Aperture M8 support - much longer to wait

[jonoslack]

Hi There
I collared a product manager for Aperture at Focus on Imaging today - he said that an update is imminent, and that several Leica cameras are supported (sorry, I didn't ask which), BUT he said that the M8 is NOT on the list.

He did say that he would be amazed if it wasn't supported in the longrun, but that it was an operating system issue, and faced with 125000 requests for support for a 1DmkIII - or 5000 for an M8 . . . . . . . .

So, looks like Eoin's lovely patch will be with us for some while

[carstenw]

Apple is a large enough company to tackle two cameras at once, I would have thought.

[andybarton]

It's laughable.

Especially when you have spent £220+ on Aperture...

[jonoslack]

Originally Posted by carstenw

Apple is a large enough company to tackle two cameras at once, I would have thought.

HI Carsten, of course, but then he mentioned a possibility of 2 more Canons, a Nikon, certainly two Olympus dSLR. Basically, what he was saying was that they deal with these things based on the number of requests they get, or anticipate.

He was very pleasant, but his attitude was that the M8 isn't an important camera, and, that they would rather wait and see whether there was going to be a big firmware update before embarking on what was (he said) a great deal of work.

[carstenw]

If they worked strictly by the numbers, I guess I could understand that attitude. However, I might call him up again, restart the conversation, and remind him of Apple's position wrt. Microsoft, to give an indication of what Leica is to cameras in general. This is not just another company we are dealing with. This is a company with a long and fascinating history, which kick-started the 35mm revolution, and which deals in excellence. It would look good on Apple if they were to support such a company, since those are the same values they are trying to sell. One might also point out that this crowd is a crowd which fully understands the attraction of Apple's ideal of excellence. Remember the "who has what computer" thread? I think something like 80% of this crowd had an Apple, something which would surely interest such a product manager, given that the normal marketshare is more like 5%.

[mjh]

Originally Posted by jonoslack

He did say that he would be amazed if it wasn't supported in the longrun, but that it was an operating system issue, and faced with 125000 requests for support for a 1DmkIII - or 5000 for an M8 . . . . . . . .

Yes, strictly speaking it is an operating system issue as raw support is done on the operating system level, not Aperture’s. But that’s beside the point. I wonder how small companies such as Iridient Digital manage to add support for new cameras in a matter of weeks …?

[Jager]

I'm an unabashed Apple fan (long-time Unix geek). Their Macs are incredible machines. And the whole iPod family is as iconic as it comes, of course.

But as a photographer, I was anything but bowled over by my 30-day trial of Aperture. And it's raw-support design, with its hooks into the operating system itself, was a major design flaw IMHO (the reason that adding new camera support is such a challenging process).

I wish Apple well, but in this arena Lightroom, CS3, and C1 Pro are my software products of choice.

Jeff

[iomatic]

To really make the argument work, I would look at how this would fare well from a marketing standpoint. If Apple's premiere photo product supports the Leica format, and becomes the de facto standard for Leica shooters, giving uncompromising quality conversions (their workflow is most definitely unbeatable), where do you think all the Leica owners would put their money?

[ustein]

>I wonder how small companys such as Iridient Digital manage to add support

Because they are small :-)

The big companies have a lot of meetings :-).

Uwe

[woodyspedden]

Originally Posted by mjh

Yes, strictly speaking it is an operating system issue as raw support is done on the operating system level, not Aperture’s. But that’s beside the point. I wonder how small companys such as Iridient Digital manage to add support for new cameras in a matter of weeks …?

So true and Brian Griffeth is a one man show (albeit a very smart and dedicated man). There is no excuse for Apple and Aperture with regard to the M8 or the DMR, or DNG in general. But the market place will vote and now that Lightroom is out, complete with the results of hundreds of thousands of requests for changes during the beta period, a product that has undeniable merit. I believe that Lightroom is the start of another Photoshop, i.e. a product with open source code to court the third party developers and thus a product that will greatly improve with time. Given Apple's positions on the Aperture product, it is unlikely that the third party guys will spend much time on the market share loser. Sadly this has been the story for Apple from the beginning........they just don't have the market clout to have the third party guys pony up to the table and invest in the code to support them. And when they take the George Bush-like arrogant approach, they will have even less.

Just my humble opinion
Woody Spedden
A Mac User...but not Aperture

[stnami]

Also begs the question is Leica co-operating with apple? What does Leica do for Apple to make it worthwhile?

[LJL]

Originally Posted by stnami

Also begs the question is Leica co-operating with apple? What does Leica do for Apple to make it worthwhile?

Take it one step further.....is Leica even able to cooperate with anybody on some of this stuff, or are they too swamped, too handcuffed, or lacking the skill sets to make things work across lines. Apple surely does not lack the programming horsepower for this stuff, but there may be some quirks and things in the somewhat unconventional Leica (Jenoptik) DNG files that just makes doing things harder without some help. So, Imants, I am agreeing that it is possible that Leica is not offerin or capable to work with a company like Apple to get things rolling. Really do not know, but the Adobe DNG wrench seems stuck in this works also....

LJ

P.S What we do know is that the files are usable in Aperture AFTER they go through the Adobe DNG converter. Creating the profile, like Eoin helped us hack is not hard from that point. The sticking point is around getting the Leica DNG file format into something that can be imported directly into Aperture. I still do not understand why we have to run things through Adobe DNG first. Something in the file format is unconventional or something for DNG specs, and the DNG converter is able to pull them out enough to make things usable. Very odd twist.

