Apple has been on a hiring spree for the past six months or so for software engineers, technical writers (“instructional designers”), trainers, etc. - all that include the Aperture team. Also, in a recent survey that Adobe sent out, one of the questions included “will you be upgrading to the next version of Aperture”.

I wasn’t surprised that there wasn’t any mention of updates to Aperture/iLife/iWork for OS X yesterday. Yesterday’s event was all iPhone/iOS7. OS X Mavericks is set to be released in late October (October 25th appears to be the most likely date). Updates to all three, along with the new Mac Pro and updates to the MacBook Pro are also expected.

I agree with Charles … yesterday’s festivities was about iPhone and iOs 7 … they didn’t even mentions iPods or iPads … which they have done to some extent in the past … I think it may be just a bit premature to offer Aperture Last Rights …

I, for one, am hoping that there will be one huge October Fest celebration for Aperture users … If we don’t hear something more definitive by then … maybe I’ll start to worry more …

Yes I think Oct would be the right time however I wouldn’t rule out Spring. The new staff might need more time to learn their jobs and make a mark on AP4.

It will come out, and when it does there will be a purchase/upgrade fee, a new learning curve, probably some minor bugs, and the desire to eat CPU and RAM for Breakfast. Probably not all will be able to upgrade due to their older machines. All said…..I cant wait Cheers

Don’t get me wrong … I wish Apple would offer a public declaration of their intent where it concerns their pro apps … however, if history is any indication, that’s not going to happen any time soon … if ever.

I did see something interesting today though, which may or may not be an indication.

I was surfing youtube watching some tutorials on Final Cut Pro X … and I saw a presentation by a very respected and renowned educator in the film world … he shared that there will be a significant update to FCP X to coincide with the release of the new Mac Pro … he stated it would be soon, but not this month … the seminar was presented about a week ago … so I wouldn’t be surprised if Aperture is also in the mix … For if we see two major updates to FCP … and no love for Aperture … I may be forced to re-consider my future with Apple software as a solution for the future …

That said, I feel confident with other bits of news and recent hires at Apple, we could hear some good news sooner, rather than later.

I have to say that I have never entirely understood the secrecy attached to things like this.
What possible harm does saying “We intend to release Aperture 4 and the target date is Q4 2013” actually do?
Set against lost sales from people giving up and moving, frustrated users and so on I would have said none.
Ford do not make secret of the fact that a revised Fiesta will be out in 2014- and that does not appear to affect sales of Fiestas!

“What possible harm does saying “We intend to release Aperture 4 and the target date is Q4 2013” actually do?”

If Apple were a privately owned company … there would be absolutely nothing wrong with announcing their intentions … Unfortunately they are a publicly held corporation with stockholders to think of. Traders could substantially inflate or deflate the stock value based upon such an announcement … especially if the target date arrives and the product is not ready for market and/or fails to impress the market place with it’s functionality … the SEC actually has rules forbidding such advance announcements to limit such fluctuations in stock values …

Not to mention, it does little good for all involved if you show the other players at the table your hole card before the appropriate time … it has more impact on the wagers in the interim and removes all doubt as to what your competition must do that is in their best interests … better to keep your competition guessing.

That said … I too long for some official word on what they are up to

Meh. I am not convinced.

Car companies are publicly quoted and there’s rarely a shortage of news about next year’s models etc.

Look at Mavericks. How long has that been announced? The website has been up for months and they could still fail to deliver.

I really don’t see how a simple yes we are/no we aren’t announcement is so much of a problem. Apple will never stand or fall on the back of what is now the minority professional photo library app based purely on reading comments on line. Light Room already supports the Olympus EM-1 which is not even on sale yet!

With that sort of approach compared to Apple, I can see why LR seems to have the market share (plus of course that it runs in Windows).

Still my shiny new i7 iMac arrives in the next week or so so I will content myself with enjoying being able to work a whole lot faster than I can now!

I thought of a comparison.

Both Olympus and Fujifilm (and perhaps others but those two for sure) have produced ‘roadmaps’ to show what new lenses they will be producing and approximately when.

