-220213/IMG_4306.JPG (iPhone)
or /Users/david/Pictures/Aperture\ Library.aplibrary/Masters/2013/10/03/20131003-172910/IMG_0512.CR2 (Canon 70D)
(Not that I'd recommend using them that way, better just to do an export or migrate to photos)

But if the new Photos app is actually any good with lots of slider adjustments/management etc then your aperture libraries can be upgraded.

I'll worry further down the line now that I've had a chance to cool down.

 

[Tech198]

"....users will be able to migrate their existing Aperture libraries to Photos for OS.""

Apple has to try and keep people don't they..... if people turned away, what makes Apple think the photos app will be any better than what Adobe has ?


Glee of hope, and the Apple core is above water, but how long can it stay afloat.

 

[manni]

"....users will be able to migrate their existing Aperture libraries to Photos for OS.""

Apple has to try and keep people don't they..... if people turned away, what makes Apple think the photos app will be any better than what Adobe has ?


Glee of hope, and the Apple core is above water, but how long can it stay afloat.

To me this is the big question - can I take my aperture library, with all its adjustments, over to the new app intact. If the answer is "yes" then I can rest easy; who knows how this photos in the cloud thing will go but hopefully apple have a nice app lined up. I am not a pro but have several years of treasured family moments, holidays etc with carefully organized and edited photos and if next year apple put me in a position where to get the OS X after the next one I have to throw away my entire library it will be disappointing to say the least. The kind of douche move microsoft would do to force people to upgrade and to hell with the interests of the loyal customer.

The way apple announced this though is very unfair and unpleasant. I remember Steve Jobs liked dropping old software but I equally have seen on youtube videos of him meeting developers and having them rain all sorts of abuse on him. Tim cook seems a quite sly and underhand man and this whole approach smacks of that. Many of us have been with Apple for years and aperture represented something special. It is a way to keep high-level photography within the apple eco-system, knowing back ups work fine, sync with other apps, all that trust apple has built up - to me, to have that trust and stability in my photography, as well as nicely written software with an elegant UI was a key reason to buy now my 3rd macbook pro. Why squander it? If they force users to use lightroom then for some they might as well say "use a windows machine". Bizarre behaviour really. I sent feedback through the link people gave, we can at least politely let them know we rely on and trust aperture and do care if it is rendered dead and our libraries destroyed within 12 months.

But all of this is talk of something we don't know the details about. But since they apparently said they will only maintain aperture for one more OS X update it is understandable why people are worried. They should let us know what the plan is. I remember about 10 years ago I bought my first mac having the guy inform me how apple never just cuts customers off and everything works for many years so it made it easy to justify the crazy price compared to a windows machine.

 

[maflynn]

To be honest, FCPX was the same as Logic X half-finished, and they're both gaining on features and fixes slowly. FCPX 10.1 is what 10.0 should've been, bit it took them a while to get here. Not enough cash in the development it would seem.

That's the thing, I'm not willing to wait (and hope) to see apple add features. I am jumping to conclusions on the replacement app being bare bones but given Apple's recent track record its a safe bet.

I'm sad about aperture though, I started taking photography little bit more seriously half a year ago and chose Aperture in favour of Lightroom because I preferred its workflow.
Too bad apple neglected it and let it die a slow painful death

Many (most?) professional photographers gave up on Aperture as LR was consistently updated with newer features. I still like what AP gave us, but I agree, seeing it whither on the vine was rather sad

----------

To me this is the big question - can I take my aperture library, with all its adjustments, over to the new app intact. If the answer is "yes" then I can rest easy;

As it stands now - no.

If Adobe provides a tool to convert the library that will be one thing, but right now, all you can do is export your originals without edits or export TIFF (read HUGE) or png files with your edits.

 

[iLLucionist]

I'm not understanding Apple Inc modus operandi anymore

They killed
- Front Row, I had to replace it with xbmc , because the clone Equinox MediaCentral is €60/5 Macs

- the database app when AppleWorks was replaced with iWorks, I replaced it with Bento (through the Apple Inc subsidiary FileMaker Inc), but FileMaker discontinued Bento, I'm now looking into Tap Forms which will cost me again money

- iDVD, while iMacs and MBPs that still contain internal SuperDrives are still supported, heck they even still sell an external SuperDrive. Apple Inc doesn't even have to develop iDVD further, just keep it downloadable in the App Store for now. I ported it from OSX 10.7 to 10.9, it still works, but I installed Burn as back-up app.

