Apple's Achilles' Heel?

Not sure why this article started off with Aperture. Seems a little peripheral to the main argument, however, many of the comments in the first paragraph are TOTALLY off the mark. Did Apple ship a buggy version 1.0 of Aperture? Yes. Is that the first buggy 1.0 version anyone ever shipped? No. Is there a comparison between LightRoom and Aperture? You bet your bippy. They are both a NEW BREED of image management programs. In the past we professional photographers have had to deal with several different programs in our digital workflow. Asset managers for sorting and archiving our pictures, Photoshop for editing our pictures, and numerous other programs to make photo books, publish images to web, etc.

Both LightRoom and Aperture are the first programs of a new breed of Workflow Enhancers. Neither one is a "replacement" for Photoshop. For all of Photoshops' wonderful attributes, it has become a huge albatross in terms of trying to be all things for all people. The typical photographic shop only uses about 30% of the total capability of Photoshop. But it's there when you need it. These new programs provide a new streamlined workflow that moves from capture, to sorting and cataloguing, to most used editing tasks, to publishing to web galleries, or making photobooks, proofing, making contact sheets, and printing. Not to mention being a sales tool for your clients. So, in fact, there has been and is a large pent up need for such software.

As to comparisons, LightRoom is barely an Alpha testing program (it was released a few months ago, only on the OSX Mac platform, as a mass "Beta" trial. It is not just a few professional photographers who are "Beta" testing this. It is the whole Mac community. The current Beta looks good, but it is very feature deficient and lacks many basic capabilities. For instance, re-arranging images on screen in the Library is currently impossible. And it has many bugs and problems with Metadata.

Aperture has evolved, through two new releases, into a very stable, and very highly capable program. Early users complained about the basic conversion of RAW files in Aperture. This has been dealt with in spades, and most users now agree that Aperture provides the best basic RAW conversions of any current RAW converter, including LightRoom and Adobe's ACR. It's ability to track image changes, sort and arrange images, produce printed books, prepare and upload web galleries, and export images for print or web is unsurpassed.

Competition is good for the industry. Should Apple just roll over and play dead so Adobe can rule the graphics world? Did Premier get better because of competition for Final Cut?

And by the way, for those who want to use Aperture, it needs some hefty horsepower. The better to seel those upcoming Intel PowerMacs!

As stated in the previous comment, there really is no real comparison of Aperture and Lightroon to Photoshop. These new applications definitely fill a void in the photo world. One of the greatest features of Aperture is it's sheer ability to do non-destructive photo enhancement/manipulation... something that Photoshop hasn't figured out in 11 versions. There are lots of technical advantages to Aperture over Photoshop when dealing with images... sure, ultimately your images will most likely end up in Photoshop when it comes down to image compositing and certain enhancement tasks, but I'll use Aperture to bring in a RAW file and get it ready... many times having no need to enter Photoshop at all.

Come on Michael, I expect you, a trained journalist and respected futurist to do better than this. Thankfully Douglas Wigton has provided the necessary balance to your blinkered and short-sighted take on Lightroom and Aperture. With respect to your article's closing question, you might want to have a look at "In Our Post-PC Era, Apple's Device Model Beats the PC Way" ( http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20060511.html ) by Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal. And since this is a blog about stocks, I think its important to site stock performance and the street's take on Adobe, Apple and Microsoft's future fortunes.

Best,

geo

Well Douglas really said it all but just in case he said too much, lets sum up and simplify.

1) Neither Aperture or Lightroom have anything to do with photoshop.
2) Both programs are of a new and unique nature.
3) Apple has not yet needed to license FairPlay (although they have to Motorola) because the dominate the market and are showing no signs of weakening yet. This dominance has allowed them to go head to head with the labels (which is good for all of us)
4) Something few people think about when thinking that Apple should support WMA is the cost. Microsoft does not give away WMA for free. To add WMA support to the iPod means adding it to iTunes (and probably Quicktime). Which means Apple does not pay for 40 Million licenses, They pay for 800 million licenses.

BTW: The authors friend should take a look at the current version of Aperture. Apple has done a great job of updating this program quickly and Light Room had better stay on it's toes if it wants to compete.

I am not a professional photographer, so I will ignore the Aperture argument. But can we stop comparing the Mac's marketshare to the iPod's? These are not the same scenarios. No one is "developing" for the iPod. Apple needs(ed) developers for the Mac. They should have made some better decisions. But the Mac never had 80% marketshare either. This is where the argument ends. I am tired of people looking at how the Mac "lost" and want to compare it to the iPod. Apple holds all the pieces to the online music puzzle. They won't need to rely on anyone on the outside to continue to keep their marketshare...unless they get content.

I am glad there is competition in this previously unserved software market. The fact that these programs are new software designs is important for their future development.

Apple's OS X platform and software design tools enable much easier development and future enhancements that enable efficient and fast product development. Unfortunately, Photoshop is evidence of the limitations of the older models of software architecture. Microsoft's Windows development is another. I suspect that Adobe will continue to "advance" Photoshops codeset without starting over for quite a while as their profit margin and market dominance pays well for the ineffeciency of their development process.

If Adobe continues to take longer periods for significant upgrades to Photoshop I won't be surprised if Apple doesn't develop a competing product in the future. As Apple's innovation requires software support they may not be able to tolerate Adobe's slow software development.

As to market share; with IBM's corporate market power behind them Microsoft had a significant desktop market dominance before Apple's Mac was even launched. Apple has never focused on the business market which, along with large governments, amounts to a dominant share of PC purchases. PC purchases in "developing" countries has expanded the total market with primarily low-cost PC hardware. Apple is quite profitable and growing despite these statistical "guideposts" that continue to be used without context.

Dear Mr. Rogers,

Your article is so full of logical fallacies, that I recommend that you use a reference book on Logic (Inductive & Deductive) to make sure that your next article does not sound like a gun going off half-cocked. There are a quite a few good sites on the Web that deal with logical fallacies and how to correct them. I would suggest using Mr. Petrosky's distillation of your premises as a starting point to check on the logical coherence of your article.

And Microsoft never undercut a lot of other players, ever? Get real. Apple has done a spectacular job of managing it's own business interests. It is one of the most successful computer companies in the industry. Does BMW have even a 10% market share of the American market? No. Are they successful? Yes. The success or failure of an individual company should be analyzed on it's own merits. Unfortunately, pundits, not common sense drive the market.

The iPod 'ecosystem' is focused on the consumer electronics space - not the traditional computer/OS space that people cite by way of comparison. The computer market focuses on providing a generalized tool to power a variety of applications. Given the diversity of needs being addressed in that market, openness is an asset - it's the high-value proposition in the space.

When it comes to the iPod, we have a very narrow purpose - it plays back media files. It targets a demographic that isn't interested in figuring out how to make it work. Apple's ability to provide a simple end to end experience for the average user is the high-value proposition in this space. This need for simplicity applies to any consumer electronics device, and it is something that Microsoft has not been able to provide via a partner model.

Microsoft's relative lack of success in media players and their incredible success as an OS platform speaks strongly to the different natures of these two spaces.

Openness competes with simplicity, and in the case of the iPod, simplicity wins.

There have been rumors for years about an Apple Photoshop killer in the works. Clearly Apple’s Aperture isn’t that—and neither is Adobe’s Lightroom—but the fact that Apple very aggressively stepped into a valued partner’s space supports what Michael Rogers calls a “go it alone” mentality. Is this good or bad? Who knows? That remains to be seen. And talked about...