Apple has release Aperture 2.0. I have been a dedicated Adobe Lightroom user for a year or so. And to be honest, I was only a Lightroom user because I was waiting for Apple to upgrade Aperture. I won’t go into why I chose Lightroom over Aperture in the past. I will post a detailed comparison of Apple Aperture 2.0 vs Adobe Lightroom article in the near future.
So why am I writing this now? Because my level of enthusiasm for Apple Aperture 2.0 has been crushed by the first feature that I tried to find in Aperture. And its a feature that I can not do without. What is it you ask? Web Gallery, or simply FTP uploads of images, directly to my websites, my editors’ websites, and my clients’ websites.
This is feature is so fundamentally important to being a professional photographer that it’s omission by Apple is clearly intentional. At the same time, Apple touts being able to upload directly to .mac accounts. Ways to upload to .mac accounts are plastered everywhere in Aperture 2.0. The Apple policy of promoting their own associated services at the expense of software functionality is a questionable practice at best and is damaging to their core users.
This is another example of Apple ignoring the real workflow of professional photographers. They could have included FTP uploads to websites other than .mac accounts, but chose not to. Instead they are trying to force photographers to use (or get) .mac accounts. I have no .mac account and I don’t want a .mac account.
I believe that most professional photographers see through this. Apple has stained, at least for me, what could be fantastic software for pro photographers. This might be a deal breaker for me.
If you’re wondering, Adobe Lightroom has had FTP website support since the beta versions. And yes, I will still post my Aperture 2.0 review soon.
Tags: Aperture Web Gallery, ftp, lightroom, slideshows
