Apple sends end-of-life reminder to Aperture users, encourages migration to new Photos app

Posted:
in macOS edited August 2015
Apple on Thursday notified customers who have previously purchased its Aperture photography software that the application will soon be removed from the Mac App Store, and invited those users to try the new Photos app as part of the OS X 10.10.3 public beta.




The update came early Thursday afternoon in an e-mail missive with the subject "Aperture News," apparently directed at those who have purchased Aperture through the Mac App Store. Apple reminded users that they will no longer be able to purchase Aperture after the release of Photos, though it will remain functional in OS X Yosemite.

Aperture users can migrate their library to the new Photos app, and that process will move all photos, adjustments, albums, and keywords. Apple invited those who wish to evaluate Photos before making a decision on which migration path to take -- either to Photos or to a competitor like Adobe's Lightroom -- to sign up for the OS X 10.10.3 public beta program, which includes the new Photos app.

Announced last June, Photos for OS X replaces not only Aperture, but also iPhoto, Apple's long-serving consumer photo organizer. AppleInsider went hands-on with the new Photos app last month, and found it a capable iPhoto replacement that continues to blur the lines between iOS and OS X.

The text of Apple's email is reproduced in its entirety below.

Dear Aperture customer,

Last June, we introduced the new Photos apps for iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite, along with iCloud Photo Library, which lets you safely store all your photos in iCloud and access them from anywhere.

When Photos for OS X launches this spring, Aperture will no longer be available for purchase from the Mac App Store. You can continue to use Aperture on OS X Yosemite, but you will not be able to buy additional copies of the app.

You can migrate your Aperture library to Photos for OS X, including your photos, adjustments, albums, and keywords. After migrating, your Aperture library remains intact. However, Aperture and Photos do not share a unified library, so any changes made after the migration will not be shared between the apps.

To learn more about Photos for OS X, click here. If you're interested in trying the OS X 10.10.3 Public Beta, which includes Photos for OS X, click here.

We thank you for using Aperture and hope you will enjoy the new Photos for OS X app.

Sincerely,

Apple
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 70
    elmoofoelmoofo Posts: 100member
    The new photo app is NOWHERE NEAR A COMPETENT REPLACEMENT for Aperture. There are ZERO editing tools other than rotate, and other worthless BS.
  • Reply 2 of 70
    nobodyynobodyy Posts: 377member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by elmoofo View Post



    The new photo app is NOWHERE NEAR A COMPETENT REPLACEMENT for Aperture. There are ZERO editing tools other than rotate, and other worthless BS.

     

     

    Hands down Photos is more responsive and since you've got to start somewhere, I'm happy it is with that.

     

    Aperture still works, though, jeez.

  • Reply 3 of 70
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member
    Originally Posted by elmoofo View Post

    …other worthless BS.

     

    Meaning that the other available editing tools are BS or that other, non-editing functions are BS?

  • Reply 4 of 70
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member

    Perhaps Apple will announce Photos plug-in support at the Watch event Monday? They seem like pretty disparate announcements, so I doubt this myself... Too soon to encourage pros to make the move, even according to iMore.

  • Reply 5 of 70
    sirozhasirozha Posts: 801member

    Could someone explain to me what happens in the following scenarios with iCloud Photos: 

    1. My Photos library in OS X exceeds the available flash size on my iOS device. Which photos will sync from the iCloud Photos and which will not? Am I going to be given a choice? This is a scenario that the majority of iOS users will face due to their current iPhoto or Aperture library size being hundreds of gigabytes. 

    2 In my Family Sharing scenario, I want to have one Family photo library and have all devices (including Apple TV) to be able to sync from this one master photo library that currently lives on one of the Macs, but with iCloud Photos enabled will also be synced to iCloud. Will Family Sharing support photo sharing in the same way as it supports app sharing and music sharing?

     

    I do realize that I can use the Shared Streams to be able to share some or all of the "master" photo library with other iCloud accounts, including my family members' iCloud accounts. However, if I decide that I want my family members to have access to the entire photo library (that will be migrated from Aperture to Photos and synced to iCloud), which is currently 500 GB, I would have to purchase 500 GB of iCloud storage for every family member. If I never migrated to Family Sharing and continued to have one "master" iCloud account as the iCloud account on every iOS and OS X device in my family, I would not need to purchase 500 GB multiple times as every one of my devices would be able to share the same 500 GB purchased for the "master" account. So, it seems strange to me that Apple encouraged people to use Family Sharing to share apps and music among different iCloud accounts that are part of the same Family Sharing setup, but at the same time, Apple has no plans to do the same with photo sharing. Or, am I wrong and photo sharing works the same exact way between iCloud accounts that are members of the same Family Sharing as it works for apps and music? 

     

    Thank you. 

