I have to disagree with the "iPhoto users will love it" reasoning that many people fall back on.
While it clearly isn't an Aperture replacement for Pro users, I dont feel that its that great for amateurs either. Lets be honest, even though the interface emulates the iOS photos app, who the heck uses the iOS photos app?!? I know many people who've moved their entire lives and memories to the iPhone camera and NONE of them know how to edit photos in the photos app. So this claim that "Its better than iPhoto" or "Its just like iOS Photos.app" may be true when discussing operation and granular features, in the hands of most average users then none of this stuff is easy to figure out.
I really feel that giving the finger to Aperture users really doesnt make sense because in the end then we're the only ones editing photos on a computer.
True, but the sliders in Photos for "Light" and "Color" go a long ways toward making photo editing easier for the average Joe. Not everyone knows what adjusting the exposure means, but people know they want their photo lighter or darker.
Maybe Apple's smarter than we give them credit for... by giving the average Mac and iPhone owner a simple photo editing tool, maybe they'll start using them, and ultimately demand more, and maybe then when there's enough demand, we'll get a full-blown RAW converter again
I played with Photos briefly last night and the only thing that I found surprising was the amazing performance. It's unbelievably responsive compared to Aperture, which was way more responsive than Lightroom, Capture One, or DxO. The other RAW app vendors need to talk to Apple and figure out how to make their apps just as snappy. It's night and day different!