Book listing implies Apple to release 'Aperture X' in 2010

[AppleInsider]

A new book available for preorder on Amazon.com implies that a new 3.0 version of Aperture, called Apple Aperture X, could be coming by May 2010.

The book is listed as "Apple Aperture X (3) - UNDER NDA: A Workflow Guide for Digital Photographers," and the 320-page paperback from Focal Press has a release date of May 26, 2010, perhaps suggesting a timeframe for the forthcoming software's release.

The forthcoming book's ISBN number is 978-0240521787. According to isbn.nu, it is not available for preorder anywhere other than Amazon, where the title implies it remains under a non-disclosure agreement, suggesting its posting was a mistake.

The product description states that the guide is "fully updated for Aperture X." It offers no details on the future software.

"Aperture is a dedicated end-to-end workflow tool for photographers, and this book guides the reader through the complete process from capture to input," the listing reads. "The beauty of Aperture is that -- unlike Adobe's rival workflow software, Lightroom -- it doesn't force a particular structure or workflow on the user. This more open-ended approach means it is becoming increasingly popular with photographers -- but also means that there is a lot to learn fro a newcomer to the software."

The authors are listed as Ken McMahon and Nik Rawlinson, who also co-wrote "Apple Aperture 2: A workflow guide for digital photographers," released in 2008. McMahon has also authored books on Paint Shop Pro and InDesign, while Rawlinson has written the 2009 edition of "The Ultimate iPod Guide."



Aperture hasn't seen a major reference release since 2.0 shipped in February 2008, when Apple reduced the original $499 price tag to $199 in order to spur sales after two years of mixed reviews.

Since 2.0, the company has issued a half-dozen minor updates at regular intervals, each primarily addressing performance and stability issues. However, just weeks after the release of 2.0, Apple delivered Aperture 2.1 with a significant new feature: support for new plugins intended to create a third party ecosystem around the product. Since then over six dozen Aperture 2 plugins have been developed by a variety of publishers.

Aperture vs Lightroom

Just months after Aperture was first released, it was met with potential competition from an experimental new app called Lightroom, which emerged from Adobe Labs as a Mac-only beta in January 2006. It officially shipped as a 1.0 release a little over a year later for both Mac OS X and Windows under the name "Photoshop Lightroom."

Last year, Adobe released Photoshop Lightroom 2.0; earlier this year, Adobe cited statistics stating that 44.4% of professional photographers using Macs were using Lightroom compared to 12.5% using Aperture. Across all photographers in the survey of 1,045 users on both Macs and Windows, 37% used Lightroom, 6.4% used Aperture, and 57.9% reported simply using the Photoshop Camera Raw plugin.

Adobe's successful entry into the photography workflow market caused Apple grief not just because of Lightroom's popularity, but also because the company now has to balance competing against Adobe with championing Lightroom for being one of the first major, modern Mac OS X Cocoa apps built from scratch as well one of the first and few 64-bit apps released for the Mac.

64-bit Pro Apps

Adobe has expressed an intention to deliver other 64-bit Mac apps, but was stymied by Apple's decision to drop 64-bit support for portions of the legacy Carbon API required to develop graphical applications. This decision was announced at Apple's WWDC event in June 2007, sending Adobe and other long time Mac developers back to the drawing board.

In the nearly two and half years since it announced its Cocoa-only strategy for 64-bit apps on Mac OS X, Apple has converted nearly all of the apps bundled in Mac OS X Snow Leopard to run as 64-bit programs, with the notable exception of iTunes, iLife apps, iWork apps, and the company's Pro Apps.

Many users were surprised to see Apple release new 32-bit versions of its Pro Apps in this summer's announcement of Final Cut Pro 7 and its companion apps in Final Cut Studio 3.0 (Motion, Soundtrack Pro, Color, and Compressor) as well as Logic Pro 9 and its suite of apps.



X marks the spot

The apparent renaming of Aperture X and its release slated sometime early next year suggests that Apple may be planning a rebranding of its entire Pro App library with the "X" version for 2010, and could take the opportunity to deliver 64-bit upgrades at that time as well. The company began naming versions of its iLife and iWork packages after the year of their release starting in 2004, so iLife X and iWork X would also also fit into this same naming convention for the new year.

