Apple Releases Aperture 2: Faster, Easier – and Cheaper!

Aperture 2 Box

Apple today introduced Aperture Version 2.0 – faster, easier to use and more powerful according to Cupertino.

They’re actually trying to catch up with Adobe’s Lightroom which now enjoys a 23.6 percent advantage to Aperture’s 5.5 percent if we count their users. Even among Mac users, Lightroom enjoys 26.6 percent against Aperture’s 14.3 percent.

Apple was ahead of Adobe in releasing an application dedicated to the photographer’s workflow; Aperture 1.0 came out in October 2005, more than a year before Lightroom 1.0 debuted in February 2007. Lightroom kept improving over time, releasing updates every now and then, while Aperture slept.

But here they are now, touting Aperture 2’s new Raw image processing engine and streamlined workflow; best of all, Apple says Aperture is a lot faster now, they were weak in this area before.

Aperture 2 has also added a plug-in architecture that will let third parties add their own editing features, a possible major advantage over Lightroom. There’s no SDK yet (software development kit) but it’s coming.

The biggest advantage that Aperture now also offers is its price. It’s $199, about $100 less than Lightroom’s.

[Site: Apple.com]

Published by Chris Malinao

Chris teaches Lightroom as workflow software to photography students at the FPPF, Federation of Philippine Photographers Foundation. He also teaches smartphone photography.