Replacement to Aperture

Terence,

It is clear that you don't have to use iCloud, and personally I can think for no reason to do so, the point is that the changes to Photos seems to be driven primarily to support the use of iCloud. All Apple focus on Photos is directed at iCloud. It appears to be their primary feature. You actually have to read a lot of information that mentions iCloud very prominently before finding any form of small print that says you can use local storage.

It is grand that you have taken it upon yourself to rectify Apples total obsession with iCloud but frankly they are the ones causing the continual backlash in here about Photos and iCloud.

I have an Adobe subscription but much prefer Aperture. It is a major shame that Apple have taken this path.

I didn't say that iCloud was required, I know it isn't. I simply vented my frustration at Apple castrating software for the sake of iCloud.

You need to ask yourself why you are having to clarify this message so often. Maybe you should be correcting Apples advertising not continually posting 'corrections' to other forum users. If you think people will get the wrong impression from here what do you think they are getting from the official Apple market position?

It looks to me that Apple is deliberately giving the impression that it is all about iCloud. They really want the selfie crowd to buy into it. It obviously isn't aimed at anyone with serious media libraries.

I just stopped my company buying additional Mac Pro systems. Apple have lost the plot and consequently lost a dedicated user who has bought just about every Apple product since the IIe

I don't work for Apple. I don't really care about their advertising, even less about your company's buying decisions. What I care about is the ordinary person - who may yes, heaven! be a person who takes selfies - landing on this thread from a google search and getting the wrong impression. That's all.

Photos is "all about iCloud". Just like a Aperture was all about Raw. But that doesn't mean you can't do other things.

We actually don't know yet how much of a realistic replacement to Aperture that Photos is going to be. Certainly it's not looking good unless you are one of the unimaginative 'selfie crowd' with your head in the iClouds and even the name 'Photos' is downmarket and uninspiringly promises little. Furthermore, Apple's marketing of 'Photos' at this stage looks very discouraging to professionals and serious amateurs (like myself) who exclusively shoot RAW format and often 1,000 images in a good week.

However, it's very simple - If Apple don't offer at least equivalent features to Aperture's, then users are going to vote with their feet. Plan B is likely to be Capture One Pro or Lightroom (if I can avoid using wretched clouds and subscriptions!). The trouble is that Apple are more interested in their profits and share price and would not appear to care so much about who buys their products anymore - Quality sacrificed by Quantity.

But let's wait and see.

As an interim to a Plan B I assume that by sticking with OS Yosemite one can run both Aperture and Photos on the same machine?

As an interim to a Plan B I assume that by sticking with OS Yosemite one can run both Aperture and Photos on the same machine?

Yes. Both iPhoto and Aperturewill continue to work with Photos installed. It must be this way, since Photos will come as part of MacOS X and cannot be installed selectively.

What I don't understand is why a company the size of Apple can't have a "pro" division, developing pro solutions for the pro user. They can still pedal Photos to the masses. What can be wrong with providing best solution for heavy weight users? what could be wrong with the pr that would generate?

Apple still innovate, I have no idea if the watch is of use or Apples move into the Electric Vehicle sector is a good idea, but why dump the reputation of a company like this.

It would be like Harley Davidson deciding to only make mopeds because they can sell more mopeds than big bikes.

Interestingly enough, Harley-Davidson did produce an Italian/Japanese style of bike once upon a time and it was a very good bike by all accounts. However, it didn't sell well enough and was withdrawn - Why? Because it didn't sound like a Harley 😁.

I wholeheartedly agree with you, Kevin - There is plenty of room financially etc for both 'pro' and mass-market user Apple products. Apple currently have bigger resources than they ever have had but are becoming like Microsoft which is what everyone had feared.

I suppose that the next Mac OS will appear sometime in 2016? Hopefully not sooner! and that will be the death of Aperture if one wants to or needs to keep up with the OS. Support for cameras in RAW compatibility will also force a change to a later OS.

[Thanks for your reply, leonie]

Perhaps the problem is the support for the customers, that pro apps require. many people are buying pro apps without understanding what they will offer, because they don't know much about photography, music, or video. They would be require proper tutoring to be able to use these apps. If Apple dumbs down the pro apps to make it easier for newbies, the pros are complaining, and if Apple keeps the interface professional style, the majority of the users will be unhappy. The feedback at the App Store pages of the pro apps is an indication. Perhaps Apple should go for "Aperture Light" and "Aperture Pro".

