| Thursday, December 22, 2005 |
20:28 - Aperchurn
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Aperture has certainly come in for a lot of criticism already in its short life. Even if we (unfairly) dismiss the Ars Technica review as the work of a crank more interested in crowing over flaws he's found than in presenting a balanced review, the VersionTracker reviews (a solid 1.0 stars—ouch!—though the just-released 1.0.1 update is a whole half-star better), many from pro photographers with tart words for Apple, have got to count for something.
But then, so has this—a much more positive take on it, also from a pro-photographer perspective; not without its guardedness, but also a lot more dedicated to making Aperture sing the way it was apparently meant to, in ways that those who see it only as a half-baked Photoshop imitator were unable or unwilling to ferret out.
Now this is the most important point I want to make. Stop concentrating on what Aperture WON’T do, and start concentrating on what it WILL do. You’ll get a bunch more out of the program if you take that approach. It is not, nor has it ever been, designed to be a Photoshop replacement.
Why are people so obsessively comparing Aperture to Photoshop? The blame has to be shared by three groups. The media hasn’t helped because in the interest of getting a story done quickly, they used the easy comparison, i.e., Photoshop. The photo community is partly to blame for not being willing or able to open their minds to a new paradigm, and Apple is partly to blame as well. I think Apple made three big mistakes with Aperture. One: They over-hyped it - but then again, all companies seem to do this lately. Two: They overpriced it. $299 would have probably been a more reasonable price point and would have helped to manage expectations. Three: Apple rushed to market in order to get it out before Xmas and/or MacWorld. But the past is the past. It’s time for everyone to take a deep breath and look at the future.
In fact, the author, Scott Bourne, has a whole blog on the subject. This many posts so far, and it looks like there might be more to this than just an uncharacteristic whiff by Apple.
I sure hope so. Apple has a big opportunity to either own a market segment or lose it forever.
Via Daring Fireball.
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Brian Tiemann