  • Reply 6 of 70
    quadra 610quadra 610 Posts: 6,757member

    I'll probably move my library over to Photos and simply do brush-related adjustments in another app. 

     

    Besides, there are plenty of image editors and editor-cum-organizers out there for OS X. 

  • Reply 7 of 70
    quadra 610quadra 610 Posts: 6,757member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by elmoofo View Post



    The new photo app is NOWHERE NEAR A COMPETENT REPLACEMENT for Aperture. There are ZERO editing tools other than rotate, and other worthless BS.

     

    Use Lightroom then. Most Pros have moved to it a long time ago. 

     

    Mac sales continue to be healthy. 

  • Reply 8 of 70
    quadra 610quadra 610 Posts: 6,757member

    The big market is the Prosumer market. 

     

    And frankly, it's for the better. 

     

    Apple has been addressing this market - much to their advantage (and in more ways than not, to my own benefit) - for a number of years now. 

  • Reply 9 of 70
    sirozhasirozha Posts: 801member

    It seems to me that Pixelmator is the application of choice for Apple to replace advanced photo editing that is missing in Photos compared to Aperture. Pixelmator was featured on stage during the Fall 2014 Apple event, and this app is available for both OS X and iOS. With extensions enabled in both OS, there may be an easy way to edit a photo in Pixelmator but continue using Photos (in both OS X and iOS) for photo library and syncing with iCloud Photo Library. 

  • Reply 10 of 70
    Some of you do not get why Aperture was used by professionals. No it is not JPEG (pros use RAW for reasons). Also editing is what every average Joe here does not get. I suggest at least reading popular editing literatire and why it needs to be done. There will be less "wow" effect when some understand that it is not just camera, but all professional toolset.

    In the meantime, full version of Photoshop or GIMP will serve well, but not the same as Aperture and for sliedshows Fotomagico outperformed iPhoto for years now. Some however did not create advanced slideshows with precise background music control and other features to understand what it is about so I do not blame you that yeta again you will be defending Apple in your philosophical way.
  • Reply 11 of 70
    slurpyslurpy Posts: 5,382member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by elmoofo View Post



    The new photo app is NOWHERE NEAR A COMPETENT REPLACEMENT for Aperture. There are ZERO editing tools other than rotate, and other worthless BS.

     

    Use lightroom. 

     

    Seriously, Apple is not in the business of maintaining niche software. You've known this for a while, so might as well accept it and find alternatives if you need to. We've known this for months. Apple looks at the whole thing. If they can't integrate aperture into their entire ecosystem, then it doesn't deserve to exist. I understand that philosophy. 

  • Reply 12 of 70
    sessamoidsessamoid Posts: 182member
    Quote:


     

    Some of you do not get why Aperture was used by professionals. No it is not JPEG (pros use RAW for reasons). Also editing is what every average Joe here does not get. I suggest at least reading popular editing literatire and why it needs to be done. There will be less "wow" effect when some understand that it is not just camera, but all professional toolset.

    In the meantime, full version of Photoshop or GIMP will serve well, but not the same as Aperture and for sliedshows Fotomagico outperformed iPhoto for years now. Some however did not create advanced slideshows with precise background music control and other features to understand what it is about so I do not blame you that yeta again you will be defending Apple in your philosophical way.



     

    WTH are you babbling about?

  • Reply 13 of 70
    chasmchasm Posts: 3,275member
    There are a lot of people who use Aperture who are not professional photographers. This letter, it seems to me, is more of a heads-up to the Aperture users that the program is no longer supported (but still works as well as it ever did for the time being). Some people who use Aperture, you will be shocked to discover, will barely notice the change to Photos, if they indeed decide to do that. Others will move on to other options (I'm looking at the Affinity Photos beta right now, and use Lightroom for the moment).

    Another option is that Photos might, in the future, gain some plug-in support. I would probably be fine with Photos as-in if I could throw in my OnOne and Macphun and Athentec plug-ins. I think a lot of DSLR owners would be under those conditions.

    It's a bit early to judge Photos anyway, as its only in beta (and pretty clearly not complete). Yes, it will probably always be thought of as more of a replacement for iPhoto and perhaps very light-duty Aperture users (ie, people like me who shoot in RAW and have decent equipment but aren't serious, pro photographers).

    Stop having a tantrum about the end of Aperture and blaming Photos. Apple is simply going where the majority of the people are -- ie, consumer and hobbyist -- with photo management and editing. The super-serious people, it seems to me, use a wide variety of tools (though centered around Photoshop) creating a diverse but niche market that Apple clearly can't please.
  • Reply 14 of 70
    chasmchasm Posts: 3,275member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by elmoofo View Post



    The new photo app is NOWHERE NEAR A COMPETENT REPLACEMENT for Aperture. There are ZERO editing tools other than rotate, and other worthless BS.



