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Aperture 1.2 at Photokina?
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jettredmont said:
Yeah, which is why I also mentioned the possibility of a Photoshop Elements killer.
I don't think either product is really aimed well at prosumers. PS has too much high-end crap that photographers don't need, and PSE really isn't all that easy to use. Anything that's "easy" in PSE is destructive (i.e., it doesn't occur on a layer; it modifies pixels).Apple could do much better than either PS or PSE. Powerful, but easy.
puppeteer said:
I agree with most of what you say, pupetteer, except for the math.
I'm not a mathematician. I don't care about the math. Tell me in simple terms what's happening. I can buy a book if I want to understand the math behind what's happening. The user interface shouldn't expose that, though. IMHO.
I doubt that they would make such a fuss about iPhoto enhanced.bikertwin said:Yeah, which is why I also mentioned the possibility of a Photoshop Elements killer.
Apple could do much better than either PS or PSE. Powerful, but easy.
Note this entry on Rob Gaibraith's site:
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/content_page.asp?cid=7-7898-8553
I still think that people here forget that Apple's software division exists to sell hardware. When we all realize that, We can better anticipate the goals and direction of Aperture development. Normal software companies like Adobe are platform neutral - they want to make money from the software. But Apple wants not only to bind you into their OS, but also give power users a real incentive to buy expensive systems ands frequent upgrades!
The barely-profitable iTunes store exists to help sell 5-10 million highly profitable iPods at $300 each.
The no-revenue product iLife suite exists to help sell 1 million consumer Macs at $1200 each.
Pro apps like FCP (established) and Aperture (new product) exist to sell 100,000 MacPro systems at $4000 each.
The no-revenue product iLife suite exists to help sell 1 million consumer Macs at $1200 each.
Pro apps like FCP (established) and Aperture (new product) exist to sell 100,000 MacPro systems at $4000 each.
I assume Apple's Pro apps don't make too much profit for the company, though having a them in the black is a bonus. But if Apple spends more (cutting potential profits) to give Pro software more features so they sell a bunch more expensive computers, one can easily see why they have a different development model that a typical software company.
I still think we'll see a preview of Aperture 2, but the emphasis will be on how tightly this integrates with the new MacPro line to make actual daily use easier for smaller creative shops.
CalfCanuck said:
Interesting ideas, CalfCanuck, but I'm under the impression that software is far more profitable than hardware.
Sure, Apple wants to sell hardware, too, so they emphasize cutting-edge features in their software, so you're practically forced to buy better hardware. But except for your iTunes example, I think Apple (as do all companies) makes far more margin on software than hardware.
And by your own quote from Galbraith, I think it's pretty clear that Apple will announce Aperture 2.0 as well as (potentially) a new photo editing app (an Aperture add-in?). You wouldn't invite the photography press to announce Mac Pro hardware that's, well, already announced.
Oh, and Photoshop Elements is nothing at all like iPhoto or iPhoto Enhanced. It's a pixel-level image editor.
I hope I understood you correctly.
bikertwin said:Yeah, which is why I also mentioned the possibility of a Photoshop Elements killer.
Apple could do much better than either PS or PSE. Powerful, but easy.
Nikon already has. Well really Nik oftware. "Capture NX" does a lot of what photographers need to do but uses a different interface and it's non-destructive. When editing an image what you really are doing is editing a list of operations to be applied to the image. So you can undo some step you made by removing it from the list. The pixels were not changed. It has a very simple way to selet parts of an image, for eaxmple the sky and apply an operation (say collor corectioon) to only a list of selected image parts.
Well, that is the idea. NX has problems with it's implementation: A cluny userinterface and it is PPC only (Yes PPC only and it was first released AFTER the transition to Intel.)
This idea is IMO much nicer than photoshop's interface but NX is tied to Windows and PPC Macs and the Nikon NEF file format but shows the way image editing could be
CTYankee said:
Why should files EVER be taken off-lne? Is it a cost issue, you can'r afford the on-line storage? That will resolve itself over time as disk prices fall. In the ideal situation you have a "storage pool" of disk drives and as the pool gets filled you add more drives and possably retire some of the older drives. A good pool is self managing too. You have a few on-line spare drives so that when a drive fails the pool can rebuild the data on the spare then take the failed drive off-line and notify the user that a drive needs to be chucked in the trash. No, this is not science fiction setups like this have existed for years and it looks like Apple is headed this way too. Note the recent talk about "ZFS".
Storage should be something the end-user does not think about. Taking files off-line is just a work around that you use because you don't have the storage system you really need.
About backups: We have a sytem kind of like the above. Lots of disks, on-line spares and so on but still a fire or flood could cause data to be lost. So there are two other systems like this in two other cities and we keep the three systems synchronized. We couldhave two fires on the same day and still one copy would survie. In addtion they make periodic backups to tape. It is very expensive but expense resolves over time.