In addition to its use in Mac OS X, Apple also applied the Roman numeral X version to QuickTime with the release of Snow Leopard this year, even though the previous version was 7.6; the new 64-bit version is now specified as 10.0, and Apple's marketing refers to it as QuickTime X.

In addition to using "X for ten," Apple also uses (and pronounces) X as the letter in relation to several server and development products, including its Xserve hardware, Xsan clustering filesystem, Xcode development tools, and Xgrid distributed computing technology.

Mac OS X, Xcode, and Xgrid are all based upon technologies derived from Steve Jobs' NeXT, Inc., which Apple acquired in 1997. Apple's subsequent frequent use of "X" was closely associated with NeXT and Jobs, who also popularized the "i" in iMac, iPod, iApps, iSight, iPhone, and initially to himself as Apple's "iCEO."

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[spookmag]

adobe is saying that lightroom 3 will be out in april of next year and I bet apple has aperture ready to release before adobe. Apple is always first. just like releasing all new line of hardware and OS right before window$ 7. I've been waiting for a new Aperture and now that snow leopard is out the next version will be 64bit. Can't wait.

[igamogam]

Although I really like using Aperture for it's ease of use and flexibility I think Apple has missed it's chance to dominate with their product.

I finally took the plunge and downloaded LR 3 (beta) today and the little playing I have done with it so far makes me feel that I will eventually abandon Aperture in it's favour.

Aperture is not developing quickly enough and it's poor inergration with other programs such as Photoshop and various HDR & panoramic stitching software is a definite drawback.

I think somehow Aperture X (3) will be too little too late unless it has some incredible new features. Adobe seem to have all the bases covered...

[machei]

*finally*

Finally some word, even if by mistake, that Apple hasn't entirely abandoned the whole pro photography area. Now I at least have some reason to be patient while I wait for the release. All I can say is, it better damned well be stellar. Lightroom has been looking better and better the past half year.

[Pixel19]

Originally Posted by machei

*finally*

Finally some word, even if by mistake, that Apple hasn't entirely abandoned the whole pro photography area. Now I at least have some reason to be patient while I wait for the release. All I can say is, it better damned well be stellar. Lightroom has been looking better and better the past half year.

My thoughts exactly.
AND it better support Canon sRAW or I'm gone as well.

[eAi]

X could just mean 'insert version name here'

[TBell]

I think part of the issue with Aperture was that Apple bought it when it still planned on including both Carbon and Cocoa support in future releases of OSx, such as with Leopard. Now it has all of these massive applications that it has to port of over to a strictly Cocoa environment. In cases like iMovie, it decided to start from scratch. I think Aperture suffered a little drag because of Apple struggling to change these applications over. Some great applications like Shake, Apple decided to not even bother trying. The fact that Apple is releasing another version is a good sign. It probably will be a significant release.

Originally Posted by igamogam

Although I really like using Aperture for it's ease of use and flexibility I think Apple has missed it's chance to dominate with their product.

I finally took the plunge and downloaded LR 3 (beta) today and the little playing I have done with it so far makes me feel that I will eventually abandon Aperture in it's favour.

Aperture is not developing quickly enough and it's poor inergration with other programs such as Photoshop and various HDR & panoramic stitching software is a definite drawback.

I think somehow Aperture X (3) will be too little too late unless it has some incredible new features. Adobe seem to have all the bases covered...

[robogobo]

Originally Posted by Pixel19

My thoughts exactly.
AND it better support Canon sRAW or I'm gone as well.

MY thoughts exactly (though this is an OS issue not just Aperture).

My issue with Apple regarding Aperture is not necessarily the major releases, but the fact that bug reports and feature enhancements (like naming and exporting options) go largely ignored. I mean, shit, another six months without some kind of update like 2.5 or at least 2.2, and Apple is going to lose a good many people to Lightroom. Just the fact that you can try the beta, which is still annoying with its modules, yet feature rich, will get a lot of users to switch, I think.

Everyday I use Aperture, I feel like there are things which are good but could easily be great with just an option or two added, or inconsistencies (why don't I have access to all export options when I export a Web Page?) in function. It's so frustrating because it could be an awesome program with just a bit of attention.

