Now this is good news. Photo District News (aka PDN) has just published a request from Apple for photographers to submit sample files which demonstrate the problems with Aperture’s conversion and adjustment tools. I applaud Apple for this approach, and wish them luck in resolving the issues.
Here’s the skinny: Photo District News article
I hope they have massive storage space on that upload server! I think they’ll be getting a lot of files.
This is precisely the kind of thing that Apple needs to do to help themselves stand out from the crowd. Currently this is the kind of feedback only opensource, freeware/shareware software developers and websites (such as Newsvine) do but there is plenty of reason to expand the mindset.
Again, Apple are behind in many ways, but they are also the first of their kind to launch an idea publically. I too applaud.
While I think it’s great that Apple is creating an open line to help improve (ie, debug) Aperture, we should be very critical of Apple that they’re requiring us to pay $499 for the privilege to debug a product that was not quite ready for market.
Adobe, on the other hand, is putting out Lightroom for free, knowing that it needs work. Adobe gets my thumbs up for treating their customers with respect and not as mindless profit centers.
It’s good that Apple is doing this now but it would have been better if it had been done earlier (perhaps by releasing a public beta of the product).
Just out of interest Mike, as the product manager of an Application how much “power” did you have in deciding to implement a scheme such as this. If you wanted could you have released an application such as DVD Studio Pro as a public beta or would you need authorisation from someone higher up in the company.
I think that’s a problem with Apple’s policy. They want to keep their products as secret as possible, so I doubt there will ever be a public beta of an Apple product.
There have been public betas before… think iSync and Safari for example.
Great news.
and iChat had a public beta I think
None of them are Pro apps, though. What’s more, they are all bundled with Mac OS X so there are no fees involved (directly, at least)
yes, with apps that come with os x, it makes sense to public beta them. The cost is already built into the OS.
Don’t forget that OS X had a public beta, although Apple charged us ($10 if I recall) for the privilege of being beta testers.
You all forget OS X has a full beta program. It costs about $2000 a year and targets developers. Its those same developers that are getting in trouble for leaking info or posting beta versions of OS X on bittorrent and and other P2P servers.
They also have the darwin project for opensource beta testing alsos targeting developers.
You don’t get to ride the bleeding edge unless you pay for it. Either financially or otherwise. I have had a few seed releases of OS X in the past, and while you get to use it first you also have to contend with the bugs, and report them properly to help make sure a solid product is released.
The best way to avoid this kind of issue. Wait at least a month after an upgrade release of any product, before adding it to your library, and even longer on the initial release of any new product.
Congratulations for the 100th article.
Long life to “Writers Block Live”!
Cheers;
Carlos Alberto Pinto Peixoto Bastos Santos
Lokiz:
Much of Apples software is available to members of the Developer Connection at no cost. All of the Developer Tools and SDKs are available for Free. Paid ADC memberships start at $500.
$500
• Mac OS X Tiger and Xcode 2 on Disc
• Access to Mac OS X Tiger Server via Download
• One (1) Mac OS X Tiger Developer T-Shirt
• One (1) ADC Select Mailing Subscription
• Two (2) Technical Support Incidents
• One (1) ADC Select Hardware Discount
• ADC Software Seeding Program
• ADC Compatibility Labs Access
• ADC Select Technical and Business Discounts
$3500
• Mac OS X and Xcode Tools on Disc
• Full Conference Pass to WWDC
• One (1) ADC Premier Mailing Subscription
• Eight (8) Technical Support Incidents
• Ten (10) ADC Premier Hardware Discounts
• ADC Software Seeding Program
• ADC Compatibility Labs Access
• ADC Premier Technical and Business Discounts
The big difference is the ticket to WWDC.
As an aside, the versions of Tiger that were leaked were leaked by a Student that was a member of ADC. (By the way, students join for $99)
Well, I saw Aperture and was impressed, so I went out and spent the $499.00
as well as another $499.00 to up grade my video card( I have one of the earlier G5s) So it cost me $1000.00 to use aperture and find out to find out that aperture in my opinion (since I havent heard about this from any one else) has
a serious flaw in that, as you save the vault on your HD, it just keeps increasing in size, which of course makes sense. Once you fill your HD with Vault, what do you do?
Buy another Hard Drive?? Why can’t I make a series of DVDs to store my archives?
Why cant a Vault be sent directly to DVDs. The biggest why is, WHY does this only seem to be a problem for me ??? How do other people deal with this ??