    This of course isn't actually true -- there are quite a number of editing tools in Photos, most a significant improvement from what's in iPhoto but in quite a few ways falling short of what's available in Aperture.

  • Reply 15 of 70
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,310moderator
    I wonder why they didn't just use Photos for managing and syncing the library and have Aperture become solely an editor that interfaces with this library of images.

    They can probably add a lot of the features back in with plug-ins but taking out the library parts of Aperture and pointing it at the Photos library would have been a quick way because there's quite a lot of features:

    http://www.apple.com/aperture/features/

    It would give Photos users a quick upgrade path if they decided to do more work with their images. They'll have managed their photos already in Photos and buying Aperture would just add some advanced editing capability.
  • Reply 16 of 70
    kbeatkbeat Posts: 48member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by elmoofo View Post



    The new photo app is NOWHERE NEAR A COMPETENT REPLACEMENT for Aperture. There are ZERO editing tools other than rotate, and other worthless BS.



    Um, what exactly do you consider an editing tool? Apparently you do not think cropping, red-eye removal, white balance, exposure, highlight, shadow, brightness, contrast, black point, saturation, or color cast adjustments count as editing tools. Nor do you count the ability to retouch photos and remove blemishes and imperfections as an "editing tool".

     

    So again, since it has "zero" editing tools other than "rotate", what is it you count as an editing tool. Since an entire suite of image adjustments and retouching don't count, what does? 

  • Reply 17 of 70
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by sirozha View Post

     

    It seems to me that Pixelmator is the application of choice for Apple to replace advanced photo editing that is missing in Photos compared to Aperture. 




    I believe Pixelmator has some non-destructing editing abilities but not to the extent that Lightroom and Aperture have. With Pixelmator you are adding non-destructive layers with filters but some edits are final such as crop. With professional photography suites the original image is not modified so you can always revert without making a separate copy. What edits you make are just instructions stored in a database.

     

    Pixelmator does not have the photo library organization tools either.

  • Reply 18 of 70
    Below is my responce to Apple after receiving the email inviting me to try Photos as an Aperture user. I tried doing w return email but it came back due to that mail address not being monitored so. I stuck the same responce on the Aperture Forums. Here it is.

    Dear Apple Photos Team,

    From what I've seen and read from reviewers regarding the new Photos App, I currently have no interest. Maybe that will change but I am totally dismayed you would completely give up on the professional market and thoroughly dismantle a truly name brand product that professionals like me depended on. I bought a $7000.00 MacPro specifically for Aperture and within two months you announce Apertures demise.

    I also use FCPX and your decision to abandon Aperture has made me rethink why I'm using FCPX. I ask myself, why would the professional video crowd be any more important then the professional still shooters? I can't come up with any plausible reason and so I'm now looking into migrating my entire multimedia workflow over to Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Premier. I don't want to but you have given me no choice. And just think, my computer options will be expanded once I get in to The Adobe ecosystem since they support both OSX and Windows. By the way, I switched from MS-Windows specifically for Aperture. I don't think you have any idea how much disappointment and frustration you have caused your truly loyal Apple base. I'm hopeful you may eventually come to your senses and reverse your decision to kill Aperture.
  • Reply 19 of 70
    sirozhasirozha Posts: 801member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by mstone View Post

     



    I believe Pixelmator has some non-destructing editing abilities but not to the extent that Lightroom and Aperture have. With Pixelmator you are adding non-destructive layers with filters but some edits are final such as crop. With professional photography suites the original image is not modified so you can always revert without making a separate copy. What edits you make are just instructions stored in a database.

     

    Pixelmator does not have the photo library organization tools either.




    I believe there will be a tighter integration between Pixelmator and Photos within the next few months so that changes made by Pixelmator do not affect the original versions of photos stored in the OS X Photos library. The fact that Pixelmator doesn't have the photo library organization tools is actually a good thing as long as it can tap into OS X Photos photo library. Keeping different versions of a photo library in different applications is a nightmare. 

  • Reply 20 of 70
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by danieljcox View Post



     I bought a $7000.00 MacPro specifically for Aperture and within two months you announce Apertures demise.



    I also use FCPX and your decision to abandon Aperture has made me rethink why I'm using FCPX. 

    Let's hope that they do the same thing with Photos that they did with FCPX. When it was first released it was missing a lot of pro features but they have mostly all been added back in over the last couple releases. With Photos, they will likely add additional features with each update until it eventually reaches pro grade.

     

    The thing I find rather odd is that they EOL a professional tool and suggest you use a beta application. Pros don't do beta especially a whole new beta OS X. They wait for the final release rather than risk fouling up their workflow with unfinished software.

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