AFAIK both companies are publicly quoted (although I am not sure; seems likely) so how is this different from Apple producing an Aperture roadmap?

Thing with Apple is that they want to launch everything out of the blue and have the whole world flabbergasted: “Look want Apple gave us! I want it,it’s great”.
However, now Steve Jobs no longer with us, the public starts to get more critical. So imo the company will need to make clear where it stands on software development and inform us about what to expect and when if it wants to survive in the software market.
Just my 2 ct.

I agree Martin.

Especially with pro software fully intended to be an integral part of their customer’s businesses.

It does not matter if a 14 year old does not know when iPhoto will be updated. It DOES matter if a professional photographer is finding that the camera RAW support and feature set are slowly falling behind the most comparable product in the market and they need to make business decisions on their software requirements.

Why risk alienating your pro customers in pursuit of some childish secrecy fetish?

It has been a real guessing game on when and even if Apple will be coming out with a version 4 or what ever they would call it. Of course like everyone else I wish they would make some sort of advanced announcement. Now I do use both Aperture and Lightroom so I have been keeping both up to date. I run Aperture as a reference library so I use the same photos for both programs. They are stored on a Drobo 5D and works just fine this way.

I did have the Adobe full CC up until today. Was 29.99 per month until last month my year was up and the rate went to $49.99 per month. But when Adobe announced the Photoshop Photography deal for $9.99 a couple of weeks ago that caught my attention. So this morning I contacted Adobe (online chat) and asked about downgrading? Since I was an owner of Photoshop 5 I was able to downgrade. The process took about 5 minutes. To me $9.99 was a no brainer. Who even knows what Apple will be charging if and when Aperture X is released.

Stu

Current version works okay in Mavericks, but is not compatible with the database changes in iPhoto in Mavericks (special version). So you cannot open your Aperture library in Aperture, if you have previously opened it in iPhoto in Mavericks. So an update of some sort must ship with Mavericks, whether it is simply 3.4.6 or something more significant.

Looks like Oct. 22 is the next opportunity we may hear something new for Aperture … *fingers crossed* … hoping it is more than Mavericks and new hardware will be offered up …

Special Event

FWIW, there was a developer that inadvertently made a comment on Aperture on the Mac App Store that the current version (ver. 3.4.3) does not run on Mavericks.

So……….either a dot upgrade will be required, or hopefully a full version update including some well needed features (lens correction/perspective correction, etc.)

I think this event would be the perfect time to introduce v 4. Mac Pro release date, possible Mac Book Pro update, mavericks with updated multi display, and new iPad. Remember they were hiring someone to help with aperture app for iPad and have shown aperture in several demos and ads. There has been rumblings about new Final Cut Pro and iLife suite as well.
I hope they really knock it out of the park. It has been way too long.

I use Aperture as a pro photog. Aperture, along with some plug-ins, does all my workflow nicely. I am not “wanting or lacking” anything in the current version but always love to play with new software toys if and when one does come out.

It is going to be interesting on what will take place on Tuesday Oct, 22nd. Mac Rumors posted this information: Expectations for Apple’s October 22 Event: iPads, Mac Pro, and More. Nothing was mentioned about Aperture, however it still may happen. If it does not happen I am sure many will be very disappointed.

As Ive said before Ap 4.0 is the only secret that Apple seems to be able to keep these days. They keep it so well that I think a minor upgrade with one new feature and the ability to work with Maverick is what he can hope for. Spring time is more likely the big one. But Im hoping next week.

A new ApertureExpert site transition in the middle of a major Aperture update would leave a hole in the space/time continuum. I think Apple should wait until Joseph is ready.

Thomas … hopefully it is Joseph who is waiting on Apple before he makes the transition … timing is everything … it would be nice to have both at once …

I have seen the rumor from more than one expert on Final Cut Pro … that FCP X is to receive a significant upgrade to coincide with Mavericks … if that is the case and we don’t see anything significant for Aperture … I, for one, will be disappointed. I’m hoping that we haven’t seen something yet for Aperture because they are awaiting the release of Mavericks to support new features … Counting down to Tuesday’s festivities …