Q: Don't give up on Aperture

However, I do think that it's sad that a company as financially rich as Apple now is has decided not to continue to offer its products to the wider market it already had. There is plenty room for both.

Sad indeed. But Apple is a large American multi-national company that is geared to maximise profit. Aperture was never a profit centre. The Phones are the big profit centre now.

What is sad to me is that Apple has stopped focusing on software worthy of professionals and using that software to attract high-end users to their their high-end machines while also attracting the next level of consumer who know they have an upgrade path. Instead they are focusing on selling more iPhones by developing average software for average people taking average snapshots who want one-click "auto fix" and one-click export so they can upload their average snapshots to the "cloud" for their other average friends to see. There are the exceptions but that is the vast majority of what I see as their target audience: The Average User.

So does that mean that Apple should just make phones? I have used Apple products since the introduction of the Apple II, and I certainly felt there was a relationship. Their products allow me to do my creative work. They are not just widgets that are sold for more than they cost to make. Of course they need to make a profit on Aperture, and I'm sure they were. Software that is 99% written is quite profitable, especially when distributed online with almost no delivery overhead. Steve Jobs was quite emphatic about the Mac being an amplifier of it's users creativity. Sorry you see it as only another product like a toaster. It is much more than that. I was an Apple authorized Value Added Reseller in Hawaii for the duration of the program, about 10 years I believe. I had many customers, about 150, (exclusive Avid Technology Dealer in Hawaii) who depended upon me and Apple and certainly believed we had a relationship. Especially after investing over $50,000 in a Mac based video editing system. I have to say I am glad I don't depend on your beliefs for the tools I use to make a living. And yes, I am very disappointed in Apple for dropping Aperture. I know I am not alone. Even a car dealer knows he has a relationship with his customers, or he will soon be out of business.

Unfortunately Apples responsibilities are to their shareholders, products are the vehicles used to fulfill them. Aperture was always a 'niche'. a good one but not much of a revenue earner. So it's gone and Apple concentrate on product that sells by the billion. That keeps the shareholders happy.

freediverx01 wrote:

 

However Jim, although Aperture is, or was, perhaps the best image editor and organiser out there, its major failing is its RAW Converter. Aperture's RAW Converter is good BUT it doesn't hold a candle to that of PhaseOne's Capture One Pro 8 and neither does Adobe's Lightroom match up to CO's RAW engine.

If I demonstrated to you that a particular Windows PC was significantly faster than your Mac of choice, would that persuade you to switch? Or what if I tried to persuade you to switch from a BMW 328i to a Cadillac CTS by claiming the latter has some specific feature or capability the former lacks?

 

Yes, those are extreme examples, but they illustrate how many of us feel about Aperture and its non-Apple alternatives. It's not a simple question of which app has the best RAW converter. It's a matter of which product we feel comfortable using on a daily basis. For me, the DAM features are infinitely more important than subtle differences in RAW conversion quality that no one will ever notice outside of a side-by-side comparison. I knew for years that Lightroom's RAW converter and other features were reportedly better than Aperture, yet this never tempted me in the slightest to switch because of how much I hate Adobe's UI and workflows.

 

Capture One may or may not be as bad as Lightroom in this regard, but I've seen no evidence that its DAM and workflows can hold a candle to Aperture's. I also sense that migrating an Aperture library to Capture One would require a massive amount of work and tinkering with frustrating results. I would not be interested in Capture One if it were a free product, let alone considering its actual sky high price.

....I know from friends who have built very powerful PCs running Windows that they are much faster than Macs and so to answer your question, no I absolutely would not switch to any Windows machine. I enjoy the Mac user experience far too much.

To use your analogy between cars, my car will accelerate 0-60 mph in 5.9 seconds (NHRA timed) but I don't feel the need to swop it for a 4.9 seconds car (although I am driving a 4.7 seconds car next week).

I can understand from your post that your image editing needs are very different from mine. As indeed you do, I can only share my own needs, opinions and preferences in this discussion and Capture One's RAW capabilities suit me and my individual workflow better. Obviously each one of us has differing needs and preferences.

If Apple had continued developing Aperture I would not have looked elsewhere for an alternative and would still be using it even though its RAW Converter might not be the very best out there.

Choosing any product for one feature only is rarely a good choice, to continue the car analogy if 0-60 times are all important why bother with 5.9 or 4.9 second machines when for similar cash you could have a 2.4 second machine. But then you would need to accept the limited space, lack of a roof (not to mention doors) etc. Fast it may be (the car is the Atom) but your wife/girlfriend etc wouldn't be able to take it shopping.

The product that best fits all of your requirements is the one to buy, and that will be different from user to user.

freediverx01 wrote:

 

Personally, their shoving of Aperture onto Death Row has done me a favour because I much prefer Capture One Pro's RAW Converter and the RAW engine is the heart of any digital editor and strongly influences the image quality of our efforts.

 

Red Robin, we're delighted to hear how happy you are with Capture One, and how its superior RAW converter has fulfilled your dreams. But please stop using this rather narrow viewpoint to repeatedly counter complaints from the rest of us who are more concerned with Aperture's DAM features and workflows and the lack of suitable alternatives on the market. Accept the fact that not everyone shares your single-minded obsession with RAW conversion above all else. If RAW conversion quality were that important to us, we would have switched to Lightroom or other products long ago.

