The audacity of Apple (still selling Aperture with new Macs)

[swingerofbirch]

I was pricing out a new Retina iMac just for fun, and I noticed they will upsell you Aperture for $79. I thought it was silly that it's still in the Mac App Store, but I was even more surprised to see that they're promoting it as add-on for new computers.

It hasn't been updated in any meaningful way in years and Apple announced they are stopping development of it in June of this year. I think it's a bit disingenuous to continue selling it, especially knowing earnest relatives of mine who would be the type to add something like to that their purchase not knowing a free replacement is coming soon.

 

[AllergyDoc]

I noticed that, too. Lousy thing to do.

 

[Old Muley]

Well they did put out an update to 3.6 today, so Aperture isn't competely forgotten by Apple.

 

[simonsi]

and it will continue to get support for new camera raw files as they are handled by the OS so until a new OS comes out that doesn't support it, it will continue to do what it does. That could easily be 2-3yrs away.

 

[LV426]

Armed with the knowledge that Aperture will only receive maintenance releases from now on, would I still buy it if I didn't already have it? Probably, yes.

The reason being that any files and edits I create should be compatible with Aperture's successor, which is likely to be free.

Aperture has a clunky way of dealing with plugin edits, and it's UI is not exactly 'on message', so much so that it probably had to die at some point. But in the meantime it's still a perfectly usable program.

I'm looking forward to seeing how Photos for OS X works out. It could in principle be far better than Aperture ever was, due to the platform changes brought about by Yosemite (vastly changed RAW processing at the OS level, and unlimited non-destructive third party filters that can be plumbed in very efficiently to the filter chain). It won't do everything people want on the first release, but you can bet your bottom dollar that plugin providers will be clamouring to fill the gaps.

 

[maflynn]

they are stopping development of it in June of this year.

They didn't stop development on it, in fact they promised to support for a couple of more years. They did say it will get replaced and it won't see any major updates.

I think like every in the retail world, its buyer beware. Its the consumer's responsibility to research what product works best for them. In this case, seeing that Aperture is at EOL and they'd be better served in not spending the money.

With that said, it still works, and is a great product well worth the money, as long as you understand the implications of apple moving off of that in a year or so.