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As I'm sure you have heard by now, the much-ballyhooed September 25 media event Apple held to coincide with the beginning of Germany's Photokina conference brought only an upgrade to the company's high-end Aperture photo software.
It's a nice-looking update, with lots of new features that I mostly don't understand. What really catches my attention is that this version definitely positions Aperture in more direct competition with Photoshop, both for price (it's under $299 for new customers, free for existing ones) and feature set. For pure photo editing – as opposed to manipulation – this is getting quite full featured.
Additionally, though the initial versions of Aperture were restricted to use on high-end Power Macs, this update opens the door to use on every Mac Apple currently sells, including the Mac mini. Hooking those features in to iLife and iWork – as Aperture 1.5 does – means that Apple is trying to give prosumer photographers an end-to-end experience that goes right up against Adobe. It's risky, with Adobe still months away from issuing the Universal versions of its Creative Suite software, for Apple to make a play here, but I have to admire their guts.
