Replacement to Aperture

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 However, it didn't sell well enough and was withdrawn - Why?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.

Then since Apple has announced the death of Aperture that means your business is dead also. Sorry.

By the way C1 can do asset management.

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.

C1 does not do DAM, you can work it with Media Pro. Media Pro has not had much development and its two programs C1 and MP, so a more complicated workflow looks to be a certainty.

Sorry to hear that. Having worked with with users of the servers I supported that had to migrate to new software I can relate on how huge a task it can be. This is especially true when the need to migrate is sprung on you out of the blue as Apple has done here.

From what you are describing, it sounds like you may want to look at Phase One Media Pro. It is based on code that they bought from Microsoft called Microsoft Expression Media which Phase One has rewritten to run on both Windows and OS X. It is rated as a commercial grade digital asset management system. I am hoping that might be of some help in your search for solution.

I'm already looking at it and Lightroom. Media Pro I can remember looking into it in its early form, I picked Aperture. Aperture has always been leagues ahead on workflow for sorting storing and delivery.

I don't think many realised what Aperture was, if ever you saw a review it was always just comparing output against Adope or Phase, I never saw a review showing how to use what it was so much better at than anything else out there.

So Kevin, what's wrong with doing what I've already been forced to do with FCP Studio?…….

I simply have not upgraded the OSX on my Mac beyond 10.8.5. because that version of OSX still allows FCP Studio to run just fine, as it does with Aperture as well as a couple of other "passed by" Applications. The machine they run on is late 2009 / early 2010 and it's still functioning just fine.

If and when I feel I need to upgrade to Yosemite or whatever else comes down the road then perhaps it'll be time to buy a new Mac, but I'll always be sure to keep the older one if only just to run the Applications that have been cast aside or outdated by Apple or whoever else.

It's always made sense to me anyway if you're using a computer professionally, for editing or whatever, to have as little else on the machine other than the Applications you need for the tasks in hand and that's all, everything else junked.

Aperture, if it ain't broke, which it's not if it still runs on Yosemite or prior, then just keep using it and don't change up the OS,

As I said, that's worked for me with FCP Studio and there's no reason why it cannot do the same for Aperture too…...

Good luck anyway.

Personally I see that as an extremely shortsighted way to run a business. I always argued with manager who wanted to do that when I was working in IT. Eventually that solution will stop working and then your are in a much deeper hole. From past experience I know this to be true because the ones that stuck to their guns and ignored the problem were alway hit with larger problems in the future.

I see what Kevin is doing as the correct way to handle this and that is to develop a plan of how he will proceed with his business.

Putting your head in the sand and saying there is no problem as loudly as you can will in fact not make the problem go away.