A Lament for Aperture(ikennd.ac)
ikennd.ac
A Lament for Aperture
https://ikennd.ac/blog/2026/01/old-man-yells-at-modern-software-design/
56 comments
I miss Aperture dearly, too. It is a monument of a time when Apple still could do Software, instead of just Services that feel restrictive and patronizing. I cannot get myself to use that shitty Photos app and am still constantly on the lookout for something to recreate the Aperture of old.
Many of the "old-timers" on the Photos team (when I was on that team for a couple of years) also missed Aperture. Very much so.
Many kept Aperture running on a device at home—still used it for their own workflows (many passionate photographers on that team—surprise!). And in fact when it came time to discuss future Photos features there was always a contingent pushing to add back features that were lost in the transition away from Aperture.
While I was there, for example, they pushed (and got) Curves added to the editing pane. Levels had always been there but the purists missed the more laser-focused "curve" adjustments.
They wanted, did not get, the ability to "brush" a setting (the way you might dodge/burn an area of the image).
These days, who knows. Like me, perhaps the old guard have moved on…
(To clarify though, I was never the "old guard" with regard to the Photos team—had never worked on Aperture.)
Many kept Aperture running on a device at home—still used it for their own workflows (many passionate photographers on that team—surprise!). And in fact when it came time to discuss future Photos features there was always a contingent pushing to add back features that were lost in the transition away from Aperture.
While I was there, for example, they pushed (and got) Curves added to the editing pane. Levels had always been there but the purists missed the more laser-focused "curve" adjustments.
They wanted, did not get, the ability to "brush" a setting (the way you might dodge/burn an area of the image).
These days, who knows. Like me, perhaps the old guard have moved on…
(To clarify though, I was never the "old guard" with regard to the Photos team—had never worked on Aperture.)
Around the time Aperture became dead, I was looking for a photo editing app on the iPhone; three of my non-negotiable requirements: non-destructive adjustments, curves, and the ability to brush a mask for an adjustment. I found Snapseed which fulfilled these requirements. But of course, why did I get the idea for these requirements of mine? Aperture of course. Once you got used to the features of Aperture, you really don’t want to use a lesser app like Photos.
> And in fact when it came time to discuss future Photos features there was always a contingent pushing to add back features that were lost in the transition away from Aperture.
Apple actually publicly promised they would be doing this when they killed it. But not much ever came of it.
Apple actually publicly promised they would be doing this when they killed it. But not much ever came of it.
It is so disappointing; I started getting into photography over the past few years, shooting rolls of film here and there and need some basic library management tools to track my shots and add EXIF data for film stock, camera, etc. Photos.app kind of does what I need, but there's baffling decisions like all photo data being uneditable, even through APIs. You can edit EXIF data on the original image but the app's internal database is completely immutable. I have a handful of photos with inconsistent metadata I'd love to fix and the only option appears to be removing them from the library and re-adding them.
I really don't need many features! I'm not a pro and while I wouldn't mind shelling out a one-time fee for good software I'm not paying a subscription for cloud storage I'm not going to use. The OSS options here are not awesome, either.
I really don't need many features! I'm not a pro and while I wouldn't mind shelling out a one-time fee for good software I'm not paying a subscription for cloud storage I'm not going to use. The OSS options here are not awesome, either.
Nitro comes close:
https://www.gentlemencoders.com/nitro-for-macos/
https://www.gentlemencoders.com/nitro-for-macos/
Just wanted to add that Nitro was built by Nik Bhatt, who was the Senior Director of Engineering at Apple leading the Aperture and Core Image teams. I believe he built Nitro specifically to fill the vacuum Apple left behind. Not sure how close it gets to the OG.
Yeah, I was on the Photos team when Nik Bhatt left Apple to start this project/company. So I suppose you clearly have Aperture DNA there…
I’m a big fan of their Raw Power app as well that predated Nitro.
thanks for recommending that: i had not found it and also lament Aperture's retirement for years. Subscribed monthly to Nitro just now...looks great
Aperture is dearly missed even today.
And to make matters worse: you cannot even import Aperture libraries into Photos any more. Essentially leaving you with picking out the raw images from the package. And don’t get me started on excellent support for tethered shooting in a studio setting.
And I could go on and on.
The only thing I really missed in Aperture was first level support for Nik tools which are cool for their adaptive and non destructive masks.
I'm not a photographer so pardon my ignorance: is there any reason these old tools can't be used nowadays? Like film photography tools haven't fundamentally changed since the heyday of film, why can't digital tools be treated the same?
