I've just registered here to clean up this ininformed mess...
That is simply not true. The "library" must be on a HFS(+) formatted drive, maybe AFP will work, too but any of FAT32/NTFS/NFS/CIFS will not work.
The same holds for any referenced master if you want to be able to delete it for instance. Plus, you can't reference masters directly on a memory card which you certainly can in LR.
So effectively, if you don't keep your files on HFS(+) formatted drives (or maybe AFP remote storage) or don't have enough space on such a drive to keep the catalog, you loose.
This is a huge dealbreaker for me and others e.g. working on a NAS or having a strong desire to keep their files OS agnostic; also for those who appreciate the LR possibility to sort out bad pictures directly on their memory card instead of being forced to "import" them (possibly as referenced masters to a non-HFS filesystems and thereby losing the ability to get rid of them later).
I tried a full two days sorting out how to make this work including reading all of the A3 manual but to no avail. That included even finding a spare external drive formatted to HFS+ with room for at least one 8 GB memory card and the library but even that kludge did not work as satisfactory as LR does.
NB: For those who haven't noticed: A3 lacks the ability to export files with *overwrite* of existing ones instead of inventing phantasy names with "(n)" added. This is another dealbreaker at least for those who shoot JPEG+RAW and keep both (and use JPEG unless the JPEG needs some correction).
I don't believe that's the case. In the same sense that spreading misinformation like in your post or other childish other posts help promoting Aperture.
PS: I wanted to use A3 instead of LR because it has its flaws, too. That's why I spend big time money (in terms of time) to make it work. But A3 is so buggy, slow and just does not the slightest cooperate with my long time established workflow (about 8 years, when I didn't even have Macs) while any other RAW processing application on the Mac like LR, SilkyPix, RawTherapee, RawPhotoProcessor works just fine. It also crashed 8 times on me in only a few days of operation; that's 8 times more than LR ever.
PPS: If you really are interested in discussing these issues instead of uselessly denying or flaming them I invite you to take part in the discussions in the dpreview "Micro Four Thirds Talk" Forum where I've detailed many (and not even all) of the problems I found.
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Servus, Daniel