[aiki]

I used to work in the tech book publishing industry, and I can tell you that this article is way off base. The only thing we can really deduce from the info that Apple Insider spotted is that a new version of Aperture will be out between today and the day this book is expected to ship.

1. "Aperture X"... It is common practice to use "X" when the final version number has not been given by the software vendor. The real number will be inserted in once Apple let's the author or the public know what it will really be called.

2. The books shipping date does not indicate anything more than a likely max shipping date for the software. If, anything it suggests a much earlier shipping date since books take quite a bit of time to edit, proof and print... and the editing and proofing take even longer with a product that hasn't shipped since the final UI and features could change at any time. Most books ship about two to six months after the actual product when the author is a beta tester.

[fishstick_kitty]

In the nearly two and half years since it announced its Cocoa-only strategy for 64-bit apps on Mac OS X, Apple has converted nearly all of the apps bundled in Mac OS X Snow Leopard to run as 64-bit programs, with the notable exception of iTunes, iLife apps, iWork apps, and the company's Pro Apps.

LOL...just a few minor exceptions.

[wizard69]

Originally Posted by igamogam

Although I really like using Aperture for it's ease of use and flexibility I think Apple has missed it's chance to dominate with their product.

They don't need to dominate, they simply need enough feature to keep the product salable.

I finally took the plunge and downloaded LR 3 (beta) today and the little playing I have done with it so far makes me feel that I will eventually abandon Aperture in it's favour.

What is the sense in comparing a beta product to an app that has been in production for a couple of years now? Especially considering Aperture will be revised in the same time frame.

The other thing to consider is that with GCD and OpenCL Apple has the features in place in the OS to allow for a major rewrite of the software. Simply put Apple will have enough resources available to give Aperture an entirely new feel.

Aperture is not developing quickly enough and it's poor inergration with other programs such as Photoshop and various HDR & panoramic stitching software is a definite drawback.

.
I'm not sure what you mean by integration. Aperture has plugins but it is up to third parties to write those plug ins. As to some of those features mentioned they should really be part of Aperture in the first place. Especially stiching software but even HDR probably should be in there.

It is interesting that you mentioned those features as I've wanted native support for stiching ever since purchaseing Aperture. It seems like a basic feature for any photo management program. It is the compliment in many ways to cropping a picture.

I think somehow Aperture X (3) will be too little too late unless it has some incredible new features. Adobe seem to have all the bases covered...

What are you talking about here, niether product has been released yet. You have no idea what is in the coming version of Aperture so you compare a beta to an old version. Don't you see a problem here.

As to your seemingly negative image of Aperture due to the few updates that have been served up, some of us like it that way. For one it means Aperture is stable. Second few of us want to be updating basic software like this every three months or so. After Apeture 3 comes out I hope that it also demonstrates the same stability.


Dave

[shadow]

Originally Posted by aiki

I used to work in the tech book publishing industry, and I can tell you that this article is way off base. The only thing we can really deduce from the info that Apple Insider spotted is that a new version of Aperture will be out between today and the day this book is expected to ship.

1. "Aperture X"... It is common practice to use "X" when the final version number has not been given by the software vendor. The real number will be inserted in once Apple let's the author or the public know what it will really be called.

But Aperture X (3) makes some sense. QuickTime X also gives a clue. The final app name may not be decided yet, but it looks plausible that Apple will use the "X" branding for the apps which take advantage of the new technologies (OpenCL, GCD).

Originally Posted by aiki

2. The books shipping date does not indicate anything more than a likely max shipping date for the software. If, anything it suggests a much earlier shipping date since books take quite a bit of time to edit, proof and print... and the editing and proofing take even longer with a product that hasn't shipped since the final UI and features could change at any time. Most books ship about two to six months after the actual product when the author is a beta tester.

In many cases the books come alongside the product release (even Apple-related ones). In any case, the date gives a very approximate timeframe. All deadlines (both in Aperture development and book publishing) could slip. I am fine with your "a likely max shipping date for the software" statement, but I also think that it is unlikely that the product will ship much earlier (say, March 2010). If anything else, deadlines tend to be pushed back, not forward, especially in the software industry.

[shadow]

Originally Posted by fishstick_kitty

LOL...just a few minor exceptions.