....I am merely responding to other people's posts and fully realise that each one of us has differing needs and preferences when using an image editor. It doesn't show you in a good light to....

1) - Be telling me personally what to or not to do or post.

2) - Be describing me personally as having a "rather narrow viewpoint".

3) - Telling me personally what to accept and saying that I have a "single-minded obsession".

The tone of your post is unfriendly, disrespectful, and unnecessary. It is also condescending.

Everyone in this discussion has individual differing needs and preferences and we should all respect that in our posts.

They can certainly concentrate on products like the iPhone that earn them the most and still keep an upward path open for those who are maturing in their creative work, photography in this case, that an iPhone and Photos cannot satisfy. They already had the product! It's not like Kennedy saying we are going to the moon in ten years and having to invent the whole enterprise. They only needed to keep it connected to the changes in OSX. A company that doesn't satisfy it's users will soon find it cannot satisfy it's shareholders. Volkswagen comes to mind. Surely with, last I heard, $124 Billion USD in the bank, Apple could throw a bone to it's pro users. Many are graduating, at great expense, from art and design schools that need these tools. Apple has always been an aspirational company. It needs to allow for some headroom. Does no one remember "Think Different"? That was not about snapshots.

hqnmlvpn wrote:

 

They can certainly concentrate on products like the iPhone that earn them the most and still keep an upward path open for those who are maturing in their creative work, photography in this case, that an iPhone and Photos cannot satisfy.

But that was not the direction chosen, maybe if enough Aperture purchases had been made a different route would have emerged, but that did not happen, As for the effect on their business, check the stock price increases over the past 10 years, they are far ahead of the market trends so I doubt that earnings are an issue.

Aperture is gone, time to move on I'm afraid (and speaking as a stockholder rather than a photographer) it is a good business decision, niche products are best handled by niche companies which Apple has never been.

Csound1 wrote:

 

Choosing any product for one feature only is rarely a good choice, to continue the car analogy if 0-60 times are all important why bother with 5.9 or 4.9 second machines when for similar cash you could have a 2.4 second machine. But then you would need to accept the limited space, lack of a roof (not to mention doors) etc. Fast it may be (the car is the Atom) but your wife/girlfriend etc wouldn't be able to take it shopping.

 

The product that best fits all of your requirements is the one to buy, and that will be different from user to user.

....I agree but it wasn't only the RAW conversion feature which prompted my choice which has been forced upon me by Aperture's slow death.

I wholeheartedly agree about the best choice being according to the individual user's needs and preferences and that we are each different.

Ah, the Atom.... All the members of my family have their own cars so I have no need to cater for them. The Atom is too hardcore and has nowhere to safely and securely carry my camera gear. But I am going off-topic.

I had an afternoon at a track with an Atom, the 3.5R version. Scared the **** out of me, I hoped it would rain so I could stop the madness

What is sad to me is that Apple has stopped focusing on software worthy of professionals and using that software to attract high-end users to their their high-end machines while also attracting the next level of consumer who know they have an upgrade path

But they haven't. They make the OS that allows excellent quality software to run. That OS is worthy of professionals.

But it is the same cross the board, and you can simply compare Pages and Numbers with Word and Excel. Yes, if you want to do a CV or plan a wedding, this software is really good. Want to to a PhD thesis or do serious number crunching? Pay for a better quality app. Ditto with Photos: want to manage your snaps across multiple devices, Photos is really quite good. Shooting serious photography, as a serious hobbyist or a pro? Pay for a better quality app. Apple is a hardware company. They make all their money selling hardware. Their task these days is to try and convert some of that phone business into sales of other hardware. The PC market is declining, but the Mac is declining much more slowly than the others - so they're doing something right.

And guess what, "average users" buy a lot more gear than pros, simply because there are more of them. Get used to it, niche users have to work harder to find the tools they use. Of the free apps that come with a Mac just about Mail and Safari are the only ones that I use regularly. Because of the work I do I need more powerful tools than than Pages, Numbers and all the rest supply. That's the problem of not being an Average User. Thing is, on Windows it's exactly the same. It's how the computer business works now.

So does that mean that Apple should just make phones? I have used Apple products since the introduction of the Apple II, and I certainly felt there was a relationship.

Sure there's a relationship between me and the software. I talk to this thing somedays. But between me and Apple? Apart from the Moderators on this forum no one at Apple knows I exist. You spend $10k on computing equipment? How much do you spend on your car? Do Honda or Ford or BMW know you exist? I have a relationship with my wife. I purchase computing goods and services from Apple. We don't go to dinner together or anything

Your argument supports exactly what I said. They want to sell more iPhones so they create and sell complimentary software that appeals to those who use iPhones.  By analogy, if they want to sell more high-end computers they would create and sell complimentary software that appeals to high-end users.

Personally I wish they would quit mucking around with the OS, adding more "features" that also appeal to the iPhone users. Their focus is certainly not on high-end users and their OS isn't getting more high-end with each release, it is getting more locked down, more complicated, more buggy, less "it just works" and more "search Google for how to make it work". I often await the next release in the hope that they will fix all the bugs they introduced in the last release.

Badunit wrote:

 

Personally I wish they would quit mucking around with the OS, adding more "features" that also appeal to the iPhone users. Their focus is certainly not on high-end users

That is correct, their focus is on creating shareholder value, as it should be for a large multinational corporation.