Apple Aperture “Now Shipping”

Caitlin noticed this today:

I’m so excited about the release of this product that I started a Flickr group just for the hell of it which is strange for someone who is going to have to live a little vicariously—I’m probably skipping this release and buying the 2.0 like I did with Apple Keynote.

Why? Because as an avid hobbyist and consumer, I’m priced out of the target market. Oh, this isn’t sour grapes, it’s having already spent too much on photography this year. I’m not one of those crazys who wishes that Aperture is a Photoshop killer. No, I knew from the beginning that the people who should be worrying should be Phase One CaptureOne, and haven’t changed my story about that.

Yes, I hated Adobe’s new promotion of their PC copy protection to the Mac world so much that I didn’t upgrade Photoshop this cycle. But I know the difference. Why? Because I actually use the stuff, and am not some pissant pundit who confuses wishful thinking with reality.

(One time, long ago, Apple approached Adobe with the idea of iPhoto and iMovie and Adobe turned it down. They realized that they had to make it themselves and went on to make it themselves. We forget this because Apple got a big scare with the coming of MP3 and the CD burner and then got sidetracked with the iPod.)

What is Apple Aperture? Well look at their website and they spell it out.1 It’s a RAW workflow application and if you take tens of thousands of RAW photographs a year, then you know immediately the value in that. iPhoto can’t handle that and Adobe Bridge is a joke at this level. In the PC world, there are a number of competitors but Mac users have been mostly given the short shrift. Even cross-platform tools such as CaptureOne have a distinctly un-Mac-like user-interface.

No, this workflow application uses Core Image which levers something Apple still kicks Microsoft’s ass with even after Windows Vista finally reaches us: the hardware and the graphics card. And it does it in a distinctly Mac-like way, the way people who use the damn thing actually want it to work if we had a quad processor G5 sitting and two 30″ displays and to hell with everything else, we want Final Cut Pro for Photographers.

But it comes with the Final Cut Pro 1.0 price. And that coupled with a few 1.0 shortcomings is some cause for trepidation.

So please, when you get this, tell me about your experiences.

1 Check out the videos of how three top pros (Heinz Kluetmeier, Joe Buissink, and Richard Burbridge) use Aperture and prepare to be inspired. Kudos to whoever does the editing of these at Apple. There is another take home message here. What do those three people use? A Canon, a Nikon, and a Hassleblad with a PhaseOne scanning back. I’ll have to think about that next time I want to blame my equipment or brag about my brand choice.

2 thoughts on “Apple Aperture “Now Shipping”

  1. Me too. I think it is reasonable for what it does (same as CaptureOne) but I was hoping they would tear down the price wall like Final Cut Pro did to Avid.

    If Final Cut Studio and iWork is any indication, either they will add a lot more features or they will lower the price.

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