- Shake...where's Phenomenon? I'm still waiting for its replacement app /s

and now that are going to "replace" iPhoto and Aperture with one program called Photos? So one app for consumers, prosumers and professionals? Depending on which group you ask, it will be too complex or too dumbed down.
So I'm expecting more people to flock to Adobe's Lightroom.


The strength of Apple was the symbiosis between hardware and software, especially the internal developed software, so I really don't understand why they are killing that off piece by piece.

IMHO, it wasn't only the functionality that their software offered. It was the fact that their pro-software used to be a benchmark of UI-design. A standard for other companies to follow. Their pro-apps were beautiful (like Aperture when it first came out), was relatively intuitive to use, and well thought out. In contrast to Adobe apps, where some screens are thought out and others are just like "oh let's put a dialog here with some buttons", Apple went all the way and designed all dialogs, screens, menus to be consistent. I will certainly miss that. And I worry in what directions other companies will move with regards to UI-design.

However, paradoxically, I find OS X Yosemite not a step in the right direction either, with thin Helvetica and all those glass effects. But that's just my opinion.

 

[Bokito]

I can't really cry about iPhoto. Even on my maxed out 27" 2013 iMac it's not running smooth and I only have about 5K photos in the library.

I hope the new Photos app will do organisation well and make it really easy to edit with Pixelmator or Photoshop. iPhoto got too much bloat, although some features are really nice.

 

[manni]

As it stands now - no.

If Adobe provides a tool to convert the library that will be one thing, but right now, all you can do is export your originals without edits or export TIFF (read HUGE) or png files with your edits.

Well you're right that's the only interpretation one can currently make of apple's sort-of statement through a third party so far.

However, I still retain some faith in the company. It seems likely that late next year there will be another update to the OS X. If they don't either support aperture longer or find some way for aperture libraries to be opened in 'Photos' complete with adjustments... then the result will be people faced with the choice of either stopping updating the OS or abandoning their photo libraries.

I could take over my masters easily but there are some I spent ages getting just right, including editing them with Nik software then more tweaks in aperture. There must be lots like me - not lots compared to teenaged girls having iphones, but lots in terms of the photographic community, probably not pros but passionate supporters of apple who want to use the apple approach to photography, who paid money for aperture, who buy new laptops to be able to handle 36Mp files and will do so again in future years.

And there is another issue - how apple treats customers, how it wins or loses trust and that feeling of safety and stability. Surely Tim Cook can't be so stupid as to make us lose our treasured family photos with a warning of 12 months? I know they want us to put it in the cloud so that we then have to keep buying new hardware to run the new software to access our stuff. It looks like things will go that way but to do it by literally forcing people and in such a short space of time would be brutal and I think engender some real anger and frustration.

I love photography and take it seriously and aperture + Nik software covers 99% of what I need, I can't remember the last time i used photoshop and i don't like adobe's UI style. I would be happy if apple would just say they will keep aperture working, even without improvements, for a few years with the OS. I sent them a note to that effect in the feedback thing.

Is there any history of apple ever actually bowing to customer demands? It sounds like they have now undone much of the damage done to Final Cut Pro X so hopefully they will show a little honor and not actively set out to punish photographers. It seems irrational given what has been said so far but I for some reason still trust apple a bit (I don't mind a new product but it should open aperture libraries complete with adjustments) and can't see Tim Cook making us destroy what is for many of us a huge library of family photos, children graduating, holiday memories, photos of now deceased loved ones - I, like many others, trusted apple to at least keep the software and library running - will they really dare make it so 'Photos' can't access all those things.

I don't even think the issue of professionals is the biggest here - I believe most use lightroom anyway and can change without emotion or sentimentality - it must surely be the average aperture using photography enthusiast who is more worried right now. There seems to be at least a few hundred people at macrumors really concerned about this - I can only suggest and hope as many as possible send feedback and or emails to apple to politely let them know we use aperture and want to keep it working and/or be able to access our libraries.

 

[katewes]

so I really don't understand why they are killing that off piece by piece.[/B]

Answer: Greed for filthy money, justifying to themselves that they are "focusing" on great products.

----------

And there is another issue - how apple treats customers, how it wins or loses trust and that feeling of safety and stability. Surely Tim Cook can't be so stupid as to ...

