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Adobe 'Doubling Down' on Lightroom in Wake of Apple's Aperture Announcement

Friday June 27, 2014 11:52 am PDT by Juli Clover
Following Apple's announcement that it plans to cease further development on its professional photo editing software, Aperture, Adobe has released a statement encouraging Aperture users to check out its Creative Cloud plan or its standalone Lightroom app, a longtime Aperture competitor. The company says it is committed to helping former Aperture and iPhoto customers transition to Lightroom.

lightroomadobe
Put simply we're doubling down on our investments in Lightroom and the new Creative Cloud Photography plan and you can expect to see a rich roadmap of rapid innovation for desktop, web and device workflows in the coming weeks, months and years. We also continue to invest actively on the iOS and OSX platforms, and are committed to helping interested iPhoto and Aperture customers migrate to our rich solution across desktop, device and web workflows.
Known as Aperture's biggest competitor, Lightroom is another solution for professional photo editing. Adobe has a Creative Cloud subscription plan aimed specifically at photographers, offering access to both Photoshop and Lightroom for $9.99 per month. While this plan used to be temporary, Adobe recently made it a permanent addition to Creative Cloud. Adobe also offers access to its full suite of Creative Cloud apps, including Lightroom, for $49.99 per month.

Adobe has developed Lightroom mobile apps for both the iPhone and the iPad, both of which seamlessly connect to the desktop version of Lightroom, allowing users to edit and manage their library of photos on any device.

While both Aperture and Lightroom offer similar professional photo editing capabilities, Lightroom has enjoyed regular updates as part of Adobe's Creative Cloud, while Aperture has been falling behind for quite some time now. Lightroom received an update earlier this month, while Aperture was last updated in November of 2013.

Tag: Aperture
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spaceballl
66 months ago
I'm happy to give Lightroom a shot, and I'd even pay $50, $100, or more for it if I enjoyed it, but even at only $10 / month, I don't love the idea of adding yet another "small" fee to my monthly recurring expenses. These things add up. I know saas is the future business model all these companies want, but I'd rather just pony up some $ and have everything working, free of monthly charges.
Rating: 85 Votes
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1080p
66 months ago
Doubling down... not! Your biggest competitor pulls out. No competition means higher pricing and dragging your feet when it comes to innovation.
Rating: 46 Votes
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NY Guitarist
66 months ago
<SIGH> does it work without the 'cloud'?
Rating: 19 Votes
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Gizmotoy
66 months ago
Aperture was little competition for Lightroom, at least in the past year or two. It was really behind, so I'm not surprised they killed it.

Unfortunately, this is terrible news for Lightroom users. It's pretty widely-thought that the only reason Adobe sells Lightroom stand-alone is because of competition from Aperture. All Adobe's other Creative Suite apps are now cloud-only.

With the Photoshop/Lightroom cloud offering and Apple killing Aperture, expect the next version of Lightroom to be cloud-only.
Rating: 15 Votes
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jmpage2
66 months ago

Pay your bill? It's freaking $10 a month. I thought Apple owners were in a higher income bracket. Apparently you guys spend it all on Starbucks.


You don't seem to understand why people are irritated. That $10 a month works out (for me) as $600 over the past five years since I started using LR if I was paying for their monthly cloud BS.

Not to mention that I have to keep paying that monthly extortion or I lose access to my library.

People like you are playing right into their schemes where everything is "pay pay pay" and never own anything. $10 might not seem like much, until there's no other game in town and they triple that to $30 a month.

In a world where you don't own any of the software you use and have to pay monthly subscriptions for all of them those costs are going to wind up being what a car payment used to be.

$30 for adobe software.
$50 for MS software
$30 for Quicken software

Do you see why people are irritated? It's like streaming movies. Pay $20 for a virtualized copy of a movie you can't download and watch offline. Maybe doesn't seem like a big deal until the company goes out of business, or loses distribution rights to that movie, or your internet is down for a weekend when you want to watch movies (like during a blizzard).
Rating: 13 Votes
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pubwvj
66 months ago
Adobe's subscription model kills the deal. I have been buying and using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop since versions 1.0. I don't want to be paying them a monthly or an annual subscription fee. The issue is not the cost but that if I stop paying or they go out of business or they discontinue the product I lose access to my data and can't do my work. With my owning a bought copy I don't lose access to my data and I can always still do my work. Subscriptions are a no-go.
Rating: 12 Votes
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Traverse
66 months ago
How about doubling down the price!

As a more causal/prosumer user I have a hard time justifying $10 a month indefinitely (120 a year) for an app I use maybe once a week.

And the stand alone is $140...

*sigh*

$10 bucks isn't a lot, but when you're in college with other bills it is harder to justify...
Rating: 9 Votes
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Codyak
66 months ago
Hmm, doubling down, where have I heard that phrase before?
Rating: 9 Votes
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page3
66 months ago
As far a photo organisation goes, Aperture was far far ahead of lightroom and still is. You've got to be madder than a pair of dingo's kidneys not to see that. Simply saying Aperture was far behind doesn't make it so. :rolleyes:
Rating: 9 Votes
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imajez
66 months ago

everybody calm the F down... we are about to experience another transition gents - Steve would have sold it better, but I'm sure he would have loved to demo it :)

http://www.dslrbodies.com/accessories/software-for-nikon-dslrs/software-news/another-one-bites-the-dust.html

Regardless of what is said in that link, the author is ignoring the elephant in the room. Apple has announced it's dropping its pro photography app and not indicated that there will in fact be a replacement. Secrecy and surprises are good marketing for the consumer market, they however are dreadful for professionals and businesses who need to plan ahead and think long term. Photographers and other creatives simply will trust Apple even less with this announcement, particularly after the heel dragging over the desperately needed MacPro replacement. Which wasn't helped by the trashcan design which is more consumer than pro orientated.
Who cares that it's smaller when all the insides are now connected by a rat's nest of cables to a bunch of boxes that used to be neatly tucked away inside the tower case. I'm a MacPro user and may simply get the next MBP iteration instead as they are more than fast enough for high end video and photography work. If nothing much can be stored in my main machine it may as well be a laptop. So that'll halve my Apple computer purchases, as my current MBP will need replacing next year anyway.
Rating: 8 Votes

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