In this penultimate installment of
The Feature Thief, where we've been dissecting the corpses of several of Apple's
self-created and then
self-killed or
revamped software apps, we thought we'd take a look at the latest victims. Aperture and iPhoto are the apps that have suffered most recently at Apple's sometimes-brilliant but generally ruthless tendency to kill off popular apps in favor of a bigger overall idea. Both programs are still alive and kicking, but they are like the old man greeting the baby New Year: suddenly graced with the realization of its own mortality.
It was the death of Aperture, or perhaps rather the life of Photos, that prompted this entire
MacNN mini-series. Apple's new photo management software replaces both the professional-level Aperture and the consumer-friendly iPhoto, and we readily say that it does a certain job well. It's fast, responsive, easy to use, and makes iPhoto now look old and creaking to us. Plus, its white minimalist look is a startling change from Aperture's dark black and sombre tone, so much so that Photos feels like it has life and verve. We like Photos, we like Photos a lot -- but then we tried to round-trip edit a photo in Photoshop like we always did, and thought oh.
Specifically, we thought oh, here we go again. This is Pages, this is Final Cut Pro X, actually we have to say now that it's Apple. Apple is back doing its bulldozing, feature-thieving rewrite -- and much as we appreciate Photos, we don't really enjoy being back at this stage.
The original incarnation of iPhoto
We know that the features we've lost will return and, as it happens, we were more affected by the Final Cut Pro X rewrite. We can get along with Photos while we wait, but that's nice for us, there are going to be people for whom this is going to be a serious disruption to their work. It's going to disrupt the very way people do their jobs, the very way that they have become used to handling photographs over a very long time. Particularly the Aperture people, but also the iPhoto fans.
The iPhoto app, in particular, has been with us seemingly forever: it was introduced in 2002, and has had 10 significant versions (the most recent one, though still under the 9.x banner, was a major update for Yosemite that snuck in a fair few UI revamps). For anyone who hasn't upgraded to 10.10.3, it is still the default photo-management app, though as always you can use alternatives if you prefer, and though it was replaced with a new Mac version of Photos on the dock in the recent OS X update, it can still be one's default for a while yet if one prefers.
Speaking of iPhoto fans, 98 out of 100 users have used Apple's tool. The vast majority, 90, have more than 5GB of photos stored inside it. Our entire polled user base is on OS X 10.10 "Yosemite," and most, 70, were upset at the way Apple forced the iPhoto replacement on the world.
Apart from a bit of what is becoming trademark Apple ham-fistedness in the way that Photos removed the iPhoto or Aperture icons from one's dock (but, much more importantly, did not replace the programs themselves, or interfere with existing libraries) with the new update, Apple is actually showing some improvement in how it handles these sorts of product transitions. Photos was first introduced in another, smoother replacement of iPhoto for iOS (which, truthfully, was too different from its OS X counterpart to ever build much of a fan base, good though it was) last year, and has been used without significant issue or complaint by millions of iOS users ever since.
For those people -- particularly the millions who don't use Macs or iPhoto -- it is a great improvement over iPhoto for iOS, and one to which the desktop version would (if there were a Windows app, and don't be surprised if that happens) be a welcome and popular accompaniment. Regarding our polling base of 90 regular iPhoto users, 81 were not happy with the previous version of iPhoto for iOS, and the integration between the desktop and mobile versions, the cloud-based library feature notwithstanding.
Here's where the data from our sampled users gets interesting. Of the 90 regular users, 51 weren't aware that the old version of iPhoto still worked, and most were reluctant to open the app, fearing destruction of the library (which many users had no backup of). Some users had already done so -- 12 of the 90 users had already gone back to iPhoto. When we told them that the old version still worked, 40 told us that they were going home immediately to shift over. The remainder essentially shrugged their shoulders and told us that Apple was moving, so they would as well.
In fact, Photos for iOS and for OS X are sufficiently good that apart from issues of simply getting used to the new app, it won't be iPhoto users who will be the most upset today. The harsher problem is if you were a die-hard Aperture user, as so many people were. Well, not so many people that Apple kept developing its professional software: Aperture users became used to very long waits between updates, they became used to rival Adobe Lightroom getting much more attention.
Aperture users will like the speed of Photos, probably more than iPhoto fans will, because professionals tend to need to keep extremely large libraries of their images, and Aperture struggled with that more than it should. We won't miss how much long it took to scroll through our 30,000 images, and how each time we had plenty of opportunities to wish we'd been better at tagging and labelling shots so that we could find them again.
