6 Months Since Aperture (& iPhotos) Death

[v3rlon]

apologies, the link to the article is a couple of posts up. I was merely showing how this is all speculation based on something Apple did that could have any number of meanings.

Sure, it MAY mean a delay, and that delay MAY be because they want to introduce even more and better 'pro' features after reading threads like these to appease the masses (even though they claim Apple is just appeasing the masses and freely admit they are in some vanishingly small group of elite users, but I digress).

It's like this girl I used to date. I would say something like "We're going to be late to the movie," and she would immediately infer that meant I wanted to talk about the relationship, I thought those jeans made her butt look fat, and I was planning on leaving her for someone younger and prettier that she just randomly selected in her head.

And if you think Apple doesn't listen, try Microsoft. They can't even SEE you, much less hear. Or try Linux, where everyone is listening, but no one is in charge enough to do anything. Or try Chrome, where they are watching and listening to everything you do, but not in the way you want them to.

 

[VirtualRain]

apologies, the link to the article is a couple of posts up. I was merely showing how this is all speculation based on something Apple did that could have any number of meanings.

Sure, it MAY mean a delay, and that delay MAY be because they want to introduce even more and better 'pro' features after reading threads like these to appease the masses (even though they claim Apple is just appeasing the masses and freely admit they are in some vanishingly small group of elite users, but I digress).

It's like this girl I used to date. I would say something like "We're going to be late to the movie," and she would immediately infer that meant I wanted to talk about the relationship, I thought those jeans made her butt look fat, and I was planning on leaving her for someone younger and prettier that she just randomly selected in her head.

And if you think Apple doesn't listen, try Microsoft. They can't even SEE you, much less hear. Or try Linux, where everyone is listening, but no one is in charge enough to do anything. Or try Chrome, where they are watching and listening to everything you do, but not in the way you want them to.

Well said. I think we dated the same girl!

 

[v3rlon]

Well said. I think we dated the same girl!

Yeah, well you can keep her.

 

[Wild-Bill]

Maybe they pulled all the Photos developers to help fix the Yosemite hot mess.

I, for one, am glad I'm still on Mavericks.

 

[gnomeisland]

For me, I would've loved it if Apple had brought in the NIK crew instead of letting Google snap them up. An Aperture / NIK mashup would've been awesome! Apple has a history of buying up smaller firms for thier tech and talent but I guess they are just not that interested in this arena. I realize it's not a huge market but I think they are missing out on another "halo" market that would bring more users to thier hardware. A top notch photo management / editing solution would keep photog users on thier hardware and attract new ones. I don't think that would be a big investment for Apple given thier bottom line.

I'll still hold out on judging Photos until we see it.

Ditto. Upset by so many things about the way Apple has handled Aperture but this may be something worth waiting for. What set Aperture apart for most of us was the DAM and that relied on the same database as iPhoto, a decidedly consumerish program. My hope is that Apple realized they don't have the interest/manpower to keep Aperture competitive as an editing app so instead they are going to give away the DAM elements (tied to a money making cloud service �&#56833 and open up the plugin architecture to tap into Apple's current cache of 3rd party developers. In effect creating the mashup you've dreamed about—though I doubt Nik in particular will jump onboard quickly.

I'm not sure how the plugin's effects are supposed to sync across devices. Perhaps that or the iCloud dependency are the hold ups? We do know at least a few pros have touched this thing as it was teased in the Mac Pro intro video way back when.

 

[JDDavis]

Ditto. Upset by so many things about the way Apple has handled Aperture but this may be something worth waiting for. What set Aperture apart for most of us was the DAM and that relied on the same database as iPhoto, a decidedly consumerish program. My hope is that Apple realized they don't have the interest/manpower to keep Aperture competitive as an editing app so instead they are going to give away the DAM elements (tied to a money making cloud service �&#56833 and open up the plugin architecture to tap into Apple's current cache of 3rd party developers. In effect creating the mashup you've dreamed about—though I doubt Nik in particular will jump onboard quickly.

