So Apple released news today that Aperture is no more.1 You’d think they’d have learned after the Final Cut Pro mess and the iWork mess how to make these announcements. John Gordon captures well what they should have done. I think users understand that Lightroom kicked Aperture’s butt and that sales were decreasing. I think they understand that sales have dropped to near nothing with nearly all pros having already left. What they can’t accept is Apple trying to hide the news by announcing it via Jim Dalrymple’s blog with nothing prepared. Again, you’d think they’d have learned by now.
All they had to do was have Tim Cook come out, announce that because of low sales they aren’t going to be major new releases but that Apple would continue maintenance releases. Further they announce this as they have a new version with the export features so people can move to Lightroom. Trying to get metadata not to mention projects and smart albums into Lightroom is a nightmare according to those who’ve tried. The issue isn’t Apple killing a dying product.2 Rather the issue fundamentally is why people should trust Apple with their data when they’ve pulled this three times in a row.
Data lock isn’t necessarily a bad thing if you think you can transition. When the product gets pulled out from under you with no practical way to transition people get understandably angry. They ask why they should trust you again.3
Now this isn’t me. I’m a light Aperture users. I primarily decided on Aperture because it let me bring my iPhoto metadata with me and let me sync my library to my wife’s iPhoto library. I also loved that it was scriptable. (Adobe’s stuff is scriptable but not by Applescript in normal robust way) I’m not a pro in most senses of the term. Further, depending upon how robust it is, Photos might meet my needs perfectly. But that’s because I don’t have thousands of adjusted pictures that will lose their adjustments4 and I don’t have lots of smart albums or the like. Apple should have known how those people feel.
The real question now is, as Apple pushes more and more the lock-in of iCloud, of iBooks, and of iTunes video, why should we trust Apple if they don’t have a way to get the data out? This is the thing that some activists have preached for years and most of us have discounted.5 But now I think it’s a real question Apple has unintentionally made very significant. Why should I trust Apple not to lose interest in iBooks if sales drop? (Which apparently they have) iTunes Music isn’t a big deal because there’s no DRM. But the rest? Why should I store files in iWork?
Can we trust Apple? The cavalier way Apple is responding is telling us, no we can’t. And that’s a shame because they could easily have made this announcement in a way that said we could.
- It is interesting they announced his on a Friday, much like politicians announce bad news on a Friday hoping no one pay attention over the weekend. ↩
- Although one could easily critique why Apple let it die — this was clearly a management choice where engineers were pulled from the product. Something Apple has done a lot rather than leave enough developers on the project to let it progress. ↩
- I remember Apple fans ridiculing people trusting Microsoft with Plays For Sure DRM when that product collapsed and people lost their data. Many of those same people are pretty flippant about locked data today. ↩
- I doubt rumors of Apple adding a Lightroom export will include being able to port both your raw data files and the adjustments you made to the files. You’ll either have to export as TIFFs or lose your adjustments simply because the math won’t be exactly the same. Heck, I’m skeptical they’ll export anything beyond metadata and files. ↩
- I admit that these “preachers” are kind of like the people saying the economic apocalypse is coming. They got it right in 2008. And now we have to decide with these preachers whether’s it’s coincidence or whether they actually have a point. ↩
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- 43How to merge Apple Photos libraries. Unfortunately requires sufficient iCloud space.
I have to disagree and fortunately you and I will both know in a couple of months who is correct. My bet is that as part of making Photos, apple will be delivering a new database/library to allow third party developers to access your photo library and that both iPhoto and Aperture will push as much of their existing data into that library/database. Now, I’m not betting on access to specific manipulations to photos, because as you said, that seems like something that is unlikely to translate. But albums, faces, locations, meta info of all kinds should be there for all third party developers to access.
As long as Apple keeps things open and accessible to third party developers, I’m still good with giving them control over most of my data, because I don’t fee that they have failed us in the past, despite your claims or concerns. I get that people were reluctant to the change of Final Cut Pro, but it is my understanding that the current release has addressed all of the initial complaints and Apple never forced a transition as they moved to the new version. We have never lost a Movie, TV show, Song or Book purchased from Apple. Abut the biggest disappointment for me has been the loss of their hosting service with MobileMe and I can reproduce 80% of that for free with the iCloud offering. (and more each day).
Note my point was less about their strategy than how they went about breaking the news to customers. I don’t think Apple’s going to abandon iBooks either. But while Tim Cook has improved so much about Apple the past year, the way they leave people hanging really hasn’t been improved. And it pisses people off who get locked into Apple’s ecosystem with no way off.
As I said, I suspect Photos will be a perfect fit for me. My big worries are videos, which I’ve primarily stored in Aperture, and plugins.
However while I’m well enough versed in Apple to know their idiosyncrasies and weaknesses many people aren’t. There’s a lot of attempted lockin going on in the industry and I think people are justifiably afraid to trust companies. Apple’s actions aren’t helping convince those people.
“Can we trust Apple? ” No! Think of the abandonment of numerous products over the whole history of Apple. Think of what dradually got dropped from .Mac. Think of what isn’t there in iCloud. Think of iCloud’s unreliability and lost documents. Think of how many apps upgraded and lost features (iMovie, iWork, …). Think of Apple ID’s random resets of security questions.
I have better things to do than chase after Apple’s stupidity. I now use apps that have a history of backward compatibility and reliability.