Snow Leopard roadmap; Pro app updates in pipeline

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  • Reply 41 of 95
    kbeatkbeat Posts: 48member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post


    Lightroom has proven to be far more popular than Aperture. Apple really blew this one. Great idea, only fair implementation.



    I don't know what solid figures you have to back up that assertion, but I can tell you that Aperture has a huge following among professional photographers. It still has many features that Lightroom lacks, and many of us feel that it does a better job with RAW conversion. That's subjective to a certain extent, but most of my colleagues prefer Aperture 2.0's RAW conversation to Lightroom.



    Now if you're on a PC, you've got no choice but to use Lightroom, which I'm sure makes it the better selling application. However, I'd say with some degree of confidence that Aperture is more popular with Mac based professional photographers.



    Is it perfect? No, but it's really, really good at what it does and has made RAW workflow much more enjoyable.



    FWIW: I'm an Apple certified Aperture 2.0 Pro with over 50,000 RAW images in my Aperture library. I've got a ton of experience with the application since its first (very awful 1.0) release and have compared it extensively with Lightroom. I shoot with a variety of DSLRs.
  • Reply 42 of 95
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post




    Mac OS X 10.5.7 Juno



    Meanwhile, Mac OS X 10.5.7 remains on track for a release sometime during the month of April. The release, code-named Juno, will be the seventh maintenance and security update to Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard since its release in October 2007. It will also be one of the last updates to Leopard with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard rapidly approaching.



    Developers have been receiving new builds of Juno on a weekly basis, usually on Thursday or Friday evenings. The latest, which arrived this weekend, was labeled Mac OS X 10.5.7 build 9J39. It bundled five new fixes, bringing the total number of documented code corrections expected in the release to 99.



    Amongst the areas addressed in build 9J39 were issues with iChat encryption, Mail signatures, USB drivers, and System Profiler's ability to properly show information on Mini DisplayPort adapters.



    Looking at what I bold-faced, could this be the last ever maintenance update to Leopard before Snow Leopard's arrival? I doubt 10.5.7 will be the last one
  • Reply 43 of 95
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by KBeat View Post


    I don't know what solid figures you have to back up that assertion, but I can tell you that Aperture has a huge following among professional photographers. It still has many features that Lightroom lacks, and many of us feel that it does a better job with RAW conversion. That's subjective to a certain extent, but most of my colleagues prefer Aperture 2.0's RAW conversation to Lightroom.



    Now if you're on a PC, you've got no choice but to use Lightroom, which I'm sure makes it the better selling application. However, I'd say with some degree of confidence that Aperture is more popular with Mac based professional photographers.



    Is it perfect? No, but it's really, really good at what it does and has made RAW workflow much more enjoyable.



    FWIW: I'm an Apple certified Aperture 2.0 Pro with over 50,000 RAW images in my Aperture library. I've got a ton of experience with the application since its first (very awful 1.0) release and have compared it extensively with Lightroom. I shoot with a variety of DSLRs.



    Since you put your stats down, I'll tell you that I owned a commercial photo lab in NYC for 28 years. I use both apps, as well as PS, which I've been a beta tester for since ver 1, and my company was a test site for Adobe. I'm pretty familiar with the industry.



    You can get some idea of the relative popularity of the programs by going on the pro sites and seeing where the discussions are. for example, the discussions on the Luminous Landscape, a very well known, and respected site:



    http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/



    As you can see, the number of topics for Aperture is just 113, with 590 replies, whereas Lightroom has 1,798 topics, with 9,535 replies.



    This is typical.



    Don't forget that Apple reduced the price several times, drastically. That rarely happens with successful programs. They moved it from the professional space, where it wasn't doing well, to the amateur space.



    While Aperture is more focussed on managing images, Lightroom is more focussed on editing them. Lightroom also works better as a front end to PS than does Aperture.



    There's no real question in the industry about Lightroom's outselling Aperture by a wide margin. It does.



    Did Apple make a mistake by keeping it Mac only? Perhaps. But it never had the same draw as FCP did when it first came out.
  • Reply 44 of 95
    kbeatkbeat Posts: 48member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post


    Since you put your stats down, I'll tell you that I owned a commercial photo lab in NYC for 28 years. I use both apps, as well as PS, which I've been a beta tester for since ver 1, and my company was a test site for Adobe. I'm pretty familiar with the industry.