I'm not sure how the plugin's effects are supposed to sync across devices. Perhaps that or the iCloud dependency are the hold ups? We do know at least a few pros have touched this thing as it was teased in the Mac Pro intro video way back when.

The plugins effects come back to Aperture as a TIFF now so anything in the DAMs library could be synched across mulitple devices (cloud). I haven't tried it yet but your are supposed to be able to continue editing across devices with Pixlemator and it's iPad app. The capability is there in Yosemite and 3rd party integration to offer a seamless experience (that's an Apple ecosystem solution) across devices if Apple wanted to invest in it. I think even if Photos is a basic editor only we'll see synchronization across OS and IOS for edits and viewing. As in if I add a filter to the image on my phone it will show up in the library on my Macbook.

I'm not a huge fan of the cloud so far. I see no need to synch everything across every device. I like having remote access but I don't always like things to be automatic. Right now services like Zenfolio are my "cloud". If I want something on my phone that I edited on the Macbook I just go to Zenfolio, download it in the app, and then upload it to instagram or whatever (then usually delete it off my phone). Probably could be done easier.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

That's a tricky and dangerous game to play for Apple. You might be too young to remember, but definitely during one long period, but really on two periods, the ONLY thing that kept Apple in business was the dedication and loyalty of Pro users of the artsy/graphics type. Apple won their loyalty by producing an OS and applications that took this aesthetic and functionality into account. This kept art users loyal during the lean years and in return allowed Apple to produce a clean a beautiful work environment that later attracted the masses.

Exactly. Apple tried *HARD* to appeal to the mass market in the late '80s to mid '90s. They did terrible.

Then they tried to appeal to the mass market again with the iMac in the late '90s. It may have revived on-death's-door Apple, but it certainly didn't turn it in to the most profitable, most valuable company in the world they are today. Look at the Q4-2001 financials, the Power Mac line dominated their revenue.

Pros kept Apple alive during those periods. Pros kept Apple alive during the early days of the iPod. (Lots of people seem to think the iPod exploded Apple's bottom line and popularity right off the bat - it didn't. It was expensive - so pro music connoisseurs are who bought it. It wasn't until the Windows-compatible 3G iPod, followed by the low cost mini/nano/shuffle that the iPod really took off.) Look at the Q4-2003 financials, the iPod wasn't even as much as the lowest selling Mac line. (That was when they still split up the revenue by Mac line: iMac, iBook, Power Mac, PowerBook.) And, again, Power Mac still dominated.

By 2005 (https://www.apple.com/pr/pdf/q405data_sum.pdf) the iPod had really started to take off, but the Mac still outsold it. Although by this point, Apple had stopped splitting up by model, just "Portables" vs. "Desktops" (And Portables were winning.)

Even 2007 (https://www.apple.com/pr/pdf/q407data_sum.pdf) after the iPhone launch, saw the iPod still lag behind Macs. Although Portables by this point were really pulling ahead of desktops.

By 2010 (https://www.apple.com/pr/pdf/q410data_sum.pdf) mobile had really exploded. The iPhone was doing nearly twice the revenue of the entire Mac line (and Portables brought in twice the revenue of Desktops,) and the newly introduced iPad already sold more units than the entire Mac lineup! (Revenue was still behind.)

 

[skaeight]

I just wonder where things are headed long term. Everyone is going nuts over yesterdays numbers (although I don't understand why, unless you work for the company or a major stockholder), but how long will that continue? Success hides problems.

I actually still kind of haven't fully digested this Lightroom thing yet despite some of my earlier posts. I've got an idea for a movie / slideshow that I want to cut together, and I looked at Lightroom's slideshow capabilities, but they're lacking. So that means i'll be using iMovie, which means that I am going to have to export my images and then import them into iMovie. It's the same deal even when i want to use a picture in Dayone (the iMovie type event is easier to swallow because that's one bulk export, I just have a feeling it's going to get old doing this anytime I want to use an edited photo for something).

The more I get into cases like this the more I realize I'm not 100% sure I want to give up OS level DAM integration.

