Apple to discontinue Aperture and iPhoto

[Manfred M]

I just read this on Wired.

http://www.wired.com/2014/06/apple-kills-aperture/

It looks like Apple's migration into a consumer electronics company is continuing, at the cost of alienating the professional and serious amateur communities....

[Richard Lundberg]

They've alienated me since 10.8 with their stupid scroll bar.

[Ido]

It's disconcerting, as Aperture was pretty much the only serious competition for Lightroom. Now Lightroom stands alone on the top of the hill. That's not a good situation for Lightroom users, because big feature additions will now become nearly unrealistic expectations.
Hopefully Capture One starts gaining some more ground and expands its audience and user base to truly compete.

[Mike Buckley]

Now Lightroom stands alone on the top of the hill. That's not a good situation for Lightroom users, because big feature additions will now become nearly unrealistic expectations.

Lightroom stood on top of the hill long before the news of Aperture's demise. Adobe's desire to increase revenue will motivate them to improve the feature set more than any fear that users would have chosen Aperture over Lightroom.

[HenkB]

Another take on this, altogether, from Thom Hogan. Jury's out, but this could get interesting. If nothing else, Photos for OS X will start with (the theoretical) 100% penetration of the Apple market. That four-letter word Free could eat a substantial amount of Adobe's lunch.

[Mike Buckley]

See the update at the bottom of this PetaPixel piece.

[kaneohebud]

I was initially upset by this news when I heard it Friday. However, I bit the bullet and subscribed to the Adobe Creative Cloud (Photoshop/Lightroom) for $9.99/Month (US). I have had Lightroom and Photoshop Elements previously but was dragging my feet in gaining competency. I did some tutorial work this weekend, especially in Lightroom, and found I like it quite a bit. I use the NIK plug-in which works the same in Aperture and Lightroom. I was pleased with the results so once I get past the "old dog, new tricks" reluctance I think this was just the push I needed.

[Mike Buckley]

"Photos for OS X might not be as underpowered as some fear." For more about that, see this.

[tbob]

Aperture (with the NIK add ons) is all I use. The current version is adequate for all my processing needs so unless the hard drives of both computers crater then I should be good for the next 30 years. When I upgrade the machines I will transfer the programs and libraries.

Unless the new photo program is vastly superior then I will stick with Aperture {until Apple makes it obsolescent by changing the OS and orphaning the program, a strong possibility given the past history}.

[Glenn NK]

Lightroom stood on top of the hill long before the news of Aperture's demise. Adobe's desire to increase revenue will motivate them to improve the feature set more than any fear that users would have chosen Aperture over Lightroom.

I think you hit the nail on the head Mike.

I also think that Apple's past successes won't be repeated now that "Wizard Jobs" is gone. It seems to me that they are spending a lot of effort/money on advertising for what little new they are introducing. It had been suggested by some investment gurus that when Jobs died, the company would gradually become just another one of many. You can only sell glitter for so long, and I suspect they can't afford to compete with Adobe and whatever other comes along. People are starting to look at products other than Adobe, but for the time being I don't see them as being seriously threatening to Adobe.

Glenn

[Ido]

Aperture (with the NIK add ons) is all I use. The current version is adequate for all my processing needs so unless the hard drives of both computers crater then I should be good for the next 30 years. When I upgrade the machines I will transfer the programs and libraries.

Unless the new photo program is vastly superior then I will stick with Aperture {until Apple makes it obsolescent by changing the OS and orphaning the program, a strong possibility given the past history}.

Or, if you buy a new camera at some point and Apple doesn't update the RAW support (though Photos will support RAW, so I guess they'll keep pushing those updates to Aperture as well).

[Mike Buckley]

(though Photos will support RAW, so I guess they'll keep pushing those updates [that support new camera models] to Aperture as well).

I doubt that. Apple has every incentive to ensure that customers migrate to their Photos app. Updating Aperture to include support of new camera models is a disincentive for customers to do that.