Apple Confirms Aperture to Be Removed From Mac App Store After Launch of Photos for OS X

[KALLT]

Apple calls the new watch "Apple Watch", and now they replace iPhoto with "Photo". Why doesn't it stick to the iNames? This is confusing...

Apple has been phasing out the ‘iProduct’ naming scheme for a couple of years now. iCal, iChat, iPod (the app) have been renamed to Calendar, Messages and Music. Photos just follows this new convention. I suppose it makes sense for Apple to have simple and clear names for applications that are shipped with OS X.

A lot of people here seem to be missing the fact that Aperture really wasn't making the money it needed to stay viable anymore.

Otherwise Apple would have kept it and only killed off iPhoto. Additionally, to substantiate my point, if Apple were solely thinking about the profit, if Aperture was making any money for them, they would have kept it and integrated iCloud Photo Library into it, then they would have made a bucket load with the cost of Aperture as well as the money from iCloud Drive storage. The fact that they're killing Aperture off just shows it wasn't worth keeping.

I have another suspicion: reallocation of resources. Apple saw the potential for a more powerful Photos application after they saw the interest in Aperture even among consumers, enough so for them to throw out iPhotos completely and incorporate advanced features. I think they just don’t have the developers to maintain two applications of that kind, especially when their features overlap and both consumers and ‘prosumers’ are happy with Photos. The professional-user segment would be further marginalised.

 

[haysoos123]

It's hard to divine whether they want to cater to pros with Photos. My guess would be that they will add features back gradually like they did with Final Cut Pro X, but this is by no means guaranteed. In the other pro apps, they have the dual version model: iMovie/Final Cut Pro X, and Garageband/Logic Pro X, but Photos seems to be in between iPhoto and Aperture.

As for FCPX, after a shaky start, it has now regained its status as one of the three main NLEs. They have just broadened its reach, so now it caters to the low end all the way to the highest end productions. Logic Pro X never really faltered after its release and continues to be solid.

 

[SeattleMoose]

Bought Aperture for $199 a few years ago but quite frankly, never really used it. I found that I simply didn't need the extra features/power that it provided. I found clunky old iPhoto to be "good enough" as my main Photo App with Pixelmator as my photo editing App. I will not miss Aperture at all.

In fact for me this is a win because I always found iPhoto somewhat clunky and awkward. From what I have heard, Photos is an improved iPhoto. Bring it on.

Now if they would finally fix iTunes...which has outgrown itself.

 

[marty11]

Photos for OS X is such a huge improvement over iPhoto and Aperture this makes sense. It's just incredible that Apple is going to be giving away the world's most advanced photo application. I hope nobody complains.

Wow! You know Photos is essentially a portal to FORCE users to pay for overpriced cloud storage. It's hardly free for those who can think beyond the shinny object Apple puts in front of them.

 

[brewno]

I'm already using Aperture's replacement: Adobe Lightroom.

 

[jwdsail]

A lot of people here seem to be missing the fact that Aperture really wasn't making the money it needed to stay viable anymore.

Please don't tell me that you think that maintaining Aperture, or making Aperture's features a $20 add-on Extension to Photos, would make a dent in the cash pile Apple has (larger than some small counties)...

Please...

 

[steve123]

The plan to have 3rd party add-ins was pretty evident from the WWDC presentation on the Photos API. I expect to see apps like Pixelmator to be an add-in for Photos.

Indeed. And if there wasn't a very strict non disclosure agreement in place with the developers we would likely be hearing about what is coming down the pipe in this regard. I am hopeful the launch will showcase one or two of these plugins which will fill big holes that people have been drawing attention to.

Your other point about the developer community is with merit as well I believe. Thinking further, their experience with iOS has likely helped them realize they do not want to cannibalize the developer space. The plugin route provides opportunities for a robust community of developers. If they build out the entire app, they kill the developers and they will leave the ecosystem.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

That they still sell Aperture today seems highly unethical to me.

Every publisher of books and software is "guilty" of the same thing. Standard industry practice. Unless discounted by the retailer, the 4th Edition of Trolling for Mummies will sell at the suggested retail price until the day it's removed from the shelf. It'll be the same price even after the 5th Edition is released. (Don't believe me? Go into a book store like Powell's in Portland or Strand in NY, both of which keep older editions on the shelf.)

People who want/need the newest version will wait a few months. The people who need it now (or need the older version) will be willing to pay the regular price. Classic market economics: It's up to the consumer to decide whether a product is worth the offered price. When a product has a version or edition number, sales of that product steadily decline over time, which is a pretty good sign that consumers are conscious of the fact that the product is dated.

Apple has just done something that generally isn't done - they put a "sticker" on the label announcing the retirement of the product. One could argue that they ought to have done that sooner, but that they've done it at all is more than most publishers and retailers would do.

 

[SteveJobs2.0]

Photos is free.

How is that "chasing the money"?

I know: Even though it's free, they'll still make money on it.
How?
VOLUME!

Selling services is more profitable than selling physical goods.

 

[KALLT]

Please don't tell me that you think that maintaining Aperture, or making Aperture's features a $20 add-on Extension to Photos, would make a dent in the cash pile Apple has (larger than some small counties)...

No, but it fits Apple’s philosophy. They phase out technology that has no healthy future for them, weak growth potential among other things. It means that they wouldn’t be inclined to update the software further and provide major updates anyway, so they drop it altogether. This is something they have always done. They’ve dropped Flash despite that it was still popular, they dropped FireWire (even though they crawled back on this one), they dropped SuperDrive and refuse to offer Blu-ray drives. Back in the days, professional software like Aperture had loads of potential for them. I think they just don’t see a future in a maintaining a separate photography application when ‘prosumers’ would likely prefer Photos as well.