Maybe there is a niche business rescuing old machines & software and offering them as a packaged tool - offline, air-gapped, with modern bridges where necessary (a Rpi/etc that exposes a modern & secure fileshare on one side, and a legacy fileshare on the machine side, doing file format conversions if necessary).
Since the market for modern tools (as opposed to Liquid (gl)ass-infused ad delivery machines) no longer exists, it seems like using and taking care of legacy tools is the best we're got.
Maybe there is a niche business rescuing old machines & software and offering them as a packaged tool - offline, air-gapped, with modern bridges where necessary (a Rpi/etc that exposes a modern & secure fileshare on one side, and a legacy fileshare on the machine side, doing file format conversions if necessary).
Since the market for modern tools (as opposed to Liquid (gl)ass-infused ad delivery machines) no longer exists, it seems like using and taking care of legacy tools is the best we're got.
> any reason these old tools can't be used nowadays
For Aperture specifically:
- it doesn’t run on newer machines. Sure there are workarounds (run it in a VM, use a dedicated old computer, …) but those are clunky and people want things to run smoothly within their current setups.
- it doesn’t support newer file formats (the insistence of many manufacturers to use proprietary RAW formats when there truly is no need to is its own rant-worthy rabbit hole…)
- even if people praise the UI and remember it fondly, there are a number of modern tools and conveniences one expects in photography software in 2025 that 2010 Aperture doesn’t have. Eg people care about things like AI denoising/upscaling now, support for HDR color profiles, etc.
> it seems like using and taking care of legacy tools is the best we're got
I’d vote for supporting independent developers and open source software.
For Aperture specifically:
- it doesn’t run on newer machines. Sure there are workarounds (run it in a VM, use a dedicated old computer, …) but those are clunky and people want things to run smoothly within their current setups.
- it doesn’t support newer file formats (the insistence of many manufacturers to use proprietary RAW formats when there truly is no need to is its own rant-worthy rabbit hole…)
- even if people praise the UI and remember it fondly, there are a number of modern tools and conveniences one expects in photography software in 2025 that 2010 Aperture doesn’t have. Eg people care about things like AI denoising/upscaling now, support for HDR color profiles, etc.
> it seems like using and taking care of legacy tools is the best we're got
I’d vote for supporting independent developers and open source software.
New cameras produce raw files that are not backwards compatible with older raw file formats. These raw files are key to the highest quality and flexibility in editing.
Would a file converter not solve this issue? Or do the new formats embed extra kinds of data (extra channels, etc) that are just impossible to represent in the old formats?
In theory, although camera raw formats tend to be more or less undocumented/proprietary, and the people with the resources to create tools that support them tend to be commercial enterprises (mainly Adobe and few minor ones) that are interested in getting you to use their latest thing (not going to work on your decade-old macOS, sorry).
And professional photographers tend to be largely nontechnical people who aren't keen on tinkering with some conversion workflow, possibly including ImageMagick or other Linux-native tools of questionable compatibility with the file formats (and again, on decade-old macOS) going just so they can do their work.
And professional photographers tend to be largely nontechnical people who aren't keen on tinkering with some conversion workflow, possibly including ImageMagick or other Linux-native tools of questionable compatibility with the file formats (and again, on decade-old macOS) going just so they can do their work.
There are file converters. At least one big name company - probably Adobe - offered a free tool. I stopped using Adobe after LR went subscription, so can't remember the specifics.
You can still use Adobe DNG Converter. I use it to convert new raw files for Lightroom 4.
That's the one, thanks. I have a Mac mini just for Aperture and LR5, will see if this can revive that system.
Problem is that the latest macs are just so fast that it makes it hard to switch back.
Problem is that the latest macs are just so fast that it makes it hard to switch back.
Me too. Mini has gone from main dev machine, to backup, to kids, and now to Lightroom. It wasn't a slouch BITD, 6 core and 32G ram. It's a bit slow now, but not that bad even on the 4k screen. But it's the best thing I have that runs 32 bit MacOs.
Aperture doesn't run on newer MacOS systems.
I keep and old Mac laptop with an old OS just to run Aperture so that I can access my archives.
I keep and old Mac laptop with an old OS just to run Aperture so that I can access my archives.
I still mourn the loss of Aperture. IMO the best pro software Apple ever made. Lightroom was always a distant second for RAW photo workflows, and Photos is still a far cry.
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I still keep all my digital photos and film scans, except those photos that originate from a Leaf or Phase One digital back, in Aperture. (the raw format of those digital backs pretty much requires Capture One.) The machine does not visit the internet because it needs 10.14 to run and there haven't been security updates in a while.