DAM you Apple for killing Aperture

 

[colorspace]

I just wonder where things are headed long term. Everyone is going nuts over yesterdays numbers (although I don't understand why, unless you work for the company or a major stockholder), but how long will that continue? Success hides problems.

Amen!

I looked at Lightroom's slideshow capabilities, but they're lacking.

Amen!

So that means i'll be using iMovie, which means that I am going to have to export my images and then import them into iMovie.

I LITERALLY JUST HAD TO DO THIS! Much faster and more graceful with Aperture. Pretty happy with how it turned out but...while iMovie result is 20% better, it takes about 600% as much work as doing it in Aperture directly. My video here:

https://vimeo.com/117356196

PS - LR5 did a FANTASTIC job on the RAW astro photos!

DAM you Apple for killing Aperture

AaahYep.

 

[skaeight]

Amen!



Amen!



I LITERALLY JUST HAD TO DO THIS! Much faster and more graceful with Aperture. Pretty happy with how it turned out but...while iMovie result is 20% better, it takes about 600% as much work as doing it in Aperture directly. My video here:

https://vimeo.com/117356196

PS - LR5 did a FANTASTIC job on the RAW astro photos!



AaahYep.

Can you mix video in with stills in Aperture?

 

[OreoCookie]

Apple isn't that company anymore (fortunately or unfortunately, not sure which - they might not be here if they hadn't made the change). I love my iPhone and iPad, but they've changed their focus. They make almost all of their money from iPhones, not Mac Pros. That's where they're going to put their focus. That's why they're coming out with a watch. It's a similarly priced gadget that they can sell to the mass market.

I think this is a fundamentally flawed view of the company and its strategy -- and the iOS devices fundamentally skew the perspective here (which then causes a lot of angst as evidenced here). So let's assume the Mac were to split off from Apple, it'd be a company with $6.6 billions in revenue last quarter (for the hardware alone, although you could make an argument that we should add revenue from the Mac app store and such). That's about 1/3 of all of Google's and 1/4 of all of Microsoft's revenue. And it's a profitable business, and Apple is in the business of profitable businesses. Secondly, the Mac is an integral part of their integrated computing experience, and you can tell by the tadpole features they chose for iOS 8 and 10.10 that it's all about integration and shared features (such as extensions which debuted on both OSes). I see no sign of Apple deemphasizing the Mac. Hardware-wise Macs are best-of-breed, and Apple has consistently anticipated trends.

I think the weakest point in Apple's portfolio is software (it's hardware is the best it has ever been IMHO, if I compare my 2014 Retina MacBook Pro to my 2010 MacBook Pro, it's amazing how far we have come). What people forget is that not just Aperture stagnated, but all iApps (iPhoto, iMovie and the three iWork apps). And this is part of a larger trend where Apple seems understaffed on the software front, and software isn't updated regularly anymore, and the software that they do update seems less polished. What makes things worse is Apple is involved in the middle of a transition that also other companies are involved in (have a look at Microsoft, they are literally embarking on the same journey now with their rewrite of Office and other apps to be »universal«, meaning you can use them on phones, tablets and ordinary PCs). In case of photo apps, it's the fact that one central feature people want is syncing, and I'm not just speaking of people who use their iPhone to take snapshots and want that to appear on all of their devices immediately. So let's be conservative for a second and assume Photo is designed to be a replacement for iPhoto only. The main difference between the two is in how photos are stored, iPhoto was born as part of the old »digital hub« strategy. Photo adopts a cloud-centric storage model. I'm not sure whether the cloud is advanced enough to be feasible also for »pros« (or whatever you want to call people who prefer an Aperture/Lightroom-class DAM software to an iPhoto-class DAM software). But it would definitely solve problems for some of us -- including myself. I needed to split my library in two after switching to a Retina MacBook Pro because of storage limitations. Managing these two libraries manually is a royal pain for me, and while the solution now is alright (I store my old library on a NAS and the current one on the internal SSD), it is nowhere near seamless. If you look around this forum, I see that a lot of people here have similar problems. The iWork suite has similar problems where the Mac app takes one or two steps back so that Apple can reap the benefits in the future. I'm not claiming that the execution was a success, but it's clear that this is where Apple is going.

