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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. advertisement 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. |
#2
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Aperture future in question as Apple axes bulk of team
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. |
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Aperture future in question as Apple axes bulk of team
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. |
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Aperture future in question as Apple axes bulk of team
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. |
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Aperture future in question as Apple axes bulk of team
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. |
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Aperture future in question as Apple axes bulk of team
"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! |
#7
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Aperture future in question as Apple axes bulk of team
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. |
#8
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Aperture future in question as Apple axes bulk of team
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 |
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Aperture future in question as Apple axes bulk of team
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. |
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Aperture future in question as Apple axes bulk of team
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. |
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