Aperture future in question as Apple axes bulk of team

http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0604aperture.html

Aperture future in question as Apple axes bulk of team

By Ryan Katz, Senior Editor
April 27, 2006 - Apple recently asked the engineering team behind its
Aperture photo editing and management software to leave, Think Secret
has learned. The move, which resulted in the departure of several
engineers while others were transferred to different projects inside
Apple, raises questions about the future of Aperture, Apple's most
heavily criticized and bug-ridden pro software release in recent years.
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Sources familiar with Apple's professional software strategy said they
were not surprised by the move, describing Aperture's development as a
"mess" and the worst they had witnessed at Apple.

Aperture's problems stem not from any particular area that can be easily
remedied but rather from the application's entire underlying
architecture. In the run-up to Aperture's November release last year,
for example, sources report that responsibility for the application's
image processing pipeline was taken away from the Aperture team and
given to the Shake and Motion team "to fix as best they can." Some of
those enhancements emerged in the recently released Aperture 1.1 update,
which saw its release delayed for about two weeks as a result of the
extra work needed to bring it up to spec.

In tandem with the 1.1 update, Apple dropped Aperture's price tag from
$499 to $299 and offered owners of version 1.0 a $200 coupon for the
Apple Store. Industry watchers and users alike have viewed the price cut
as a maneuver to stave off competition from Adobe's forthcoming
LightRoom software, a beta of which is available for Mac OS X users, and
see the Apple Store coupon as a concession for early adopters who
collectively appear to have been expecting more from Apple.

Perhaps the greatest hope for Aperture's future is that the
application's problems are said to be so extensive that any version 2.0
would require major portions of code to be entirely rewritten. With that
in mind, the bell may not yet be tolling for Aperture; an entirely new
engineering team could salvage the software and bring it up to Apple's
usual standards.

I'll bite the apple.
Sounds to me like Apple as usual: abandon users en masse.
Even if Aperture were not buggy the development of such an arcane piece of
software makes no financial sense as the potential market world wide is so
small that development costs could not be made back.
Then Apple can't even release the thing for its new Mactel (abandoning
previous users again!) platform.
Apple is dead as a computer platform.
Get over it.

bmoag wrote:

I'll bite the apple.
Sounds to me like Apple as usual: abandon users en masse.
Even if Aperture were not buggy the development of such an arcane piece of
software makes no financial sense as the potential market world wide is so
small that development costs could not be made back.
Then Apple can't even release the thing for its new Mactel (abandoning
previous users again!) platform.
Apple is dead as a computer platform.
Get over it.

As a longtime Mac user I cant say I've ever been "abandoned"! Apple has
had the guts to embrace new technology twice when the old technology hit
a dead end (IBM powerPC cpu's this year and 68000 cpu's in 1994) and
both times backward compatibility has been beautifully maintained.

Apple software is still, and looks like always will be more refined and
advanced than on the Windows side. And now, it looks like their market
share is on the increase. Get your facts straight.

l e o wrote:
http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0604aperture.html

Aperture future in question as Apple axes bulk of team

Well, Aperture just was not working. It is possible that Apple will do
a complete re-write, but why? I never did find a use for Aperture that
was not already covered by CS2, although the canned books and web pages
were okay. At least Apple was willing to compensate us, after a
fashion, for the $200 price reduction.

I suspect that Aperture will go the way of such "noble experiments" as
"Bob," "Framework" and that early PC windowed operating system
developed by IBM -- I forget its name, OS/2? On the other hand, Apple
might do as Microsoft did with its lame spreadsheet program -- rewrite
it and release it with a new name.

Most Aperture users could not but help compare Aperture unfavorably to
LightRoom, which runs faster and with fewer compatibility issues. A
visit to the Apple Discussions board reveals that even Aperture's most
enthusiastic proponents recognized that there were serious problems
with the program.

That said, I will continue to use Aperture for the near future, at
least until I get home and have the time to change to something else.

I will also remain committed to the Mac, if for no other reason than
that it causes bmoag to turn purple.

On 27 Apr 2006 21:52:00 -0700, cjcampbell wrote:

I suspect that Aperture will go the way of such "noble experiments" as
"Bob," "Framework" and that early PC windowed operating system
developed by IBM -- I forget its name, OS/2? On the other hand, Apple
might do as Microsoft did with its lame spreadsheet program -- rewrite
it and release it with a new name.