Now while Photos is faster, it still gives us the opportunity to lament losing Aperture's loupe, which let you magnify tiny sections of an image just to check them out. We can like how Photos has simplified the way you make adjustments to images, but not without fondly remembering the degree of control you had in Aperture. There were brush tools that we've no longer got, there were plugins that, okay, maybe we personally never got around to using, but we could've done and now we can't (at least for now -- Photos does have a plugin-friendly architecture). Plugins tended to be free –– Adobe just released one to help you migrate away from Aperture into its Lightroom –– but we did pay quite a bit for Aperture, and we won't be able to use it for much longer.
Photos comes free with OS X Yosemite, but ten years ago –– on 30 November 2005 –– Aperture 1.0 was released for $500. Mind you, it was really version 1.5 in April 2006 that felt like it made Aperture complete: just as Apple now iterates through adding back features, so it then took many goes before it included the functions you come to see as core and crucial. In all, there were 10 iterations of Aperture version 1 between its release and the launch of Aperture 2.0 in 2007, but other than 1.5, most were bug and stability fixes, compatibility and other minor additions.
Version 1.5 brought the ability for Aperture's photo library to include images that were anywhere on your hard disks. You no longer had to copy photos into Aperture itself, as you always did and do with iPhoto, you could reference them in this one central place but have them actually live on disks that you swapped in and out as needed. To photographers who had to keep archives of shots for clients that they rarely needed but were vital when they did, this was a boon.
It was a ever-increasingly cheaper boon, too: this version also dropped the price to $300, and then perhaps in a sign that sales were not what Apple hoped, version 2.0 dropped it further to $200. The company claimed that 2.0 added in over 100 new features, but still the first thing mentioned was stability and performance. In retrospect, Aperture never did manage to be as responsive as we'd have liked, but hindsight is cruel and the software had its fans. They appreciated how Aperture added tools for retouching and more, they appreciated how the core image processing tools had been redone to make them faster.
Aperture 2.0 didn't get as many updates as the original version did, having just six point releases, and all of which concentrated again on performance and stability as well as adding a few new tools. Version 3.0, on the other hand, has had 25 updates, with the last in October 2014 being to fix compatibility with OS X Yosemite.
Ask an Aperture fan how many updates it's had, though, and they will not guess anywhere near 25 because the perception has long been that Apple stopped updating it. That's entirely fair, completely fair and today totally true. Version 3.0 initially added a claimed 200 further features and they were good -- this is where Apple introduced its smart if little-used face recognition features that are now in Photos, for instance -- and many of the following updates did add solid, substantial features. Yet every one of the 25 was again focused first on bug fixes, compatibility and stability.
Aperture today
This big desktop application, aimed at professionals with demanding needs, was being supported and developed but to such a lessening degree that its greatest fans despaired of there ever being an Aperture 4.
Then there is again that iOS elephant in the world. Aperture, of course, never existed on Apple's mobile platform, which brings us to the main reason these two popular programs are being retired, and perhaps some insight into some previous and future Apple decisions: there are more people who got an iPhone or iPad over the Christmas quarter last year than there are active Mac users in total.
Think on that for a minute: more people upgraded or bought for the first time an iOS device in the last
three months of 2014 than there are active Mac users after
30 years of the latter's development. If you've been following this series wondering why Apple has seemingly lost focus on the creative-professional, prosumer, or (let's just put it this way) the premium home desktop computer user, let it be a mystery no longer: the desktop is far from dead, but the biggest market by far has gone mobile.
Few of our 100 user pool had any experience with Aperture. Eight out of 100 users had ever utilized the application, and all of them used it in a work, not personal, capacity. Seven of the eight want more Aperture functions, and none of the seven have a replacement photo management tool selected, as they assumed that Photos would have more "pro" features at launch. When we demoed Aperture in its final incarnation to the pool, 12 of the users said that they want that, instead of Photos.
What does this have to do with iPhoto or Aperture, you ask? They are both uniquely desktop-oriented applications that really kind of show off a good reason why you still need the power and versatility of a desktop, or at least a pro-level notebook, don't they? Certainly. However, this trend sheds light on Apple's rationale for replacing iPhoto rather than just revising it, the same reason it revamped (and initially savaged) Pages and the rest of the iWork suite: as the mobile device market is its largest by an order of magnitude, any software that could made to work entirely on mobile took priority, and cloud (web app) versions and desktop versions would need to be fully compatible with them. The iPhone leads, the Mac follows.
