Apple’s been steadily updating their full fledged photo application, Aperture. Some have been disappointed that we haven’t seen a major update to version 4.0 yet I’m quite happy and enthusiastic about Aperture’s trajectory. While it’s true we haven’t seen the BIG update yet, I’m confident that it’s not far off. The rumor I’ve heard is that Aperture was rewritten from the ground up and has released as what seems like a minor upgrade, even though under the hood there were huge changes. This seems reasonable since the first iteration of Aperture wasn’t really ready for primetime. I actually switched to Apple computers due to Aperture, found it had issues and moved over to Lightroom. Around Aperture 3.0 I switched back over to Aperture for many reasons but mainly due to it’s superior speed and better ability to handle video. That’s where I’m at today and very happy with 90% of what Aperture offers.
Screen shot of my current Aperture library
I’m confident Aperture is here to stay and there’s been good evidence to suggest I’m right. We’ve seen Aperture being highlighted in the newest commercials that Apple’s produced for the new MacBook Pro Retina. We’ve seen regular updates which have made definite improvements to the actual software, and finally Apple has been adding RAW support for the most popular cameras fairly quickly. They actually beat Adobe to the punch with RAW support for the Nikon D600. Quickly supporting new cameras is a big change and greatly appreciated.
If you haven’t downloaded the newest version make sure you update via your software updates option in the APP store. Aperture is finally getting to be the program I hoped for from the first day I used it. If nothing else, Apple brought us reasonably priced software which forced Adobe to do the same. With Apple breathing down Adobe’s neck, we win, just like the competition between Nikon and Canon.