I’m hoping that Apple is working on RAW support for Fuji’s X-Trans sensors.

All the new Fuji X series use this and when I eventually ‘upgrade’ from my 2 year old X100 with a Bayer sensor I really don’t want to have to move from Aperture. I’m still learning how to use it and don’t want to have to start from scratch with new software.

You could have the same doubts about iPhoto, Garageband, Keynote, Numbers, Mac Pro, etc, etc…

I for one am not worried. The current version of Aperture is working great for me on my 5 year old Mac Pro. What I might be worried about is if a new version of Aperture requires some new wiz bang HW feature my Mac Pro doesn’t support. That will be costly.

Joseph … are you saying something without saying something? … I really hope you are …

Good point, Joseph. I’ve also seen Apple job listings related to Aperture iLife and iWork.

Personally, I think we’ll see a refresh of all three soon, perhaps in the next month (just call it a Gibbs hunch). And I think us Aperture users will be pleasantly surprised. Apple fumbled on the initial release of FCP X by removing lots of features that were in FCP 7, and got lambasted for it. Apple learned their lesson (by adding back those features along with new ones). I don’t think they’ll make the same mistake again.

Aperture 2 and 3 both arrived on the second Tuesday in February. As pleasant of a surprise as it would be, I can’t see Aperture 4 arriving tomorrow. While software may be easier to keep secret than hardware, you’d expect at least a murmur the week – especially the night! – before it arrives. That hasn’t happened.

The problem the Aperture team’s running into is, the later Aperture 4 arrives, the better it will have to be. The other raw processors certainly aren’t sitting still. Lightroom 4 is very, very good. Topping it will be hard enough. But based on Adobe’s much more predictable release schedule, LR 5 might show its first beta this summer.

Let’s hope the Aperture team can surprise us. The basic interface and image management of Aperture are solid. The image editing, though, is well behind the curve. The potential problem the team faces on that score is going for too much often blows up in your face (see, for example, Aperture 1.0, 3.0). Lightroom, in contrast, is a testament to the value of steady, iterative improvement. While no one version is grossly superior to its predecessor, Lightroom 4 is significantly better in all aspects than Lightroom 2. It’s ironic that Adobe’s been better at Apple’s own game here. Steady, iterative improvement is how they usually roll. An earlier release of Aperture 4 would have lessened the need to swing for the fences.

But since we’ve been waiting for version 4 so long, my guess is they are.

Since this is a thread on predictions, let’s have a little fun. I think Aperture 4 is going to draw heavily on Final Cut Pro X. Why rewrite your flagship video editor from scratch without at least casting an eye towards your photography equivalent? I also think Aperture 4 will position itself to face towards, even if tentatively, the iPad / iCloud future Apple sees. Have your ratings, keywords, library organization, etc. sync seamlessly between all your OS X and iOS devices? Yes, please. This kind of improvement is where Aperture could most easily leapfrog Lightroom, which is very much built on top of a traditional computer with file system metaphor.

All just idle speculation till we see Aperture 4 in the flesh, of course.

What is disappointing is that since Feb 2010 … when Aperture 3 was released … We have seen at least two full generations of OS X introduced … with reports of OS X 10.9 in use surfing the web … we have seen at least three generations in the Macbook Air, Macbook Pro and iMac, three generations of the iPhone … and four generations of the iPad … heck, the iPad didn’t even exist in the marketplace when Ap 3 came out …

While Apple has done a decent job of maintaining Aperture in the interim … they are fast losing ground to Lightroom … ground that is not easily reclaimed once lost. For it is far too time consuming for users to be bouncing back and forth between such options when you consider that work achieved in one, is not easily transferrable to the other.

Apple needs to move quickly … before they lose much more of the user base … hiring more folks for development now? … that should have been done long ago. With the billions they have in the bank, Aperture should not have taken a back seat for this long.

I’m thinking (hoping) that we’ll see some major software updates this spring. There’s plenty that’s overdue and it would just make sense if it coincided with a major Mac Pro update. Of course, we would expect to see some hardware leaks around that time - nothing quite yet.

I agree that it’s frustrating but I also recall what must have been a torrid first year after AP3 was released. It was plagued with problems and I would have expected it to have eaten into a good year of development work. Hopefully the next release will remain a true Pro app with all the catch-up features, performance and stability.

It would be nice if they included the Colourchecker profiling and so on that LR has.

I have now sold off my entire Fujifilm X-Pro kit as there is still no Aperture RAW support after 12 months and I decided that I would rather use a different camera than anything written by Adobe.

I suspect that any new version will - like Mountain Lion - require hardware to be of a certain standard. My 1,1 Mac Pro will not run ML and I am replacing it sometime this year with the 27” iMac.