Even on iOS I see the same software problems as on the Mac: did you notice the lack of tadpole apps on iOS devices? A decade ago each time Apple revved OS X, they introduced a new iLife suite or so. iOS now has very powerful APIs, extremely powerful hardware (the iPad Air 2 has about the same computational prowess as a 2011 11" MacBook Air), but Apple's own software does not seem powerful enough compared to the hardware.

I am a little worried for Apple's software efforts as a whole, but I don't see Apple's Aperture fiasco as part of giving up on the Pro market, far from it. It's part of the failure of its software division to keep up with the growth of its hardware division. According to me, Apple's biggest challenge is not to enter new markets, redefine other categories or some such, it needs to bring its software to where its hardware is.

 

[robgendreau]

An irony here is that some of us thought the pre-cloud sharing in iTunes and iPhoto/Aperture was MUCH better than the Photostream junk. You just clicked share and boom your whole LAN, which meant your whole family, had access.

I can understand Apple then trying to add something similar through the cloud for iOS to share, but that doesn't explain why the LAN sharing got dropped. And of course Apple's cloud thing has never been simple to use, and it currently even more confused with an iCloud Photo Library with the desktop piece missing. Again, I can live with a choice to pass on a new feature, but I don't understand dumping good features people like.

Another example is Pages. People were PO'd at some of the changes in Pages, apparently necessary to make OS X/iOS integration better. But then they lost features like advanced search and replace. So, for example, you can no longer search on say "iOS" and replace with "iOS." Whaaa?

But hey, at least they aren't as mercenary and stupid as Intuit.

 

[OreoCookie]

An irony here is that some of us thought the pre-cloud sharing in iTunes and iPhoto/Aperture was MUCH better than the Photostream junk. You just clicked share and boom your whole LAN, which meant your whole family, had access.

I think the problems you need to solve for advanced users are much more difficult than those for consumers. I think right now what is interesting is that all companies start with solutions from the opposite direction: in the past, let's say 10 years ago, many features of »pro«/more advanced software trickled down to »consumer« grade/less powerful software (think of the progression from Photoshop to Photoshop Elements, for instance, or Final Cut Pro to Final Cut Express). Nowadays, the flow is often reversed, e. g. the new version of Microsoft Office builds on top of the iPad version! Especially interface-wise, pro apps take a lot of inspiration from more focussed, less feature-laded apps (and I believe this is a great thing).

If you think of the sync problem, there are quite a few problems which are much more severe, e. g. the amount of data you need to move around is much, much larger (300~400 GB in my case). And I don't just want to have a copy in the cloud, I also at least want a full backup of everything on, say, my NAS, so that if I stop paying for Apple's service or Apple's service goes down, I have a complete backup. Sharing also becomes much more delicate, especially if you use your library with colleagues and/or clients -- you certainly don't want them to have access to everything. How do you handle multiple libraries?

It seems to me that Apple's new Photos app slots in somewhere in the middle: it has a very simple storage model, but offers at least intermediate-level editing tools. And I can picture very easily that Apple could add very sophisticated image editing functionality by simply »borrowing« code from Aperture.

 

[VirtualRain]

I am a little worried for Apple's software efforts as a whole, but I don't see Apple's Aperture fiasco as part of giving up on the Pro market, far from it. It's part of the failure of its software division to keep up with the growth of its hardware division. According to me, Apple's biggest challenge is not to enter new markets, redefine other categories or some such, it needs to bring its software to where its hardware is.

Well stated. Nice to see some rational thoughtful posts in this thread!

 

[maflynn]

Apple's biggest challenge is not to enter new markets, redefine other categories or some such, it needs to bring its software to where its hardware is.