I haven't used it in a decade, but when I last did need this kind of software IdImager's Photo Supreme came out top of my research.
The photo editing capabilities were relatively weak (but it would integrate nicely with the editing software of your choice), but the cataloging capabilities were fantastic, and it had a lot of flexibility about how the files were stored on disk (have it organise that for you or not) and the option to store the metadata it created directly in the metadata of photo files themselves where much of it could be read by other software.
https://www.idimager.com/
The photo editing capabilities were relatively weak (but it would integrate nicely with the editing software of your choice), but the cataloging capabilities were fantastic, and it had a lot of flexibility about how the files were stored on disk (have it organise that for you or not) and the option to store the metadata it created directly in the metadata of photo files themselves where much of it could be read by other software.
https://www.idimager.com/
Sigh. After Apple suddenly discontinued Aperture, which left users like me with huge complex photo archives hanging, I will never trust any professional software tool from Apple again. It is a disaster that I still haven't fully recovered from.
I've learned my lesson — all my archives will now be maintained by me, in file structures, with metadata in text files.
And yes, I agree with the article, Aperture was a really good piece of software, with many design decisions that seemed controversial, but were driven by many hours spent with professional photographers, looking at their workflows and listening to them. The result was very good.
I've learned my lesson — all my archives will now be maintained by me, in file structures, with metadata in text files.
And yes, I agree with the article, Aperture was a really good piece of software, with many design decisions that seemed controversial, but were driven by many hours spent with professional photographers, looking at their workflows and listening to them. The result was very good.
I've been having the same thought. Just move back to a file structure which is what I was doing from 1995 until 2007 before migrating to iPhoto.
The metadata in Apple Photos doesn't fully sync to iOS over a cable now. Did Apple intentionally make offline sync not work to force everyone on to iCloud? Also, even the local search inside of Apple Photos doesn't work correctly either. I thought it was hilarious when they tried add "AI" to this shitshow. Apple literally can't even make a local tag search.
Isn't it possible to put all the metadata in EXIF tags? People keep telling me to use Immich, but IDK.
The metadata in Apple Photos doesn't fully sync to iOS over a cable now. Did Apple intentionally make offline sync not work to force everyone on to iCloud? Also, even the local search inside of Apple Photos doesn't work correctly either. I thought it was hilarious when they tried add "AI" to this shitshow. Apple literally can't even make a local tag search.
Isn't it possible to put all the metadata in EXIF tags? People keep telling me to use Immich, but IDK.
Wish we could put Cave Johnson back in charge. That'd fix it!
Even worse when you look at things like Shake. Apple owned compositing for at least half a decade, and then just gave up, leaving a void
I went from Aperture to LR 5 to DXO and Affinity. But nothing beats Aperture.
I might be thinking of a different app (possibly iPhoto before Apple dramatically changed jt, but I don’t think so), but if it was Aperture, it was also excellent for photo organization.
And here I thought it’ll be about Portal.
They will soon add Photomator app to Apple Creator Studio. They have bought Pixelmator team last year and since Pixelmator is already in this bundle, I think the next app will be Photomator, a pretty close replacement for Aperture.
Neither provides a DAM though. Photomator's asset management features are basically what Photos provides, which is far inferior to Aperture's DAM features. Many who miss Aperture aren't just lamenting the editing tools, they miss library organisation features that Photos simply doesn't offer.
Exactly! There are plenty of photo editors that could replace Aperture (and LR if you'd like), but DAM always seems to be the missing piece.
I'm using Photos DAM after leaving LR which I was forced to when Aperture went away.
I'm using Photos DAM after leaving LR which I was forced to when Aperture went away.
It's actually good. I use it as my main photo editing app, as it's does exactly what I need, does it good and fast. So my workflow is Photo Mechanic for culling, then importing RAWs into Apple Photos (not to the gallery, just as a separate folder/album) and then it gets picked up by Photomator automatically. It's not a perfect flow (Apple does some weird conversion from RAW in the background and it takes a lot of CPU time when importing a lot of photos), but it gives me pretty much all what I need (including face recognition, ML exposure/color, quick subject/background masking, HDR photos editing, etc).
I think you might be right. I've been using Pixelmator (and recently Pixelmator Pro) for years now. It's a great app and has the "paint an effect" (like blur, sharpen) that Aperture had. I suspect this app, now that Apple bought it, will be where we look for Aperture-like features going forward.
Aperture was the best. I miss it.
I miss it too..
What are people using now? I’m so tired of LR and planning to make the switch to darktable.