 

[MarkusL]

Seriously ??
Why would apple do this ?

Aperture is a good product and they make money off of it.... So why get if of it?

Maybe they needed to transfer some engineers to the emoji department, to focus on how to attract professional users with a more professional range of emojis.

 

[!!!]

Apple should've just made aperture an extension for the photos app.

 

[PsykX]

I never understood how people could NOT understand it. An Event in iPhoto is basically just like a folder if you sort your photos manually.

One Event = a wedding, or a vacation, or a birthday party

Albums on the other hand are used to create something like a collection, without having to have the same photo twice physically.

So one Album = my favorite photos from my last 5 vacations in Italy, or another random collection of photos.

The problem was, both interfaces were completely different, had advantages and disadvantages over the other.

The Albums were in the sidebar, while the Events were in the main window frame, and you could hover on the pictures to have a preview of your events. Both had noticeable speed differences, and correct me if I'm wrong, I think you couldn't do folders and subfolders while categorizing Albums, which means you couldn't manage a big library using only albums.

 

[richnyc]

Aperture never worked for me, so I am kinda glad they are phasing it out... Lightroom and Photos might be a good combo

 

[sseaton1971]

Photos Feature Requests

Perhaps Apple was planning an Aperture rewrite but decided to release it as a completely different app... so they don't get blasted by users who had negative experiences with the new versions of Final Cut Pro, iWork, and iLife.

It would be nice to have users of Aperture (and the Photos beta) start a list of features they would like to be included in Photos. Also, will third party extensions be able to bring Aperture-like functionality to Photos? That could be part of the solution to add features.

Since I don't use Aperture, I really don't know what is missing from Photos. Hopefully Photos will become more like Aperture as time progresses, though.

 

[BJMRamage]

I'm an Aperture user. I love the step up from iPhoto with more refined editing and ability to stamp an adjustment to multiple photos.

I really do think Apple will have 3rd-party extensions and even some of their own as a "pro" level feature. it really makes sense. have Developers interested keeps them coming back...and everybody loves photo apps.

They need to make the Photos app cohesive with the iOS app. then adding extensions will just make it even better. The only issue I can see is how the extensions will work across iOS and OSX. will you need to have one on each platform in order to make edits and adjustments between each side?

 

[TheralSadurns]

The problem was, both interfaces were completely different, had advantages and disadvantages over the other.

The Albums were in the sidebar, while the Events were in the main window frame, and you could hover on the pictures to have a preview of your events. Both had noticeable speed differences, and correct me if I'm wrong, I think you couldn't do folders and subfolders while categorizing Albums, which means you couldn't manage a big library using only albums.

Actually you could create folders and subfolders for your albums.

 

[scottsjack]

So what if most of my photos have chromatic aberration adjustments and RAW fine tuning adjustments? Does that information just get lost in the transfer? I wonder if Lightroom handles those edits and if I should just switch to Lightroom? However, I'm not sure Lightroom has a full cloud-syncing feature to sync all my photos across all devices... like iCloud does.

This whole thing seems to be quite overwhelming and confusing...

I don't use LR but its adjustments are supposed to be essentially the same as Camera Raw in Photoshop. I still use PS CS6. CA adjustments and just about everything else are handled far better than in Aperture 3.

Camera Raw excels in lens distortion and light fall-off far better than A3. CR's noise adjustment controls are spectacular compared to those of A3.

I use A3 as a subject database and something to fiddle in. Having gotten screwed by buying it as an Apple Pro application for $200 I still like it but it cannot come close to Photoshop and (most likely) Lightroom.

 

[theSeb]

Give it a couple of months and Photos will have plenty of Apple and 3rd party extensions that give you all of the functionality that you want and more.

----------

Source please?

He doesn't have one, but it's what a lot of people just *love* to believe.

 

[iosuser]

Now all Apple needs to do is up the lousy 5GB of storage to make this useful. I refrained to enable iCloud Drive because of this. It wouldn't have been bad had Apple added 5GB each time I buy a new device, if they did I'd probably have 50GB now 5GB is seriously stingy from the richest company in the world.

 

[nbnbxdnb]

have you used aperture or photos??

photos is dumbed down crap!
yes its free
yes its better than iPhoto
but its no aperture replacement

I think the guy who praised the new Photos just wanted to see people trash the new Photos by leaving some comments obviously opposite to the fact. I am not sure if it is qualified as sarcastic. But it is definitely not something a person with right mind would say.

 

[Aaron from KY]

This is going to be another much ado about nothing, as users that currently use aperture will continue to use it until photos reaches near feature parity. They did the same thing with iWork and Final Cut X. Will you people never learn?

 

[numlock]

Give it a couple of months and Photos will have plenty of Apple and 3rd party extensions that give you all of the functionality that you want and more.

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He doesn't have one, but it's what a lot of people just *love* to believe.

where is the source for the following claim?

I have read similar comments when Final Cut Pro x was initially released. But now most people love it.

all of the functionality and more? thats quite a statement especially after the deterioration of imovie over the years and of course the more recent iwork improvement.

 

[george-brooks]

I'm not a fan of Aperture and despise iPhoto, but I'm not the average photographer. This is a terrible move.

 

[prowlmedia]

Oh noes! This is a stupid decision. IMFHFO.

Well it's not really. The old database system was horribly outdated and slow as help. I suspect all the missing features will appear over time. Like the did with FCPX which was crippled at the beginning and now incredible in the right hand ( read: not editors who are complete luddites who refuse to try anything new - which is most of them )