Note the "all of the apps bundled in Mac OS X Snow Leopard" thing.

[LucD]

Aperture 64 bit, using the new OpenCL and Grand Central Dispatch, count me in!!

I've always tried out both Light Room and Aperture, that being said I could never get my mind wrapped around LR... I used it for a few weeks when I was out of a Mac, I couldn't stand it... I recently tried LR2 for a second time after my buddies mocked me for using Aperture saying Light Room was the end all.... I can't use it, the different steps, setting up libraries so confusing... not to mention its absolutely hideous UI, it hurts my eyes for that reason alone I'd rather use iPhoto over Light Room....

[cincytee]

Originally Posted by igamogam

Although I really like using Aperture for it's ease of use and flexibility I think Apple has missed it's chance to dominate with their product.

"It's" is a contraction for "it is"; "its" is a possessive pronoun like "his" and "hers."

[wizard69]

Originally Posted by TBell

I think part of the issue with Aperture was that Apple bought it when it still planned on including both Carbon and Cocoa support in future releases of OSx, such as with Leopard.

This is certainly part of the issue. I'm not sure why there is so much whinning in this thread about Aperture, it is pretty obvious that keeping it around requires a complete rewrite.

Now it has all of these massive applications that it has to port of over to a strictly Cocoa environment. In cases like iMovie, it decided to start from scratch. I think Aperture suffered a little drag because of Apple struggling to change these applications over.

Actually I believe that is only part of the issue. Apple is likely targetting SL and it's GCD & OpenCL features to make significant strides in performance. I actually don't think getting Aperture up and running on Cocoa is a big deal. Getting Aperture functioning as paralized code with leading edge performance is.

Some great applications like Shake, Apple decided to not even bother trying. The fact that Apple is releasing another version is a good sign. It probably will be a significant release.

I would imagine very significant. It should be much faster and likely will be SL only. I suspect a heavily refactored user interface too. Further I would not be surprised to see Apple release Cocoa FrameWorks to support a common interface across the pro apps. I see this as a case of not wanting to rush the cook until the sauce is done. Apple is making a break from the past that could lead to some really state of the art software. In this case don't judge a NEW book by it's OLD cover!!!

As a side note I have to wonder just how gullible photographers are. Adobes beta is nothing more than a marketing ploy to snare you before Apple releases their new version. Don't fall for that crap, wait for both revisions to come out. Experience them, challenge the software and get a feel for responsiveness and then make a choice. Don't be weak businessmen.


Dave

[success]

Can't wait for the new Lightroom

[Gazoobee]

Even though there is a lot of partisan support here for one product or another, it's good to remember that if you look at the reviews and compare the features that for the most part Aperture vs. Lightroom is pretty much a "six of one and half a dozen of the other" situation. Please feel free to quote this part of my post as you rant on about what killer feature on has but the other doesn't, but at the end of the day we all know it's generally true that these are both good products that do essentially the same thing in very similar ways.

IMO the main differentiator for sales of the product is integration with the CS suite. As long as there are people who use that crap, and as long as Adobe dominates in that area on the Mac platform, there are always going to be people who vie for Lightroom over Aperture. While the movement to go around the giant obstacle Adobe has created by releasing such absolute garbage as the CS suite for Mac and monopolising the market has long since started, it will likely be years before Adobe completely collapses as a viable alternative on the Mac platform. The "cool kids" have already stopped using CS suite, but the Pros still do grudgingly (because they have to), even though they would love to have alternatives.

Both products will be around for a long time. People will continue to use both and argue over the minutiae of the differences. Lightroom will continue to be the integrated choice as Adobe continues to live in denial of their own crappitude, and 90% of the world will continue not to care very much about a fight between two over-priced high end "niche" products on the worlds most expensive computer platform.

[digitalclips]

Originally Posted by spookmag

adobe is saying that lightroom 3 will be out in april of next year and I bet apple has aperture ready to release before adobe. Apple is always first. just like releasing all new line of hardware and OS right before window$ 7. I've been waiting for a new Aperture and now that snow leopard is out the next version will be 64bit. Can't wait.