Darktable. It has a hell of a learning curve, but it's one hell of a powerful raw editor with some really cool masking features. It has a reputation for being difficult to learn, but the newest release bundles a new tone mapper (AgX) that requires a whole lot less massaging than the old Filmic (and, to a lesser extent, the later Sigmoid mapper). I'm back to managing my photo libraries using plain old files and folders, and syncing them to my NAS using Syncthing. I couldn't be happier, and it doesn't cost me a dime.
Aperture’s death coincided with my life getting less excitingly photogenic. The combination was enough to break my habit of shooting pictures altogether.
My old well-curated and edited and tagged libraries are still on S3 backups. No conversion has been satisfactory.
My old well-curated and edited and tagged libraries are still on S3 backups. No conversion has been satisfactory.
I switched to Capture One a couple years ago and like it - used Lightroom Classic for many years before that, and think I've tried most DAMs over the years.
Someone should vibe code a new version of Aperture
Please do go ahead and try it. Should just take an afternoon, right?
This sounds like a great half-day project. Just use Gas Town and create a team of product managers, senior and junior developers, designers, and architects and have them get on it. (I recommend keeping Opus as the senior, and Sonnet as the juniors). Once you do this, you can release it and you'll be a (very financially successful) hero!
Just a comment to the author. Very much appreciate how you go about explaining this, and your writing style. Thanks for taking the time. NSC...
...an ex-Arpeture user.
...an ex-Arpeture user.
There is sort of a correlation here:
> AI for some reason, and amongst the complaining in the comments you’ll invariably find it: “I miss Aperture.”
and:
> Apple released macOS Tahoe, which has been pretty constantly raked over the coals for poor design and broken interactions from the day it was released (and even before, if we’re honest).
Of course this may not indicate causation, but I believe that the AI hype has also in part led to a decline in quality overall. Not necessarily everywhere, but there is almost definitely some influence that degraded things. I see this all the time on youtube videos or Google search. In fact, I recently also switched to other search engines; they have issues too, but Google search consistently yields worse results nowadays, even when the search string used excludes AI and other things. The quality declined overall. (And on youtube you can not even really search for much at all, Google tends to show some unrelated crap after some time. They are deliberately trying to waste time of humans.)
> AI for some reason, and amongst the complaining in the comments you’ll invariably find it: “I miss Aperture.”
and:
> Apple released macOS Tahoe, which has been pretty constantly raked over the coals for poor design and broken interactions from the day it was released (and even before, if we’re honest).
Of course this may not indicate causation, but I believe that the AI hype has also in part led to a decline in quality overall. Not necessarily everywhere, but there is almost definitely some influence that degraded things. I see this all the time on youtube videos or Google search. In fact, I recently also switched to other search engines; they have issues too, but Google search consistently yields worse results nowadays, even when the search string used excludes AI and other things. The quality declined overall. (And on youtube you can not even really search for much at all, Google tends to show some unrelated crap after some time. They are deliberately trying to waste time of humans.)
The decline has started before LLMs became a thing.
> It was powered by some of the most impressive technology around at the time, but you’d never even know it because you were too busy getting shit done.
If you're busy getting shit done you will not have time to engage with ads. That became a problem once technology switched from being a tool to an advertising delivery vehicle.
If you're busy getting shit done you will not have time to engage with ads. That became a problem once technology switched from being a tool to an advertising delivery vehicle.
I’m confused at how advertising is related to the subject at hand, since Apple does not offer a photo app with advertising.
Technology has been increasingly pushing towards advertising and media consumption over productivity, and productivity features have been left to degrade or outright removed.
Apple may not offer a photo app with advertising but the photo apps it offers are clearly inferior with less information density and less powerful features, because there is no longer incentive to offer a powerful photography tool.
In fact since a lot of software "success" is measured with "engagement" (regardless of the presence of ads), making a productive tool isn't incentivized as it would reduce engagement if the tool allows one to complete their task faster.
Apple may not offer a photo app with advertising but the photo apps it offers are clearly inferior with less information density and less powerful features, because there is no longer incentive to offer a powerful photography tool.
In fact since a lot of software "success" is measured with "engagement" (regardless of the presence of ads), making a productive tool isn't incentivized as it would reduce engagement if the tool allows one to complete their task faster.
I don’t disagree with you but it’s not relevant to the topic at hand, and it’s not a contributing factor to Aperture getting discontinued.
Until you have to do extra work to get them out of your way, wait for them to end, scroll more down/up and so on. They're also one more thing making UIs less deterministic which IMO is a lost art.