4 ms·

Why the heck Apple kill Aperture anyway?

TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
It honestly feels like all of these problems - auto-bans by Meta and Google, enshittification of formerly-professional Apple products, nuke-your-money grabs by Ebay and Stripe - all come from a shared culture of corporate narcissism. Not only is there no genuine empathy for users, it seems important that giant corporations should have the freedom to disappoint, manipulate, and abuse everyone, should they choose to.
- ljm 3y ago
  Shareholders and investors always want more while becoming more risk averse over time, so a company loses the ability to innovate and then switches its focus to squeezing the customer. Not to mention the cohort in product, design and engineering who want to work on the new shiny and embark on massive rewrite projects that deliver only a subset of old functionality because the ‘metrics’ support it. They’re never around to maintain it long term. Not an issue if you don’t go public or accept VC or have perverse incentives that encourage enshittification over excellence. Nobody pulling the strings for you then.
m463 3y ago
When it first came out, I thought it was a little porky. But then machines got faster. What I loved was that your original photos were read-only
AnonHP 3y ago
Lack of interest is my guess. That plus someone in Apple imagining that it shouldn’t compete with Adobe Lightroom. Aperture, during its peak, was well liked by users. Many even liked it better than Lightroom. Even the iPhoto of that time (on iOS) had features that Photos doesn’t have till today (I recall buying iPhoto that allowed erasing things from a photo or blurring things from a photo just by using one’s finger).
- bzzzt 3y ago
  Maybe also related to the decline of enthousiasts walking around with a big DSLR/mirrorless camera. If you only use your phone to take pictures that don't need big adjustments you probably aren't going to your desktop to further refine them.

It honestly feels like all of these problems - auto-bans by Meta and Google, enshittification of formerly-professional Apple products, nuke-your-money grabs by Ebay and Stripe - all come from a shared culture of corporate narcissism. Not only is there no genuine empathy for users, it seems important that giant corporations should have the freedom to disappoint, manipulate, and abuse everyone, should they choose to.

ljm 3y ago
Shareholders and investors always want more while becoming more risk averse over time, so a company loses the ability to innovate and then switches its focus to squeezing the customer. Not to mention the cohort in product, design and engineering who want to work on the new shiny and embark on massive rewrite projects that deliver only a subset of old functionality because the ‘metrics’ support it. They’re never around to maintain it long term. Not an issue if you don’t go public or accept VC or have perverse incentives that encourage enshittification over excellence. Nobody pulling the strings for you then.

m463 3y ago

When it first came out, I thought it was a little porky. But then machines got faster. What I loved was that your original photos were read-only

AnonHP 3y ago

Lack of interest is my guess. That plus someone in Apple imagining that it shouldn’t compete with Adobe Lightroom. Aperture, during its peak, was well liked by users. Many even liked it better than Lightroom. Even the iPhoto of that time (on iOS) had features that Photos doesn’t have till today (I recall buying iPhoto that allowed erasing things from a photo or blurring things from a photo just by using one’s finger).

bzzzt 3y ago
Maybe also related to the decline of enthousiasts walking around with a big DSLR/mirrorless camera. If you only use your phone to take pictures that don't need big adjustments you probably aren't going to your desktop to further refine them.