[LJL]

Originally Posted by jonoslack

Hi There
I collared a product manager for Aperture at Focus on Imaging today - he said that an update is imminent, and that several Leica cameras are supported (sorry, I didn't ask which), BUT he said that the M8 is NOT on the list.

He did say that he would be amazed if it wasn't supported in the longrun, but that it was an operating system issue, and faced with 125000 requests for support for a 1DmkIII - or 5000 for an M8 . . . . . . . .

So, looks like Eoin's lovely patch will be with us for some while

Jono,
I reread your comments and it really got some hairs to stand up on the back of my neck....not from you, but from Apple. Let's say we believe the reps comments about 5000 requests versus 125,000 requests. Well, since they already have very good working profiles for all of the Canon (and Nikon and others), bulding a new profile is surely not much of a stretch for them. If we were to believe his flippant estimate of 5000 requests about Leica, it would seem they should STILL be paying a lot of attention to that. It is a market segment that may be small, but obviously from recent Leica sales and new models, is not trivial for many photogs that demand higher quality results. Just seems like a brush off statement from him. If Apple really wanted to show the world that Aperture is a professional app, what better way than to show that the digital successors of 35mm photography are able to seamlessy work with great Leica cameras and files into a workflow that very much complements the style, purpose and level of output requirements that Leicaphiles have come to expect? (Sorry for lapsing into a marketspeak, but sometimes that is the only way the semi-technical/marketing guys at these expos are able to understand things.)

Your comments and reportage are welcomed, Jono, so please understand that I am not shooting the messenger

LJ

[ustein]

>What does Leica do for Apple to make it worthwhile?

I don't think this is not the question. What about the customers. Bad news for Apple (and I told them) is that the M8 users spend more money on photography and also likely have a higher rate of Mac users.

Uwe

[marknorton]

Surely the problem is that Aperture is a closed system; Apple has to do all the work and will inevitably have to make tough (for us) decisions about what to support and what not to support. If instead Aperture were open, it would be down to the manufacturers to develop their own support and build their own case for doing it. It would then be down to Leica to decide whether to invest the (let's say) $2m required.

Separately, I wonder if DNG is looking creaky. The whole point of it was standardisation. If you use DNG, the World's your oyster. Out here in that real world, the realities are rather different.

[msr]

Leica should send a M8 & a lens to Steve Jobs as a gift.
Aperture would then support the M8 DNG files within 3 days.

[ustein]

>Out here in that real world, the realities are rather different.

Big time company politics. Who cares about us the customers?

Uwe

[jrc]

Originally Posted by jonoslack

Hi There
I collared a product manager for Aperture at Focus on Imaging today - he said that an update is imminent, and that several Leica cameras are supported (sorry, I didn't ask which), BUT he said that the M8 is NOT on the list.
He did say that he would be amazed if it wasn't supported in the longrun, but that it was an operating system issue, and faced with 125000 requests for support for a 1DmkIII - or 5000 for an M8 . . . . . . . .

I believe you, but it's a stupid policy. These products are not only RAW converters and developers, they are also DAMs. Once a customer selects a DAM and is committed, he won't change for anything other than a major reason, because once you have all the metadata configured and the tags applied, it's a huge pain in the ass to change. So if somebody goes to Lightroom because Aperture doesn't support the M8, he's going to stay with LR when he starts shooting the 1DmIII, he's not going to go to Apple then; and pros who work with a whole line of cameras are only going to use the DAM that will handle them all. I'm not a pro, but I have a Nikon D2x and a Canon G7 in addition to the M8, and I want my DAM to work on all of them. That means I can't use Aperutre, even if I like it better; I'd have to have two DAMs, and I won't do that.

And as other people pointed out, small one-man companies manage to support a whole range of cameras, so why not Apple? My impression from having gone through this with a number of cameras (who is gong to support what, or when are we going to get PS support for camera X) is that it really is a relatively trivial programming exercise; even some of these one-man organizations get conversions done in days. When Nikon refused to release data on its D2x white balance, one of the one-man converters cracked Nikon's WB code and posted support, anyway, and did it on a timely basis.

My feeling isn't that Apple can't do it, and quite easily; my feeling is that somebody at Apple, at a fairly low level, has his head up his ass.

JC

[guy_mancuso]

I really hate to say this but really one word comes to mind and i like Apple a lot but this is just stupid. I honestly don't know why you let revenue just fall at the wayside when folks are begging for your product. As a small business owner i would kill to have folks begging for my product. i just don't understand this and i really wonder just how big the war really is between Adobe and Apple. It almsot wants you to go back to a PC, NOW that is drastic. LOL

[ibogost]

I said this in another thread, but I'll say it again here: the lamest part of Apple's lack of M8 support in Aperture is the fact that the program is sold as a professional workflow tool. So, the tacit assumption most of us make (even non-pros like myself) is that Apple will be supporting cameras most likely used by pros. The fact that they stupidly coupled RAW support to OS upgrades is just plain retarded.

That said, I've been using Lightroom for the past week or so and I do like aspects of it, although I seem to need to do a lot of clicking to get things done. Aperture has a few little things I like, like built-in print ordering whcih I'll use occasionally, and now a Flickr upload plug-in. It's silly stuff maybe but I miss it. Not to mention the fact that everything I've done before the last week is already over in Aperture.