They still got it, and they are proving it by making professional features more and more available to non-professional users. Jobs was all about making things simple that should be simple and that are unnecessarily complicated. That is what made Jobs special and that is what makes Apple special - and not catering to niche groups.
Not catering to niche groups? Apple was founded on catering to niche groups. For a while there, the only Apple stalwarts were the pros. Even today, with all their popularity, they are still catering to the niche group of people who can afford the products they create. They make the best. Those who can afford it or care about it are a niche group.
Making things simple is why it's grown. You're totally right. Apple simplifies the best. I've always appreciated that. There's a limit though. Eventually when you *over*simplify the casualty is in feature-richness. I don't doubt that the new photos app will do most of what most want. But it won't do all of what it used to do. The real question is if what's lost was flotsam that could be simplified, or real features that were used by real users. Apple's been mis-guessing this metric lately. Pages can't even do facing pages anymore, and that's just stupid. Books might be on the way out, but they're far from dead. Same with photography. DSLRs might be on the way out, but no way is any phone camera going to replace one today. It seems like the new photos app is aimed squarely at the iPhone's camera though. They're tossing the baby out with the bath water on this one.
Watch the presentation of Photos and see how there were sliders to change certain "high level" adjustments that then automatically changed the "lower level" adjustments. That makes this kind of adjustment more accessible to non-pros, and they can learn how it actually works, while the pros can still tweak the sliders for the lower level adjustments, just as they have done before. Some pros might feel that this is a dumbing down, but to me that claim is just elitism of a group that would prefer to have elite knowledge and skills that others can't replicate too easily.
You complain that Apple is leaving a group behind and even call it a dangerous precedent. Yet you completely neglect to mention that a much much larger group is benefitting from this. An astonishing level of egoism in my eyes.
Disagree. There's truly nothing wrong with making 'pro' features available to everyone, and making the software smart enough to guess what people might want. That will never negate what pros do in a digital darkroom. In my experience, the hobbyist will reach a point where a photo is "good enough for them" and that's great. Pros will take that a step farther, and I don't think that's about to change. The thing Apple's done though is stopped the train at "good enough" and not left the option for better. I haven't ever been threatened by anyone getting better shots. The only ego I have in this is that people who *do* care about getting the very best out of their art form are having their tools taken away.
Sure, Apple could just improve iPhoto with new features and leave Aperture alive, but then they'd have two applications with 98% overlapping features.
Honestly what I was expecting was for iPhoto and Aperture to merge leaving a complete powerhouse where the pro features could be automated and available to all, and there'd be no limit on where you could take it. What happened was iPhoto was improved and moved to the could and Aperture was axed.
Who said that it will be entirely cloud based?
What I meant by that is that Apple wants the photos app to be used with iPhone to upload all photos to the cloud. I don't know how arduous a process this would be for those of us who may want to get our DSLR photos there, although even if it were dead easy, I still wouldn't want to do it. I shudder to think what a (dare I say it) hellstew it could be to manage a pro photo libray of raw camera files in the cloud. But even if I didn't, and the OSX client could handle local photo libraries, the capabilities would be built on the idea that cloud storage is where it's at, and that sorta sucks. There's an article on 9to5 Mac that said it well: "most will end up frustrated with the companys insistence on a unified experience across platforms where everything needs to conform to the capabilities of the lowest common denominator."
I'm not eletist, I don't want to hold back anything from anyone. It's Apple who has chosen to hold back from everyone. Or so it seems. Again, I hold out hope that they blow me away. I'm just not expecting it.