Agreed, I just hope there is a reasonable update for us loyal users

Personally I'd love an Pro Apple version of a Photoshop type app that used all the great and intuitive UI features of iLife / iWork apps. They could call it Mac Paint Pro

[John the Geek]

I'm an Aperture user who just yesterday purchased Lightroom. (it hasn't even arrived yet.) I love Aperture, but I've been looking for options for a few months now. This "2.x forever" thing has been driving me nuts and there aren't enough plug-ins to make up for the missing pieces I need. From simple glitches like iffy second-monitor support, to big issues like crappy implementation of tools (blotting black into an eye is not red-eye reduction), or tools that are completely MIA (like chromatic aberration correction). I wrote the Feedback team a novella a while back and hope that they take their user's feedback into consideration. Aperture has potential to be so much better.

Hope we see it soon...

[RichyS]

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

Mac OS X, Xcode, and Xgrid are all based upon technologies derived from Steve Jobs' NeXT, Inc., which Apple acquired in 1997. Apple's subsequent frequent use of "X" was closely associated with NeXT and Jobs, who also popularized the "i" in iMac, iPod, iApps, iSight, iPhone, and initially to himself as Apple's "iCEO."

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

Well, let's hope that Steve never becomes the xCEO!

More seriously though, can someone explain what Aperture and/or Lightroom can do to make my life better? I'm just about to invest in my first proper camera (and proper HD film camera) in the shape of a Lumix GH1. I don't think iPhoto and iMovie are going to be up to scratch! I currently have an ancient copy of Photochop kicking around -- I presume I'll need to upgrade this. So, do I need (want!) Aperture for?

[Lafe]

Originally Posted by RichyS

More seriously though, can someone explain what Aperture and/or Lightroom can do to make my life better?

I use Aperture for all of my digital photography. I love it for several reasons:

1) It leaves your originals alone, and as you edit, crop, lighten up, change, etc. each
photo it stores the *adjustments* in its database, so you don't have bloated libraries with
multiple versions of each photo.

2) It has a large set of adjustments you can make (white balance, auto-adjust, color level
adjustments, red-eye reduction, dozens more . . .) that are intuitive and very easy to
start using right away.

3) Most importantly for me, I tend to take hundreds of pictures at a family event, and then
I want to go through them quickly, weeding out the no-goods, touching up the good ones
with a crop here, a blemish-removal there, a lightening of shadows there . . .
With Aperture, I can do that in record time, and export the subset of 50 good ones easily.
What used to take me many hours with another product I can do in 30 minutes to
an hour now. It just works.

I do have my complaints about it. I agree with those who say it's good but it could be
great with a few improvements here and there. I look forward to the new version!

[Londonmark]

Originally Posted by RichyS

I'm just about to invest in my first proper camera (and proper HD film camera) in the shape of a Lumix GH1. I don't think iPhoto and iMovie are going to be up to scratch! I currently have an ancient copy of Photochop kicking around -- I presume I'll need to upgrade this. So, do I need (want!) Aperture for?

The GH1 is a great camera, but absolutely highlights one of the big problems with Aperture. I was happily using Aperture with a Nikon D50 since Aperture supports Nikon's raw files. However, it does not support Panasonic's most recent raw files - so with a GH1 you either have to shoot in JPEG (yuk), convert raw to JPEG using Silkypix (which is bundled with the camera - and it's very slow) or use LR. I'm using the LR Beta for the next few months and waiting to see whether Apple ever sorts out the Panasonic issue.

(You can however use iMovie to edit video from the GH1 and the results are pretty good. FCS would be better though - of course.)

[John.B]

Originally Posted by Pixel19

My thoughts exactly.
AND it better support Canon sRAW or I'm gone as well.

If you feel that strongly about it, make sure they know you feel that strongly about it:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/aperture.html

[aiki]

Originally Posted by shadow

But Aperture X (3) makes some sense. QuickTime X also gives a clue. The final app name may not be decided yet, but it looks plausible that Apple will use the "X" branding for the apps which take advantage of the new technologies (OpenCL, GCD).

In many cases the books come alongside the product release (even Apple-related ones). In any case, the date gives a very approximate timeframe. All deadlines (both in Aperture development and book publishing) could slip. I am fine with your "a likely max shipping date for the software" statement, but I also think that it is unlikely that the product will ship much earlier (say, March 2010). If anything else, deadlines tend to be pushed back, not forward, especially in the software industry.