    You can get some idea of the relative popularity of the programs by going on the pro sites and seeing where the discussions are. for example, the discussions on the Luminous Landscape, a very well known, and respected site:



    http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/



    As you can see, the number of topics for Aperture is just 113, with 590 replies, whereas Lightroom has 1,798 topics, with 9,535 replies.



    This is typical.



    Don't forget that Apple reduced the price several times, drastically. That rarely happens with successful programs. They moved it from the professional space, where it wasn't doing well, to the amateur space.



    While Aperture is more focussed on managing images, Lightroom is more focussed on editing them. Lightroom also works better as a front end to PS than does Aperture.



    There's no real question in the industry about Lightroom's outselling Aperture by a wide margin. It does.



    Did Apple make a mistake by keeping it Mac only? Perhaps. But it never had the same draw as FCP did when it first came out.



    I wasn't really looking for a stat throw down, I just wanted you to know I wasn't talking out of my arse.



    I would definitely agree that Lightroom is a better front end for PS for those that still do a lot of work on their photos in PS. These days, with the tools in Aperture, I have to admit I visit PS infrequently (a strange thing after years of living in that app).



    I think Apple's decision on pricing was more relative to direct competition from Lightroom, something they don't really deal with in the other Pro apps, rather than a failure of the app necessarily, although that first release was painful.



    I hope that development of the application continues. Lightroom exists because of Aperture, and Aperture got much better very quickly because of Lightroom. Adobe, for a number of reasons, isn't my favorite company these days and if they suddenly have no competition in the RAW workflow space, it will not bode well for us photographers.
  • Reply 45 of 95
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by KBeat View Post


    Quote:

    Lightroom has proven to be far more popular than Aperture. Apple really blew this one. Great idea, only fair implementation.



    I don't know what solid figures you have to back up that assertion



    I ran across this a while back:



    http://news.cnet.com/8301-13580_3-9798653-39.html



    "Market researcher InfoTrends surveyed 1,026 pro photographers in North America, and of them, 23.6 percent use Lightroom and 5.5 percent use Aperture, according to the blog of Photoshop senior product manager John Nack Tuesday.



    Windows is more widely used than Mac OS X, and Aperture is available only on the latter operating system. But even among Mac users, Aperture is used by 14.3 percent to Lightroom's 26.6 percent."



    This predates Aperture 2, but that's a lot of ground to make up between Adobe's two apps. I can't imagine Aperture has taken a huge amount of market share. I only know a couple pro photographers, but their opinion was that Adobe is never leaving this market. Apple on the other hand, has got a lot else going on and if Aperture doesn't sell well, Apple might put it on the back burner or worse drop it.
  • Reply 46 of 95
    macheimachei Posts: 83member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hmurchison View Post


    Aperture 2 is rated 4.5 stars on Amazon



    Maybe the issue is you. There's something that isn't vibing with you. Have you tried Lightroom?



    I wouldn't go to lightroom having been with Aperture since the start. That said, you got to admit, it IS very much due for an upgrade. My friends with Lightroom are making me feel behind the times and forgotten by Apple.
  • Reply 47 of 95
    bregaladbregalad Posts: 816member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by suckerpunch86 View Post


    Looking at what I bold-faced, could this be the last ever maintenance update to Leopard before Snow Leopard's arrival? I doubt 10.5.7 will be the last one



    10.5 will be supported after 10.6 ships. Unlike past releases Snow Leopard doesn't just cut off a few older machines it cuts off the entire PowerPC architecture. My 2.7GHz G5 is still a viable machine for most tasks and feels faster than many of the early Intel Macs I've used at work. I guess we'll get one or even two dot releases of Leopard after SL ships plus security updates until 10.7 is released in 2011.
  • Reply 48 of 95
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post


    Most people really don't want to move from what they're comfortable with. Windows works well enough for most people, or they wouldn't be still using it.



    I'm surprised Apple doesn't offer a simple way to "port" all of a (prior) windows user's documents, music (into iTunes), photos (into iPhoto) - AND bundle Parallels or VMWare to access their old apps if/when necessary. Even perhaps email settings (and actual emails?), explorer bookmarks, etc.



    It would seem to be a useful way of moving across.
  • Reply 49 of 95
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Bregalad View Post


    10.5 will be supported after 10.6 ships. Unlike past releases Snow Leopard doesn't just cut off a few older machines it cuts off the entire PowerPC architecture.