Given Apple's release strategy, rushing out new versions, devoid of actual features, and given Yosemite and iOS8's bugs, I'd say that challenge is not being met quite yet. My hope for WWDC 2015 is see some serious work on Yosemite, to make that a stable platform, and not see a new version is a raft a new features. The same with the Photo's app but I think it will follow in the footsteps of the other apps. Basic functionality, and they'll slowly start adding new features.

 

[OreoCookie]

Given Apple's release strategy, rushing out new versions, devoid of actual features, and given Yosemite and iOS8's bugs, I'd say that challenge is not being met quite yet. My hope for WWDC 2015 is see some serious work on Yosemite, to make that a stable platform, and not see a new version is a raft a new features.

I don't think new versions of their OSes are devoid of new features, the Continuity stuff is something I use all the time. Finishing e-mails I started on my iPhone on my Mac is something I do all the time. Ditto for taking and making phone calls via my Mac. 10.9 gave me significant improvements in battery life. The file syncing API works great both, for my NAS cloud and Dropbox (it's quite a testament that it works as well as Dropbox, I think).

So I think it's actually the opposite, because they're adding so many features both, above and under the hood, they are overextending themselves. Those new features lack polish or aren't 100 % reliable. E. g. it took some doing to get Continuity going in the first place. When I switch between monitors, my menu bar items start dancing and flickering. Sometimes I run into strange performance problems (on a mid-range 2014 Retina MacBook Pro). And secondly, I think their yearly release cycle makes it harder to include things which do not fit a yearly release cycle. Apple desperately needs a new filesystem. It's not just about the performance problems of HFS+ or the lack of integrity via checksumming, but many features such as snapshots and sync would be much easier to implement and more reliable if you had a modern filesystem. But filesystems are a tough problem and a hard transition: people don't take data loss lightly. I'll be fine since I'm a backup fetishist, but think of all the other people.

The same with the Photo's app but I think it will follow in the footsteps of the other apps. Basic functionality, and they'll slowly start adding new features.

Yup, I think this is the way they'll go about this. The difficult part of this is to get syncing right.

 

[maflynn]

So I think it's actually the opposite, because they're adding so many features both, above and under the hood, they are overextending themselves

I'll give you that, they are definitely pushing the envelope on rolling out new versions without really addressing issues in the current version. While I've not been bitten yet, there are many bugs in Yosemite that have not been addressed.

 

[OreoCookie]

I'll give you that, they are definitely pushing the envelope on rolling out new versions without really addressing issues in the current version. While I've not been bitten yet, there are many bugs in Yosemite that have not been addressed.

If you listen to the latest episode of the podcast Debug, the former directors of OS X and iOS give you a peek how the sausage was made. Basically, they don't get around to fixing lower priority bugs anymore, because they have more than enough on their plate with showstopper bugs. I haven't had wireless problems on my two machines, but a good friend of mine has serious problems with his machine (which is also a 2010 15" MacBook Pro like one of my machines).

 

[maflynn]

If you listen to the latest episode of the podcast Debug, the former directors of OS X and iOS give you a peek how the sausage was made. Basically, they don't get around to fixing lower priority bugs anymore, because they have more than enough on their plate with showstopper bugs. I haven't had wireless problems on my two machines, but a good friend of mine has serious problems with his machine (which is also a 2010 15" MacBook Pro like one of my machines).

I forget where I read it but when Federighi was brought to over see OS X and iOS, he changed how they developed the OS. They now basically race to release major upgrades every year and ignore the bugs. I too have not had wifi issues but I know too many people who have. The thing that is important to remember imo is that Apple's recent track record regading rolling out applications.

They are typically a shell of their former self, devoid of features and then as time goes on, Apple slowly releases features. I stand by my assessment of apple dropping the ball with Aperture. Their actions coupled with focus on the consumer means the Aperture successor will be less featured then its older brother.

Apple realizes the majority of people who take pictures do not need a DAM to manage terabytes of pictures but rather the consumer who's interested in uploading to Facebook.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Edit:
Here's the article I was referencing

I think it speaks volumes in how apple rolls out their software

Apple here is effectively stuck in a Catch-22. The company is innovating like crazy and introducing waves of new features at a rapid clip. With such a "sprint development system" in place, bugs are inevitable.