Yes, it is plausible to rename Aperature to an X, but I think it is unlikely. Quicktime X is a brandname that where you don't really pay attention to the version number. But applications such as Aperture, FCP or even Adobe products need to be differentiated in their branding from version to version. That makes the X(3) a little bit of a branding headache. But still it is Apple and they've done stranger things before.

As for the release date... in all my years I've rarely seen a book ship alongside the product. I've seen tons of books that followed 3 to 8 months after a products release. In fact Apple products are the worst about this since Apple is so secretive of upcoming products. Adobe is a lot better about helping publishers target closer to the product ship date. As for your assertion that "if anything else, deadlines tend to be pushed back..." That is very true for BOTH software and books. If Aperture gets pushed to spring, then the books will be pushed to summer or fall. I saw a lot of books for Microsoft products get pushed way back due to MS's slips.

[Frank777]

Originally Posted by aiki

I used to work in the tech book publishing industry, and I can tell you that this article is way off base. The only thing we can really deduce from the info that Apple Insider spotted is that a new version of Aperture will be out between today and the day this book is expected to ship.

1. "Aperture X"... It is common practice to use "X" when the final version number has not been given by the software vendor. The real number will be inserted in once Apple let's the author or the public know what it will really be called.

2. The books shipping date does not indicate anything more than a likely max shipping date for the software. If, anything it suggests a much earlier shipping date since books take quite a bit of time to edit, proof and print... and the editing and proofing take even longer with a product that hasn't shipped since the final UI and features could change at any time. Most books ship about two to six months after the actual product when the author is a beta tester.

Yes, Kasper went a bit rogue on the whole 'X' thing. It is standard Amazon practice to list products as 'X' when the title is under NDA. The date is also likely a placeholder. The exact same scenario played out with the last few versions of Filemaker.

[fyngyrz]

Apple should have been paying a lot more attention to the "pro" apps. I own both Logic Pro 9 and Aperture 2.whatever, and Apple makes me feel like a 2nd class citizen with both of them.

Aperture's long-term bugs and shortcomings - empty, useless histograms; failure to recall window size, position, and organization; failure to initialize plugins correctly in a multi-monitor environment; lift and stamp requiring multiple irrelevant UI steps for "crop" stamping to work; bizarre magnification limits; no way for developers to create inline tiles, only this godforsaken overweight TIFF passing mechanism; no curves (no curves? are they out of their tiny little minds? Curves is as "tilable" as any 768-byte remap function is (levels, contrast, brightness, windowing, gamma and a zillion more, both common and arbitrary); incessant preview (re)(re)(re)processing, consuming all eight cores for NO purpose; incomplete camera support (like SRAW... Adobe's got it handled, so what is Apple's excuse? Oh, wait, they don't make excuses. They just don't DO anything.

Apple rates a serious FAIL here.

And yeah, I just ordered Lightroom. I'm just tired of Apple's half-efforts to make pro apps. Great ideas are one thing; but if you can't keep your eye on the ball and address the issues in at least some vaguely timely manner, you might as well not try.

And as for Aperture requiring Snow Leopard... it's just a buggy beta. I won't put Snow Leopard in my machine until the poor hoodwinked innocents out there have discovered the rest of the serious bugs *and* Apple has addressed them. Apple couldn't even post an update to 10.5 without breaking it (for example, they totally hosed HDMI monitor support for the mini... then SAT on any fixes for months); no wonder the 10.6 release, a huge rewrite, broke tons of legacy apps, outright lost user data, fails to recover apps with low disk space, fails to show office files in spotlight, and was just generally chock *full* of bugs. Not to mention the huge list of working apps Apple broke at...

http://snowleopard.wikidot.com/

...and now Apple is scrambling like mad to post "updates." Sure, that's what I want under MY "pro" apps. Not!

[TranceMist]

What eAi said.

[DdubRes79]

I gave up on Aperture and moved to LR2 awhile ago and have no issues with it. Adobe seems to be on the ball when it comes to compatibility updates and they already have the beta for v3 out now for download. (I still have to try it)

It just felt like Apple released Aperture 2 and then forgot about it.