No, not OS/2. That came much later and was a more sophisticated
OS than its early competitor, Win95. You're thinking of IBM's
TopView, which competed with Win 1.x and Gem. Apple abandoned one
other "noble experiment", the name of which escapes me at the
moment. It was their pre-"Palm Pilot" handheld computer, that was
perhaps a bit too large to be truly popular. It also attempted to
do handwriting recognition, but made too many laughable language
mistakes, the digital "Shrub" of its day.

"obt" wrote in message
...


bmoag wrote:

I'll bite the apple.
Sounds to me like Apple as usual: abandon users en masse.
Even if Aperture were not buggy the development of such an arcane piece
of
software makes no financial sense as the potential market world wide is
so
small that development costs could not be made back.
Then Apple can't even release the thing for its new Mactel (abandoning
previous users again!) platform.
Apple is dead as a computer platform.
Get over it.

As a longtime Mac user I cant say I've ever been "abandoned"! Apple has
had the guts to embrace new technology twice when the old technology hit
a dead end (IBM powerPC cpu's this year and 68000 cpu's in 1994) and
both times backward compatibility has been beautifully maintained.

Apple software is still, and looks like always will be more refined and
advanced than on the Windows side. And now, it looks like their market
share is on the increase. Get your facts straight.

Haha, why? Because they are making a better Windows box!

bmoag wrote:
I'll bite the apple.
Sounds to me like Apple as usual: abandon users en masse.
Even if Aperture were not buggy the development of such an arcane piece of
software makes no financial sense as the potential market world wide is so
small that development costs could not be made back.
Then Apple can't even release the thing for its new Mactel (abandoning
previous users again!) platform.
Apple is dead as a computer platform.
Get over it.

The Final Cut Pro users, who have adopted the MacTel boxes, are also up
in arms that Final Cut Pro wasn't ready for the x86 platform. You have
to send your CDs back to Apple, and wait.

Another huge PITA on the MacBook, is the elimination of the CardBus
slot. The new professional studio digital camcorders use digital media
that is on CardBus cards. It is a real pain because USB 2.0 CardBus
reader/writers are apparently not yet available, so editing in the field
is no longer possible. You can't stop filming to download the video over
Firewire (and Firewire 800 was also eliminated). Now you've got all
these editors and producers in a quandary over whether they should buy
the older PowerPC Apple products, for which new application development
has stopped, switch to an XP based platform and video editing
application such as AVID, or try installing OS X on a standard PC
platform that hasn't been decontented.

I was going to buy a MacBook as my next notebook, but I have to have a
Cardbus slot, as I have devices that are just not availble on Express
Card, and I'm not hanging USB devices out the back when travelling.

Steve Jobs was speaking at a city council meeting in my town a week ago.
I should have gone over and asked him to not drop the Cardbus slot on
the 17" MacBook, whenever it comes out.

On Fri, 28 Apr 2006 07:30:24 -0700, SMS wrote:

Steve Jobs was speaking at a city council meeting in my town a week ago.
I should have gone over and asked him to not drop the Cardbus slot on
the 17" MacBook, whenever it comes out.

It's out (as of a few days ago). No CardBus, but it does have a FireWire
800 port (and a 400). Three USB ports (vs 2 on the 15"), and a
dual-layer DVD burner.

http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/

-dms

ASAAR wrote:
On 27 Apr 2006 21:52:00 -0700, cjcampbell wrote:

I suspect that Aperture will go the way of such "noble experiments" as
"Bob," "Framework" and that early PC windowed operating system
developed by IBM -- I forget its name, OS/2? On the other hand, Apple
might do as Microsoft did with its lame spreadsheet program -- rewrite
it and release it with a new name.

No, not OS/2. That came much later and was a more sophisticated
OS than its early competitor, Win95. You're thinking of IBM's
TopView, which competed with Win 1.x and Gem.

I actually tried using TopView and Win 1.0 both. It was interesting,
but mostly an exercise in frustration.

On 28 Apr 2006 19:35:45 -0700, cjcampbell wrote:

No, not OS/2. That came much later and was a more sophisticated
OS than its early competitor, Win95. You're thinking of IBM's
TopView, which competed with Win 1.x and Gem.

I actually tried using TopView and Win 1.0 both. It was interesting,
but mostly an exercise in frustration.

I tried all three, and might still have a copy of TopView buried
somewhere. But you're right, they were interesting and frustrating,
but much less practical and usable than DesqView and DoubleDos.


I actually owned a Newton.

Yep, that's the one I recalled. I wonder if it might have
succeeded if it didn't have the handwriting recognition that got it
so much bad press and ridicule. It had a very loyal following.