 

[OreoCookie]

They are typically a shell of their former self, devoid of features and then as time goes on, Apple slowly releases features. I stand by my assessment of apple dropping the ball with Aperture. Their actions coupled with focus on the consumer means the Aperture successor will be less featured then its older brother.

You get no disagreement from me, we are just arguing the »why«s. I think Apple has unfortunately not learnt from the way it has introduced Final Cut Pro X where it seems to me the product was good, but the expectations weren't managed properly. I think Apple should have introduced Final Cut Pro X as a successor for Final Cut Express first, but told professionals that Final Cut Pro X will eventually be based on Final Cut Xpress, and that they welcome feedback and feature requests. I think the reaction would have been much more positive. I think managing such transitions is also about managing expectations.

Ditto here: I think it was premature to can an app which was selling well, and is quite advanced without any successor in sight.
Apple realizes the majority of people who take pictures do not need a DAM to manage terabytes of pictures but rather the consumer who's interested in uploading to Facebook.

I think it'll be years until Apple has a basis for something that is the functional equivalent of Aperture. And that makes me quite sad.

What is even more frustrating is given its popularity in the app store, I would expect more effort put into it. Is it just me or does Apple seem to care more about music than photography?

Edit:
Here's the article I was referencing

I think it speaks volumes in how apple rolls out their software

Thanks for the article. These sprints are part of a philosophy called agile development where you release early and often, and always try to keep things working. Agile development is not a silver bullet, and especially if you are understaffed, no design philosophy will help you -- unless you are either staffing up or reducing your expectations. Basically all of my friends who are programmers are using at least aspects of agile development, and it is something you are expected to know these days. And compared to Microsoft, Apple is working at light speed: Apple manages to churn out roughly 1 build of its operating systems each day, compared to Windows where it seems to be days to weeks until new code reaches the main source repository. Maybe that was accelerated when Federighi took over, but over 11 years ago, they already had several builds per week.

The problem with yearly cycles is that your team just has 4-6 months time to work on the new OS (because they also need to work on fixes of the old release), and I think they should slow down and adopt either release a new OS every other year or at least a tick-tock strategy where you alternate between new features and polish. I don't think agile development is the problem, just like anything, if your organization is resource-starved, it won't help solve a problem either. It seems to me that their non-OS app teams had to bleed resources for each release.

 

[skaeight]

You get no disagreement from me, we are just arguing the »why«s. I think Apple has unfortunately not learnt from the way it has introduced Final Cut Pro X where it seems to me the product was good, but the expectations weren't managed properly. I think Apple should have introduced Final Cut Pro X as a successor for Final Cut Express first, but told professionals that Final Cut Pro X will eventually be based on Final Cut Xpress, and that they welcome feedback and feature requests. I think the reaction would have been much more positive. I think managing such transitions is also about managing expectations.

I think it'll be years until Apple has a basis for something that is the functional equivalent of Aperture. And that makes me quite sad.

What is even more frustrating is given its popularity in the app store, I would expect more effort put into it. Is it just me or does Apple seem to care more about music than photography?

Thanks for the article. These sprints are part of a philosophy called agile development where you release early and often, and always try to keep things working. Agile development is not a silver bullet, and especially if you are understaffed, no design philosophy will help you -- unless you are either staffing up or reducing your expectations. Basically all of my friends who are programmers are using at least aspects of agile development, and it is something you are expected to know these days. And compared to Microsoft, Apple is working at light speed: Apple manages to churn out roughly 1 build of its operating systems each day, compared to Windows where it seems to be days to weeks until new code reaches the main source repository. Maybe that was accelerated when Federighi took over, but over 11 years ago, they already had several builds per week.

