Apple's Aperture 2.0 woes

Apple is famous for being extremely secretive when it comes to new product releases, and for being fiercely aggressive when it comes to defending its secrets through whatever means necessary (lawsuits included). In most cases, when it comes to products with a wide, consumer-market appeal (all iThings: iPods, iPhone, iLife, etc.), this approach has proven to be a valuable cachet: secrecy leads to anticipation, anticipation creates excitement, and excitement generates media buzz, which translates into sales, and propels Apple’s stock price.

Yet, the same no-early-pre-announcements policy has begun to hurt Apple in the professional application market. Apple’s hardware and its own software has, for a long time, been the mainstay of design and media professionals (Aperture, Final Cut, Logic, and Shake). But this is a very different market: here secrecy generates insecurity and ambivalence, and often leads to defections to competing products, even when they are considered inferior to Apple's offerings.

Aperture 1.5, Apple’s pro-grade photo application, is a good case in point. Users of Aperture have now been waiting for a very long time for a substantial upgrade (Aperture 2.0). And in this case, it is not simply the matter of users wanting new “cool” features, but most of all, a practical and critical issue Apple of adding support for the lineup of new professional cameras, such as Nikon’s high-end D-3 and D-300. Other software vendors have been relatively prompt with their updates (e.g., for D3/D300: Lightzone by Nov 13, 2007, Adobe Lightroom by Nov 15, Adobe Camera Raw by Nov 15, and Nikon Capture NX by Nov 26), It was anticipated that Apple would at least announce (if not release) Aperture 2.0 it when its new Leopard OS shipped - it did not; then it was hoped 2.0 would be announced at the January ‘08 MacExpo (blog entry) - didn’t happen. This week, the photo industry’s annual trade show, PMA, has just opened, and it is clear that Aperture is a no-show here either.

The lack of an official product announcement from Apple has generated a lot of buzz - and not the good kind. Photographers who invested a lot of money and countless hours into creating their Aperture libraries are getting antsy, and justifiably so. To make things worse, Aperture’s main competitor, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom has now gained the majority share of the market. With imminent Lightroom 2.0 release, anticipated by many to be announced this spring, many Apple pundits began to question whether Aperture will even have a substantial update (see MacWorld's questioning article). I can’t imagine any worse kind of buzz than speculation whether the application is actually DOA. It turns out Apple actually can mess up its marketing, big time. Apparently, Apple is aware of the problem, since the negative buzz prompted an unusual (although non-specific) official blog post from Aperture's Senior Product Manager fro Photo Applications, Joel Shorr who tries to calm the storm - but without more specifics it may turn out to be a very difficult task. I am sure glad I use Adobe Lightroom for my photos... The thought of having to re-enter the metadata info. for 4000+ photos would not be a pleasant thing...