Read more about Apple Aperture 3.
If Apple (AAPL) is good at anything, it’s vertical integration. Look at what they’ve done in the music industry.
Apple sells, increasingly out of its own amazing retail stores, the following:
1) The computers (the big Macs) and software (Logic Pro) used to make the music.
2) The music itself
3) The computers, iPods, and iPhones used to play the songs back
With the release of photo management and editing software Aperture on November 30, 2005, Apple sent a message that it wants to do something similar for photographers. The consensus is that the original Aperture was a bit of a mess – way too clunky, and way too expensive.
But Apple worked out many of the kinks for version 2.0. Aperture 2.0 was faster, cheaper, and easier to use. In fact, I use Aperture myself to handle my photography work.
Aperture is not a direct competitor to the Adobe (ADBE) Photoshop colossus. After all, Aperture is not for hardcore editing. Aperture does, however, battle directly with another Adobe product, Lightroom.
Lightroom is still the market leader in photo organizing software over Aperture for several reasons, including:
1) It runs on both Windows and Mac
2) It’s an Adobe product, so it has great Photoshop integration
3) A large, and very active community of users
When Aperture 3.0 will be rolled out, I have no idea. Perhaps at the January 27th event for the iPad or iSlate or iGranite or whatever it’s called? But when it does, I predict it will take on Photoshop directly.
In it’s current form, Aperture is fantastic for keeping your photos organized and doing basic edits – most pros or advanced amateur photographers will still use an advanced editing program like Photoshop alongside it. And people pay big money for Photoshop CS4 – about $700 on Amazon.com (AMZN).
That means it takes nearly a grand (if you’re not pirating…) to use Photoshop with an organizing tool like Aperture or Lightroom!
I think Apple wants more of the action in photo sotware, so here are my expectations for Aperture 3.0:
- $299 price tag
- far more advanced image editing capabilities (layers, HDR functionality, etc.)
- much faster RAW updates for new cameras
An expansion of Aperture’s editing capabilities would go a long way in cutting into Photoshop’s near monopoly on editing software. Most pro photographers would probably stick with Photoshop because it’s an industry standard, but I think many hobbyists would go all Apple for their photo needs.
Yes Adobe is still the gold standard for photographic editing and organizing software, but they had better keep an eye in their rear-view mirror.
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