The problem with yearly cycles is that your team just has 4-6 months time to work on the new OS (because they also need to work on fixes of the old release), and I think they should slow down and adopt either release a new OS every other year or at least a tick-tock strategy where you alternate between new features and polish. I don't think agile development is the problem, just like anything, if your organization is resource-starved, it won't help solve a problem either. It seems to me that their non-OS app teams had to bleed resources for each release.

I'm hoping that the conversation that is going on in the Apple community about software quality will make Apple consider slowing new OS releases down. They do respond to these types of things from time to time, so it is a possibility.

In the photo management front I've decided to personally take a step back and wait to see what Photos is once its released and also to give it a little bit of time to mature.

I was actually fully migrated to Lightroom and at first was very excited about using the photography Creative Cloud suite for my photo management, but the loss of easy iCloud sharing and the loss of having the DAM integrated into the OS really started to bug me.

I'm also ultimately looking towards going to FCPX for video, so again I want that DAM integration if I can get it.

So I'm back in Aperture for now. When I went back I actually felt like I was home again, everything just flows there and I can edit things so quickly (I just really wish they weren't killing it). We'll see what happens. I'm not expecting miracles right away, but I'm hoping Photos and Pixelmator will give me most of what I need in the long run, we'll see though. If it's a disaster LR 6 should be out about the same time and I can give it another try.

Oh and for those wondering what I'm doing with lens correction. I'm just going to use PTLens when I need it, but I've realized that isn't very often, my primary 1.8 35mm doesn't have distortion, it's only the kit zoom lens at wide angles that distorts, and I'll be using this if I need a wide angle lens. This shouldn't be too frequent, so I can deal with round tripping to a TIFF on those rare occasions. I really do hate having to manage all these trade offs though... :-/

 

[robgendreau]

I can envision a meeting where some Apple dude/dutte says "why do we even care about those DSLR/RAW people? those things are going the way of the floppy disk anyway." And everyone going "yup, let's concentrate on iPhone photos and sharing them." Certainly not an indefensible stand for a hardware company.

But OTOH they've gotta make their computers work. Like wifi. I'm WAY more concerned about the basics than the fate of a replaceable photo application, or even gimmicky OS addons. The whole point of the no-clones, tight integration was that things like ports and connectivity and such would Just Work. Get that done and everything else is gravy.

 

[VirtualRain]

I can envision a meeting where some Apple dude/dutte says "why do we even care about those DSLR/RAW people? those things are going the way of the floppy disk anyway." And everyone going "yup, let's concentrate on iPhone photos and sharing them." Certainly not an indefensible stand for a hardware company.

But OTOH they've gotta make their computers work. Like wifi. I'm WAY more concerned about the basics than the fate of a replaceable photo application, or even gimmicky OS addons. The whole point of the no-clones, tight integration was that things like ports and connectivity and such would Just Work. Get that done and everything else is gravy.

You reminded me of this... http://9to5mac.com/2014/07/14/apple...ast-retail-employees-to-test-os-x-photos-app/

We are seeking a technical and passionate photography enthusiast to join our Quality Assurance team working on Photos for OS X. You will be part of a fast moving team of specialists tasked with delivering the next generation of photography tools for Apple.

Now I'm sure the average teenage girl's obsession with iPhone selfies might qualifier them as passionate photography enthusiasts, but we can only hope that what they're looking for are the types of people that shoot RAW with DSLRs. Incidentally, I never heard back

 

[skaeight]

I can envision a meeting where some Apple dude/dutte says "why do we even care about those DSLR/RAW people? those things are going the way of the floppy disk anyway." And everyone going "yup, let's concentrate on iPhone photos and sharing them." Certainly not an indefensible stand for a hardware company.

I don't see that, they've put considerable work into the underlying photo processing engine (which is already in Yosemite), plus they're stating that iCloud will accept RAWs (and does - I've seen this on RAWs loaded into my iPAD) and sync non-destructive edits across devices. Those aren't things that iPhone only people need.

The biggest question is how much the GUI on top will do.

 

[Razeus]

The app has been delayed.

Something tells me we won't see anything regarding a Photos desktop app until OS X 10.11.