[melgross]

Aperture's history is unfortunate.

Apple had a great idea with Aperture, but screwed it up as much as could be done upon release. It's difficult to get rid of a bad reputation gotten from the starting gate.

Lightroom has taken over the pro market where people don't need the complexity of PS, or need a simpler app with the full CR feature set, where they MAY need PS later.

Aperture just hasn't made it, hence the large price drop. Apple is now marketing the program mostly to amateurs.

There are still things about Aperture I don't like, and while I hope Apple will fix them, I'm beginning to doubt it.

[shadow]

Just to make it clear:

1. Aperture is a Cocoa app, the rest of the Pro apps are Carbon.
2. Aperture could benefit a lot from OpenCL and GCD. Both technologies are well suited for this kind of work and "parallelizing" the code in this particular case is almost a no-brainer.

Regarding the "X" stuff. It might be a placeholder, and having a number like 3 is fine for Aperture. But I think Apple will get rid of the year in iLife and iWork. The problem there is that the product MUST be upgraded on yearly basis, otherwise it will look outdated. Dropping the year makes room for more meaningful version numbering, like upgrade form 3.0 to 3.5 or from 3.0 to 4.0, to emphasize the scope of the changes. Well, that's the version of the package, not the individual apps, but the disadvantages of having the year in the name are still there.

[caljomac]

Well... I'll be needing this (photography student next year

[Akac]

Originally Posted by fyngyrz

... no wonder the 10.6 release, a huge rewrite, broke tons of legacy apps, outright lost user data, fails to recover apps with low disk space, fails to show office files in spotlight, and was just generally chock *full* of bugs. Not to mention the huge list of working apps Apple broke at...

http://snowleopard.wikidot.com/

...and now Apple is scrambling like mad to post "updates." Sure, that's what I want under MY "pro" apps. Not!

Just a few things on that - SL is a huge improvement in many areas. Many of us Pro users in lots of areas are not seeing any issues at all. Yes legacy stuff broke - that's to be EXPECTED. In fact that was part of SL's purpose, to remove old APIs and old things that had been deprecated for years. Most of the stuff in the list of "bugs" are really just the result of developers not paying any attention. Stuff like the outright lost user data is a major bug, but it also only affects those with guest accounts. Office files in spotlight is not a bug - its a fact of when you have Office 2004 with PPC spotlight importers not working because that's legacy and SL doesn't support them.

[Akac]

I can mostly agree that Aperature has had a difficult history, but honestly I cannot find myself using LR. Its interface is just not something I enjoy using. Same with Adobe Bridge. Aperature is simply a lot better in the interface dept. Now Apple simply has to fix the rest of it.

[RichyS]

Originally Posted by Londonmark

The GH1 is a great camera, but absolutely highlights one of the big problems with Aperture. I was happily using Aperture with a Nikon D50 since Aperture supports Nikon's raw files. However, it does not support Panasonic's most recent raw files - so with a GH1 you either have to shoot in JPEG (yuk), convert raw to JPEG using Silkypix (which is bundled with the camera - and it's very slow) or use LR. I'm using the LR Beta for the next few months and waiting to see whether Apple ever sorts out the Panasonic issue.

(You can however use iMovie to edit video from the GH1 and the results are pretty good. FCS would be better though - of course.)

Thanks. I suspect for now I'l be the limiting factor on the video. I may invest in FCS when I develop some talent!

+1 for London too!

[bluedot]

I am glad that Apple is finally working on Aperture some more, but it is too little too late for the Pro market I am afraid. I think it will find life in the Amateur and Prosumer side though.

Most pro photogs (myself included) have used PS for so long that they don't see a need to switch. I finally made the jump this Spring and decided to test both Aperture and LR2 so that I could make an informed decision. This is in spite of having a few colleagues that had moved away from PS, suggest LR2 off the bat, and trying to steer me away from Aperture. I figured they likely stayed with Adobe out of "comfort" and I wanted to make up my own mind. Well, they didn't have to convince me. I didn't find Aperture too intuitive, and while LR2 required me to learn a new UI as well (it's made by Adobe but it's certainly not similar to PS) it fit the way I work every day much better and I took to it right away. Plain and simple. Clearly other people have had the opposite experience so YMMV.

