Apple Ships Aperture 3
Tuesday, February 9, 2010 at 10:31AM The long-awaited, much-doubted Aperture 3 is available today. Amongst other things, Faces and Places from iPhoto are available in Aperture 3.
I'll have more to say later once I've had a chance to install and play, but I wanted to remark on one thing straight away: Aperture 3 is being marketed as a direct upgrade for consumers from iPhoto.
A few points of evidence:
- The marketing line on apple.com is "Pro performance. iPhoto simplicity.", implying that iPhoto users could easily step up to Aperture.
- The main Aperture page has four sub-boxes: "What is Aperture?", "New in Aperture 3", "Aperture in Action" and "Go from iPhoto to Aperture".
- There's a full two pages of content on "Why move" and "How to move" from iPhoto to Aperture.
Since 1.0, the Aperture team has been on a mission to continually refine and simplify the Aperture interface. Aperture 2 was a big step in closing the simplicity gap with iPhoto. I don't yet know that Aperture 3 has closed it, but Aperture has never before been so heavily marketed at iPhoto users as this version is.
I've been saying for some time that the more modern, more scalable Aperture should at some point become Apple's only photogaphy application for both professionals and amateurs. Is today the first step on that road?
aperture, iphoto, photography in Tech
Reader Comments (5)
My approach (which may or may not make any sense from Apple's point of view), would be to have a unified product that has paid for (and demo-able) extension packs.
How ever you do it though, it must be very difficult deciding what is a basic feature and what is a pro feature. Particularly if you're striving to place all features in a clean and consistent interface.
Call me a geek, but I like the nice javascript additions to the Aperture marketing pages. The "Enlarge" tool tips when hovering over screenshots, giving way to a zoomable screenshot is very very cool.
It's just a reminder that innovation is ingrained in Apple as a company, in not only its products, but also its packaging and marketing.
Also notice that iLife is £71 and Aperture is £169 so the price gap has narrowed and upgrade is only £79 I'd prefer to move to Aperture if after the initial purchase it's a similar cost for the upgrades.
Aperture 3 is nice so far. I kind of like having a dedicated pro app, but if it will help with Aperture's widespread adoption - and if performance doesn't somehow take a hit - then maybe it should supplant iPhoto.
One thing's for sure, the Flickr upload is so weak compared to what I've gotten used to with FlickrExport. *Please* give us 64-bit, Frasier!
I primarily upgrade iLife for the iPhoto update. I use that app all the time. Aperture has always appealed to me, I just haven't brought myself to make the jump yet.
Version 3 is pretty sweet, but $199 is a lot with the iPad months away...