Apple made several valiant attempts, through routine upgrades to iPhoto and Aperture, to stay on top of the explosion in digital photography it had played a role in creating, but it was never quite enough. Users loved iPhoto's various features and abilities, but it was always falling short in the sophistication of its editing tools, the ability to work with a large number of images, the ability to work with larger RAW files on a level suitable to prosumers, and its frequent revamps of some features such as print product creation and editing left users frustrated.
iPhoto today
Coinciding with the ongoing improvement in devices generally and the move to mobile, it now seems obvious that Apple was going to have to start fresh with a solution that would work across its mobile, cloud, and desktop platforms: some have expressed disappointment (as they always do when this happens) that Photos 1.0 isn't just iPhoto 10.0, but indeed it is a whole new app -- and like iPhoto 1.0, the second, third, and fourth revisions of Photos are likely to add features, both restorative and wholly new, that may delight users . As with OS X 10.0, iWork 1.0, iTunes 1.0, and even hardware like the first iPhone, the promise is there but has yet to be fulfilled -- and if history holds true, Apple will likely do great things with Photos in years to come.
In the meantime, we still have iPhoto and Aperture, and they still work -- and will likely work for quite some time: as we noted yesterday, iWeb still largely works four years after being discontinued. But as there are no guarantees of future compatibility, now is the time to start experimenting with Photos, or checking out alternatives -- while you still have your safe haven to return to.
The big, gleaming, grinning alternative to Aperture right now –– and the obvious winner out of Apple's actions –– is Adobe Lightroom. It's now part of the Adobe Creative Cloud subscription model but, tellingly, the company also makes it available in the smaller scale Creative Cloud Photography bundle. That's a subscription too but is $10/month and primarily gets you Lightroom and Photoshop whereas the full Creative Cloud starts at $30/month and gives you everything Adobe makes. Lightroom is still also offered for sale as a standalone product for $149 if you don't want to get into the subscription model, but don't expect Lightroom 7 to follow that path.
Lightroom is excellent, and when both apps were new and both apps were being developed, the difference between them could even come down to personal taste. Apple, unusually, was wide open -- and you could work on shots, export them, change them, import them back, you could do anything Aperture could manage, and you could do it any order that suited you. Any order, any time, off you go.
Adobe Lightroom said no. You import here, you process there, you export here and that's that. It was a more rigid workflow, and if you preferred one or the other, that's really what it was: a preference. Though Adobe Lightroom of course always had better hooks into the rest of Adobe's software, and increasingly that includes applications for working with mobile devices.
Once traditional Mac users wake up and smell the mobile-market coffee, it's not hard to see why both mobile and cloud development have become such a focus for both Apple and the entire industry; until quantum processors come along to swing us back the other way, mobile devices and cloud services offer the most potential for growth, and increasing the amount of power accessible to a seemingly-insatiable audience of buyers, which helps explain many of Apple's most recent changes and strategy shifts.
Photos flat-out has better editing tools than iPhoto
That's not to say that Apple is turning its back on desktop or pro users, not at all -- but its a big like being the oldest child when a new baby enters the house. Focus is shifted, some things taken too much for granted perhaps, and some pouting and the occasional tantrum and other pleas for attention ensue.
Mac users are always going to be the firstborn, and in some ways a special market for Apple, but the gifts are shifting from copious toys to more practical presents, in a manner of speaking. We're going to have to accept that we aren't the new kids anymore, and the nature of our relationship with our parents, sorry Apple, is going to change and evolve -- but every now and again, Apple is always going to come up with something special just for the Mac market, like it did with the Mac Pro and the 5K Retina iMac.
When it comes to hardware, Apple has become a master craftsman -- and Mac users continue to benefit from this, and will likely do so in future hardware product releases, like the next MacBook Pro or Mac Pro revisions. Whether Apple will ever again focus its resources on software for veteran or pro Mac users is a murkier question, and dependent on future trends and where customers decide their focus should go next -- but it is worth noting that Aperture and Garageband were the last times Apple created pro applications in-house rather than simply buying -- and improving on -- software originally created by an existing company.
Tomorrow
we wrap it up by taking a look at the grandfather of Apple software bitterness, AppleWorks. Yes, the iWork suite was intended as a replacement, but it only goes so far. If you're hanging on to Snow Leopard just to run AppleWorks, you're walking a tightrope without a net. We'll tell you how to move on and move up, and why you really need to -- yes, we're invoking
Frozen -- let it go.
-- William Gallagher (
@WGallagher) and Charles Martin (
@Editor_MacNN), with polling data from Mike Wuerthele
Did you miss earlier installments? Our introduction to the series is here, with Apple's renovation of Pages in Monday's installment. Tuesday featured Apple's video apps, including iPhoto, Final Cut Pro, and iDVD. Wednesday focused on iWeb's abandonment, and can be found here.
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