I think the casual photographer, or the enthusiast, has different needs than the real Pro photog here, and some of the differences may lie there. I don't get to control all of my variables unlike the home user, so some of the workflow has to fit into established patterns set by the publication you are working for, etc... Also, I don't only use LR anyway, and most photogs use a series of different (specialized) products to complete their work; my card ingest, selects and captioning are done with Photo Mechanic, then I go to LR, and in some instances I then go to PS. All of this has to happen quickly! At times you're uploading photos for immediate release in the middle of an event, not hours (or days) later.

I can say that from my personal observations, the statistics of Pro users for LR, Aperture and PS that the article mentions are indeed accurate.

[Crowley]

Originally Posted by digitalclips

Personally I'd love an Pro Apple version of a Photoshop type app that used all the great and intuitive UI features of iLife / iWork apps. They could call it Mac Paint Pro

I'm sure someone must have floated the idea of Apple buying Pixelmator before, it's a great alternative to Photoshop when you need something easy to use without the intimidating breadth of functionality and bloat. With a rebrand it'd fit in nicely to Apple's software library, and with the improvements it sees with every update there's clearly a lot of scope for development.

[solipsism]

Originally Posted by shadow

Regarding the "X" stuff. It might be a placeholder, and having a number like 3 is fine for Aperture. But I think Apple will get rid of the year in iLife and iWork. The problem there is that the product MUST be upgraded on yearly basis, otherwise it will look outdated. Dropping the year makes room for more meaningful version numbering, like upgrade form 3.0 to 3.5 or from 3.0 to 4.0, to emphasize the scope of the changes. Well, that's the version of the package, not the individual apps, but the disadvantages of having the year in the name are still there.

I’m not so sure about that. The jump in version numbers with QuickTime X(10.0) is very deliberate. The only thing that makes sense to me is that any major apps (or in this case suites) being rewritten to be Cocoa and 64-bit will get X. To me, it seems very Apple-like. I also expect iTunes X to appear September-ish with the next iPod releases and be fully Cocoa and 64-bit on OS X. Only time will tell.

[Mr Beardsley]

I have a feeling that some of Apertures stability problems may relate to Core Image, and the app being a bit ahead of its time. Apple was using Core Image to leverage the power of the GPU before the industry started its big push toward GPGPU computing. I'm sure Apple used its experience in developing Core Image to write the spec for OpenCL. Now with OpenCL there is an official vendor supported method of using the GPU for computation. I don't doubt that Aperture will be a better product if it is rewritten to take advantage of GCD and OpenCL.

[Matt Shelton]

I posted on dpreview a month or so ago why I think it makes perfect sense for Aperture 3 to be coming out soon. Apple obviously put a lot of time and effort into developing a forward-looking operating system in Snow Leopard, given OpenCL, Grand Central Dispatch and SL's 64-bit kernel. Apple I'm sure is counting on developers to start writing new, complex code that takes advantate of GCD and OpenCL. Snow Leopard I believe will finally shine fully once we see how these new optimized apps work with GCD and OpenCL. In fact, sometime last month Apple (if I recall) even released some of the GCD framework to the open source community, to encourage a more rapid adoption and, I'm sure, standardization.

Prior to all of that happening, what would be an ideal way for Apple to demonstrate the power of 64-bit/GCD/OpenCL/Snow Leopard? Why, to introduce its own sofware that takes critical advantage of these new technologies. I would have thought that Final Cut Pro would have been a prime candidate, but the new release earlier this year calls that into question, leaving Aperture in my opionion as a PERFECT fit. It's WAY overdue for an upgrade. I suspect we've been waiting so long because Apple is devoting some serious resources to develop a Snow Leopard-optimized Aperture. Heavy batch processing within Aperture 2.1.4 seems to tax, dependning on the day of the week, either my memory, my qua-core CPU or my GPU. I'm sure 3.0 (or X, as it might be caslled) should effectively utiilize all three of these critical hardware components.

A SL-optimized Aperture, also hopefully of course with new editing tools that bring it more on par with LR, could be mighty powerful software. I know this might not fit with the PowerPC/Tiger/Leopard crowd, but for me, bring it on!