    I agree. We might even see the streamlined interface of Snow Leopard making a partial appearance (ie: wherever it's possible) on today's Leopard.



    I read AppleInsider's comment that Leopard is reaching its last point updates as simply an assumption based on past OS upgrades.
  • Reply 50 of 95
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by GregAlexander View Post


    I agree. We might even see the streamlined interface of Snow Leopard making a partial appearance (ie: wherever it's possible) on today's Leopard.



    I read AppleInsider's comment that Leopard is reaching its last point updates as simply an assumption based on past OS upgrades.



    Then it's most likely that we will see more point updates after Snow Leopard's release till they release its first ever maintenance update.
  • Reply 51 of 95
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by KBeat View Post


    I wasn't really looking for a stat throw down, I just wanted you to know I wasn't talking out of my arse.



    I would definitely agree that Lightroom is a better front end for PS for those that still do a lot of work on their photos in PS. These days, with the tools in Aperture, I have to admit I visit PS infrequently (a strange thing after years of living in that app).



    I think Apple's decision on pricing was more relative to direct competition from Lightroom, something they don't really deal with in the other Pro apps, rather than a failure of the app necessarily, although that first release was painful.



    I hope that development of the application continues. Lightroom exists because of Aperture, and Aperture got much better very quickly because of Lightroom. Adobe, for a number of reasons, isn't my favorite company these days and if they suddenly have no competition in the RAW workflow space, it will not bode well for us photographers.



    I can't really agree with you on this.



    Aperture has done poorly in the professional markets. That doesn't mean that it's dead there altogether. Lightroom was being developed for years before Aperture came out. It's certainly not a response to it.

    FCP had far more competition when it first came out. Premiere on the Mac was around much longer, and cost considerably less, but FCP's price wasn't reduced. Apple did add features that were extra cost, over time though. Premiere didn't leave the Mac because Adobe was miffed as some said at the time, but because FCP ate its lunch.



    This didn't happen with Aperture. PS is far more popular than both programs put together, as it will remain. But Lightroom contains the full ACR, so it has superb control over what happens to the mosiac, whereas Aperture has inferior tools, but is better in organization.



    Aperture is more useful for the wedding and event photographer, whereas Lightroom is better for the fashion and commercial photographer.
  • Reply 52 of 95
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by pixelcruncher View Post


    I ran across this a while back:



    http://news.cnet.com/8301-13580_3-9798653-39.html



    "Market researcher InfoTrends surveyed 1,026 pro photographers in North America, and of them, 23.6 percent use Lightroom and 5.5 percent use Aperture, according to the blog of Photoshop senior product manager John Nack Tuesday.



    Windows is more widely used than Mac OS X, and Aperture is available only on the latter operating system. But even among Mac users, Aperture is used by 14.3 percent to Lightroom's 26.6 percent."



    This predates Aperture 2, but that's a lot of ground to make up between Adobe's two apps. I can't imagine Aperture has taken a huge amount of market share. I only know a couple pro photographers, but their opinion was that Adobe is never leaving this market. Apple on the other hand, has got a lot else going on and if Aperture doesn't sell well, Apple might put it on the back burner or worse drop it.



    I find the same thing to be true.



    I was really rooting for Aperture, and I use all three programs, along with other converters.



    But, Apple blew it from the gate, and has never been able to recover from that. It should have been held another 6 months, or even another year. Of course, Lightroom would have been out by then.



    But there's an old saying. "It can take a long time to destroy a good reputation, but it takes a longer time to recover from getting a bad reputation in the beginning." I will add "If at all."



    Apple has a bad habit of abandoning programs if they don't see them doing well, or if Apple has a different idea about where they want to go. Adobe has rarely done this. They even brought Premiere back to the Mac, better than ever.
  • Reply 53 of 95
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by machei View Post


    I wouldn't go to lightroom having been with Aperture since the start. That said, you got to admit, it IS very much due for an upgrade. My friends with Lightroom are making me feel behind the times and forgotten by Apple.



    Now that Apple "officially" has announced that Aperture is also for amateur photogs, it looks as though it's on the backburner, though I hope that's not so.
  • Reply 54 of 95
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by GregAlexander View Post


    I'm surprised Apple doesn't offer a simple way to "port" all of a (prior) windows user's documents, music (into iTunes), photos (into iPhoto) - AND bundle Parallels or VMWare to access their old apps if/when necessary. Even perhaps email settings (and actual emails?), explorer bookmarks, etc.