Terrence,

I know you don't work for Apple and it is unlikely that anyone from Apple is looking at the forum, especially in an official capacity. You are missing the point. This is a thread about Aperture, Apples Professional photography application so the fact that a casual iPhone photographer might get the wrong impression about being able to use local storage is really not relevant. 99% of them will either want to use iCloud or not care that there is an alternative. The whole point here is that Photos is a consumer application that focuses on making simple things easier for casual users, and that is fantastic, but it leave the professional users completely out in the cold. I've played with Photos since the OS-X 10.2 beta (We are a development company) and while it is a very nice replacement to iPhoto it is certainly not a replacement for Aperture.

As Kevin Allen4 says in the thread it is amazing that with all Apple resource it can't continue to maintain a professional photography application. It makes me wonder how much longer Final Cut is going to be around now that you can edit a movie to upload to YouTube on your iPad. A telling graphic in the Apple watch keynote today was the product line up that went from Apple watch to iPhone to iPad to MacBook to MacBook Pro to iMac. The MacPro was not included in the lineup. The professional arena seems to be taking a very low profile in Apple.

A final comment, I don't care that you don't care about my companies buying decisions but Apple should. I am a customer who buys many systems a year because of the professional apps like Aperture and Final Cut and the performance and stability of the high end systems. Sure I have iPhone and MacBooks as well but for my job it looks like Apple no longer cares to support me as a customer.

I would go over to Adobe, but I don't trust them either. Its difficult to explain to a casual user how important your files are wether they be still or moving, the time and money in my stock of images is £100k, I have to be so careful trying to future proof what I have.

Transferring many TB over to another system is not a five minute job, choosing Aperture was a commitment on my part, Apple promoted it as the professional solution and it truly was. I tried just about every DAM system I could find, some where OK some were an absolute disaster (Fotostaion, I still get an icy chill thinking about that one).

Commiting to a DAM system is like deciding on the plans to build a new house and once that house is built, then deciding you want it made of brick and not logs is not very practical, even worse is when someone comes along and tells you we want you to change it to cheese, because we asked a thousand people what do you like best, bricks or Cheese.

Where will it stop? What happens if Apple decide pro res isn't worth the bother or raw handling is a waste of effort?

Good idea…..It maybe p*****g into the wind but you're right we should send Apple our feedback. For what it's worth this is what I posted today:

Having been with Apple since the earliest SE, and having relied on Apple for the BEST Pro' Applications out there in my fields, ( Film/Video Production and Photography ), for all the years that Apple developed such software, I strongly protest and am extremely saddened at what's becoming an obvious fact of life, Apple doesn't care about it's Pro Users anymore. It killed off the best edit program ever, FCP Studio, and replaced it with "iMovie Pro", ( FCPX ), now here goes Aperture the same way.

Shame on you Apple. As perhaps the world's richest company you could easily keep a meaningful Pro' Division servicing the Professional Users that faithfully stuck with you through Apple's lean years and no doubt helped the company survive, but no you seem now to prefer to dump us and produce toys rather than tools. Shame.

so the fact that a casual iPhone photographer might get the wrong impression about being able to use local storage is really not relevant.

Not to you. But as I keep saying, my post is not about you. Hard to grasp I know.

There are other alternatives besides Adobe such as Capture One or DxO that one should check out before committing to Adobe.

Personally after my last experience with Adobe, I am sure I will not go with them.

Neither capture 1 or DXO do what Aperture does. Aperture is not about taking a raw file and making jpg's or tiffs, Aperturte was about digital asset management. There are lots of programs that convert raw files, you don't buy Aperture just to do that.

Aperture manages large amounts of image files, I use it to manage client needs, I use it to sort, keyword and search, I use vaults to back up.

Its about content management, nothing else does that and converts raw to jpg/tiff as good. The Cloud is not a professional solution as it is. If I was desperate to access my files on my phone anywhere in the World I could of built my own Cloud. My business is built around Aperture structure and workflow.

No it means I have got to spend a lot of time and money on another solution before Aperture no longer is a practical solution due to lack of updates/support.

Its a huge task I have many TB of files that will need to be reorganised and a new workflow to design, not everything can see Aperture vaults.

Not sure if the years of clients folders and Albums will be transferable to anything else.