It's not stupidity. It's greed and arrogance, which often amounts to the same thing. I've used Apple since its earliest Macs, and used to be a Mac evangelist, taking pride in spreading the Apple name to all my friends. No more. The name "Apple" is dirt to me ever since they scrapped matte, non-reflective screens. Sure, not everyone needs them, but many users do.

Companies like Apple don't realise that the cache associated with the brand -- that warm fuzzy feeling we feel - can disappear in a few years. For example, SONY used to have that a few decades ago, but no one feels warm and fuzzy anymore at the mention of SONY.

I only use OSX now because it's better than Windows. That's all. No more fanatical love for Apple. They're just corporate titans sitting on hundreds of billions of cash, not investing in doing things, but just hoarding the gold.

 

[goodmacman]

not even the beginning of the end

We've seen features disappear from apps at a rate of knots. I think this trend will only continue. Good bye FCP! Good bye Logic! I'll miss you, like the good old days of

 

[AlanShutko]

What? You can send a photo in aperture to PS, edit and save back, what more integration do you want?

Aperture does not display layered PSDs well. I have several images that I've edited in PS, but the thumbnails when they come back into Aperture may only show the top layer with black for the rest, or be messed up in other ways. Also, if I open a PSD again in Photoshop from Aperture, Aperture has a tendency to create a new version of the file with a flattened copy of the original PSD. That would make sense if I had applied Aperture adjustments on top of the PSD, but if I haven't touched it, Aperture should let me go back and edit the original file.

 

[iPad Air]

I see how it is.

An article really garners comments when Apple kills a product.

I am looking forward to what Yosemite offers in the realm of Photos.

 

[manni]

I thought some might find this link interesting:

https://www.apertureexpert.com/tips/2014/6/27/aperture-dead-long-live-photos#.U7GETKjNAUS


It includes this intriguing quote:

“With the introduction of the new Photos app and iCloud Photo Library, enabling you to safely store all of your photos in iCloud and access them from anywhere, there will be no new development of Aperture. When Photos for OS X ships next year, users will be able to migrate their existing Aperture libraries to Photos for OS X.” — Apple, Inc.


Which does seem at least to hold out the chance our libraries will be able to be opened in photos though it isn't specific on whether the adjustments remain. I've no idea whether apertureexpert.com is a serious source etc, someone posted it in another forum here so I just reposted the link here.

 

[Yebubbleman]

What news coverage on this story seems to have in common is that it is very clear on the discontinuation of development on Aperture on the OS X side and the discontinuation of iPhoto for iOS. What it's completely vague about is the future of iPhoto for OS X.

Also it'd be cool to know about the delivery method of the new photos app for OS X. For iOS, it's obviously a part of iOS 8 (though will iPhoto cease to run in iOS 8?). For OS X, will it be a Mac App Store app, or will it come in an OS update to Yosemite (say, in 10.10.2)? But I recognize that those details were never in that story.

 

[LV426]

I thought some might find this link interesting:

https://www.apertureexpert.com/tips/2014/6/27/aperture-dead-long-live-photos#.U7GETKjNAUS


It includes this intriguing quote:

“With the introduction of the new Photos app and iCloud Photo Library, enabling you to safely store all of your photos in iCloud and access them from anywhere, there will be no new development of Aperture. When Photos for OS X ships next year, users will be able to migrate their existing Aperture libraries to Photos for OS X.” — Apple, Inc.


Which does seem at least to hold out the chance our libraries will be able to be opened in photos though it isn't specific on whether the adjustments remain. I've no idea whether apertureexpert.com is a serious source etc, someone posted it in another forum here so I just reposted the link here.

The quote is old hat, but the link you provided goes to a very interesting article. People here should read it. Interesting to see stuff like RAW decoding modules / lens correction, super noise reduction etc. baked into Yosemite's RAW handling. Looks promising.

 

[manni]

The quote is old hat, but the link you provided goes to a very interesting article. People here should read it. Interesting to see stuff like RAW decoding modules / lens correction, super noise reduction etc. baked into Yosemite's RAW handling. Looks promising.

You might find this link a good read too. Interesting to find a real committed fan of aperture who isn't panicking too much!

https://www.apertureexpert.com/tips/2014/6/28/comment-follow-demise-aperture#.U7GES6jNAUQ