I'm optimistic. Storage prices will fall. Camera sensor sizes will get larger but only for a while and then they will remain stable. There will be 35mm "full frame" camera and medium format size CCDs and they will gain pixels until the point where the CCD can record a 100 line per millimeter image and the MFT curve of the CCDis like fine grain film after that there is noo need for more pixels. There is not a need for more than about 30MP in the 35mm format and about 100MP in medium format. These limits will be reached inside of 10 years but storage will always get cheaper over time.
bikertwin said:
In THEORY, software can be extremely profitable. Just look at the M$ machine up in Redmond. But for every company like that there are 10,000 software companies scratching out a living.
When a client reads about a photographer hired by Boeing or Airbus and paid $50,000 to shoot the next generation, should they then conclude that the photographer who shot their wedding drives a Porsche and lives in a Penthouse flat in London's West End?
The entire Apple platform is a niche software market. Many of the key independent software companies that support Mac started out Mac only, then were forced to then to move cross-platform to increase their revenue base to ensure their survival. Of course one can make nice profits in such niche markets if you keep a handle on your R&D costs - many small firms do quite nicely. But big budgets mean big sales projections, and those are far fewer on the Mac side. (Luckily we've recovered from the near-death experience of the late 1990's, when Mac development almost ground to a halt.)
Let's move back to Pro apps like FCP or Aperture - do you think the FCP team is authorized to develop a Windows version of FCP just because they do some estimates and decide they can increase their income ten-fold by going cross-platfrom? Absolutely not.
Hence my point that the goal of Pro apps is to sell computers. Look at other posts in this Aperture Forum: "I had never owned a Mac but bought a MBP to run Aperture ...". They spent $3000 in hardware to install a $300 application.
This model has been VERY successful for FCP - a video maker sees FCP, and decides to switch to Mac from whatever editor they were using before. Year one, they buy FCP for $1200 and a high end Mac for $4000. Year 3 they upgrade FCP for $400 and buy a newer high end Mac for $4000. Year 5 they upgrade the software again for $400 and buy yet another top of the line box for $4000.
So they've spent $2,000 on software, but $12,000 on hardware. Now they might never had bought any Macs if it wasn't for FCP, but because they like the software they bought $12,000 worth of hardware.
If Apple can make powerful (and storage intensive!) generic computer hardware for photographers as easy to use as cars, they will make FAR more than from software. BUT it is still the power and elegance of great Pro type software that will drive the hardware sales in the long term.
OK, I think we're pretty much on the same page.CalfCanuck said:
I look at it more as "users who switch to a Mac are buying into a platform" rather than "buying into hardware".
If Apple made FCP for Windows, and they sold a copy of FCP, that's all they'd sell. As you say, with it being Mac only, they now buy Mac hardware. But they're also buying into the whole Mac platform. They then buy Aperture and iLife and iWork and Logic and OS X, and upgrades. I find software upgrades occur much more frequently than hardware upgrades.
So instead of the profit on just FCP, they get the profit on FCP plus hardware (as you say) plus the profit on all the new software (for switchers) and upgrades (for everybody) for ... well ... forever.
So what does this have to do with a Photoshop killer?
Well, how does Photoshop drive users to the Mac? It's simple: it doesn't. It's exactly the same on both platforms. It doesn't really drive Mac sales at all (other than by peripheral benefits, such as color management being better on the Mac).
So, if Apple wants photographers to switch to the Mac, a Mac-specific Photoshop-like application (it doesn't have to be a PS-killer, per se) that highlights cool features in the Mac (integration with Aperture & other apps, Core Image, Time Machine, etc.) will drive switchers to the Mac platform.
You could say Photoshop is neutral, since photographers will migrate to the Mac because of Aperture, even if they use Photoshop as their editor. But don't you think Adobe will integrate Lightroom with Photoshop much more tightly than they will with Aperture?
I think Apple has no choice long term but to have a Photoshop-like editor of their own.
bikertwin said:
Bollocks.
Of my statistically small take,of the about 30-40 photographers I personally know,100% uses Mac´s.
Photoshop is practically synonymous with Mac around here.
Why?
Because of the 30-40 photogs about 100% are lazy bastards,with a high comfort zone and generaly a dislike towards tinkering with computers.
We get to tinker enough with cameras and lights,so after a work day,the last thing that we want to do,is to re-install software or other *****.
Stable platform=Saved time=Time for Creativity=More profit.
So,from my perspective,you Sir Bikertwin are 100% wrong on this one.
so when is photokina?
i don't want to buy aperture just before an update. they will sock me with an upgrade fee
i don't want to buy aperture just before an update. they will sock me with an upgrade fee
Show starts Sept 26, but I believe Apple's special press event for the show is on Sept 25 the day before the show - trying to catch the wave early!mdntcallr said:
With Apple software, is an upgrade after a "." something that one has to pay for? For example is Aperture 1.2 going to be a free upgrade for 1.1 users?
Macinposh said:
Well, Sir, you completely ignored my point.
I said people do like the Mac, but not because of Photoshop. All the reasons you gave are valid, but they have nothing to do with Photoshop. Understand the difference?