    It would seem to be a useful way of moving across.



    I thought there was a way to do that from Apple.
  • Reply 55 of 95
    i386i386 Posts: 91member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post


    Now that Apple "officially" has announced that Aperture is also for amateur photogs, it looks as though it's on the backburner, though I hope that's not so.



    Is there any rumors for Aperture 3 ?



    Love to see it being able to take advantage of the new Nehalem octocore. I wonder if existing users will pay for the upgrade. I'd move to lightroom but the interface is awful compare to Aperture.



    Gavin
  • Reply 56 of 95
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by i386 View Post


    Is there any rumors for Aperture 3 ?



    Love to see it being able to take advantage of the new Nehalem octocore. I wonder if existing users will pay for the upgrade. I'd move to lightroom but the interface is awful compare to Aperture.



    Gavin



    I think Aperture is fine. There generally aren't a bunch of rumors surfing about the program until just before it's updated.



    Apple continues to enhance Core Image API which directly affect the featureset of Aperture.
  • Reply 57 of 95
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by i386 View Post


    Is there any rumors for Aperture 3 ?



    Love to see it being able to take advantage of the new Nehalem octocore. I wonder if existing users will pay for the upgrade. I'd move to lightroom but the interface is awful compare to Aperture.



    Gavin



    None that I know of. Apple is usually tight lipped about every product until they're ready to show something.



    I really don't think there's a high priority for this app. To bad really. If Apple wanted to, they could really improve it. They seem to have lost interest, as it hasn't done as well as they had hoped.



    A bunch of people here were crowing that this would doom Photoshop, but of course, the pro community isn't that easily moved. The app would have had to really been dynamite.
  • Reply 58 of 95
    tenobelltenobell Posts: 7,014member
    I don't really subscribe to this Vista vs Leopard argument. Anecdotally speaking, over the past two years most of the people I know who have switched to Mac, didn't really know much of anything about Vista or its difference from OS X. They were switching to the Mac regardless.



    It seems the far majority of people who do understand the problems with Vista just stayed with XP, never had any intention of switching to the Mac.



    Looking at the larger picture Windows 7 will have a bigger job of convincing people to switch from XP, than any threat it may have from OS X.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post


    Unfortunately, Apple's position is such that 7 doesn't HAVE to bring much more to the table. All it needs to do well is to work ok. It was Vista's faults, and perceived faults that have been driving people to the Mac. It was also MS's long climb to get it out the door that helped before that.



  • Reply 59 of 95
    Really? Making the UI more like iTunes is significant? Really the only thing that looks that different is the scroll bars. Am i missing something?
  • Reply 60 of 95
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TenoBell View Post


    I don't really subscribe to this Vista vs Leopard argument. Anecdotally speaking, over the past two years most of the people I know who have switched to Mac, didn't really know much of anything about Vista or its difference from OS X. They were switching to the Mac regardless.



    It seems the far majority of people who do understand the problems with Vista just stayed with XP, never had any intention of switching to the Mac.



    Looking at the larger picture Windows 7 will have a bigger job of convincing people to switch from XP, than any threat it may have from OS X.



    I can't agree with that. Apple's Tv ads are thought to have had a big effect on switchers, and their main thrust has been OS X vs Vista. Unlike you, I do know people who moved to the Mac rather than buy a new Vista machine. I suspect that a lot of people have done so.



    It's not a matter of people switching from XP to Vista in their current machines. Only people who bought a machine within a year of Vista's release did that, older machines couldn't run the OS. Those people who had machines that couldn't upgrade to Vista were major candidates for Macs, because they were wanting to buy a new machine anyway.



    Many people have been made nervous about all the problems with, and talk about, the virus problems on the Windows platform as well, something that Vista, despite the publicity otherwise from MS, hadn't really diminished.



    Right now, Apple's sales are down. I hope that Win 7, which looks as though it might come out in May, won't keep people on the Win platform who otherwise might have moved to Macs.



    If the release of Win 7 goes smoothly, it could have that effect.



    I don't want to be too secure in my thinking about Apple's success. It isn't easy. This economic situation has caused a lot of assumptions to go down the drain. We can't get too complacent.



    Remember the phrase that investment houses are required to use in their ads:



    "Past performance doesn't guarantee future performance." Paraphrasing, of course.
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