Adobe 'Doubling Down' on Lightroom in Wake of Apple's Aperture Announcement

Following Apple's announcement that it plans to cease further development on its professional photo editing software, Aperture, Adobe has released a statement encouraging Aperture users to check out its Creative Cloud plan or its standalone Lightroom app, a longtime Aperture competitor. The company says it is committed to helping former Aperture and iPhoto customers transition to Lightroom.

lightroomadobe

Put simply we're doubling down on our investments in Lightroom and the new Creative Cloud Photography plan and you can expect to see a rich roadmap of rapid innovation for desktop, web and device workflows in the coming weeks, months and years. We also continue to invest actively on the iOS and OSX platforms, and are committed to helping interested iPhoto and Aperture customers migrate to our rich solution across desktop, device and web workflows.

Known as Aperture's biggest competitor, Lightroom is another solution for professional photo editing. Adobe has a Creative Cloud subscription plan aimed specifically at photographers, offering access to both Photoshop and Lightroom for $9.99 per month. While this plan used to be temporary, Adobe recently made it a permanent addition to Creative Cloud. Adobe also offers access to its full suite of Creative Cloud apps, including Lightroom, for $49.99 per month.

Adobe has developed Lightroom mobile apps for both the iPhone and the iPad, both of which seamlessly connect to the desktop version of Lightroom, allowing users to edit and manage their library of photos on any device.

While both Aperture and Lightroom offer similar professional photo editing capabilities, Lightroom has enjoyed regular updates as part of Adobe's Creative Cloud, while Aperture has been falling behind for quite some time now. Lightroom received an update earlier this month, while Aperture was last updated in November of 2013.

Popular Stories

iPhone SE 4 Vertical Camera Feature

iPhone SE 4 Rumored to Use Same Rear Chassis as iPhone 16

Friday July 19, 2024 7:16 am PDT by
Apple will adopt the same rear chassis manufacturing process for the iPhone SE 4 that it is using for the upcoming standard iPhone 16, claims a new rumor coming out of China. According to the Weibo-based leaker "Fixed Focus Digital," the backplate manufacturing process for the iPhone SE 4 is "exactly the same" as the standard model in Apple's upcoming iPhone 16 lineup, which is expected to...
iPhone 16 Pro Sizes Feature

iPhone 16 Series Is Just Two Months Away: Everything We Know

Monday July 15, 2024 4:44 am PDT by
Apple typically releases its new iPhone series around mid-September, which means we are about two months out from the launch of the iPhone 16. Like the iPhone 15 series, this year's lineup is expected to stick with four models – iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max – although there are plenty of design differences and new features to take into account. To bring ...
bsod

Crowdstrike Says Global IT Outage Impacting Windows PCs, But Mac and Linux Hosts Not Affected

Friday July 19, 2024 3:12 am PDT by
A widespread system failure is currently affecting numerous Windows devices globally, causing critical boot failures across various industries, including banks, rail networks, airlines, retailers, broadcasters, healthcare, and many more sectors. The issue, manifesting as a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD), is preventing computers from starting up properly and forcing them into continuous recovery...
iphone 14 lineup

Cellebrite Unable to Unlock iPhones on iOS 17.4 or Later, Leak Reveals

Thursday July 18, 2024 4:18 am PDT by
Israel-based mobile forensics company Cellebrite is unable to unlock iPhones running iOS 17.4 or later, according to leaked documents verified by 404 Media. The documents provide a rare glimpse into the capabilities of the company's mobile forensics tools and highlight the ongoing security improvements in Apple's latest devices. The leaked "Cellebrite iOS Support Matrix" obtained by 404 Media...
Apple Watch Series 9

2024 Apple Watch Lineup: Key Changes We're Expecting

Tuesday July 16, 2024 7:59 am PDT by
Apple is seemingly planning a rework of the Apple Watch lineup for 2024, according to a range of reports from over the past year. Here's everything we know so far. Apple is expected to continue to offer three different Apple Watch models in five casing sizes, but the various display sizes will allegedly grow by up to 12% and the casings will get taller. Based on all of the latest rumors,...
tinypod apple watch

TinyPod Turns Your Apple Watch Into an iPod

Wednesday July 17, 2024 3:18 pm PDT by
If you have an old Apple Watch and you're not sure what to do with it, a new product called TinyPod might be the answer. Priced at $79, the TinyPod is a silicone case with a built-in scroll wheel that houses the Apple Watch chassis. When an Apple Watch is placed inside the TinyPod, the click wheel on the case is able to be used to scroll through the Apple Watch interface. The feature works...

Top Rated Comments

spaceballl Avatar
131 months ago
I'm happy to give Lightroom a shot, and I'd even pay $50, $100, or more for it if I enjoyed it, but even at only $10 / month, I don't love the idea of adding yet another "small" fee to my monthly recurring expenses. These things add up. I know saas is the future business model all these companies want, but I'd rather just pony up some $ and have everything working, free of monthly charges.
Score: 85 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Agent OrangeZ Avatar
131 months ago
Doubling down... not! Your biggest competitor pulls out. No competition means higher pricing and dragging your feet when it comes to innovation.
Score: 46 Votes (Like | Disagree)
NY Guitarist Avatar
131 months ago
<SIGH> does it work without the 'cloud'?
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Gizmotoy Avatar
131 months ago
Aperture was little competition for Lightroom, at least in the past year or two. It was really behind, so I'm not surprised they killed it.

Unfortunately, this is terrible news for Lightroom users. It's pretty widely-thought that the only reason Adobe sells Lightroom stand-alone is because of competition from Aperture. All Adobe's other Creative Suite apps are now cloud-only.

With the Photoshop/Lightroom cloud offering and Apple killing Aperture, expect the next version of Lightroom to be cloud-only.
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
jmpage2 Avatar
131 months ago
Pay your bill? It's freaking $10 a month. I thought Apple owners were in a higher income bracket. Apparently you guys spend it all on Starbucks.

You don't seem to understand why people are irritated. That $10 a month works out (for me) as $600 over the past five years since I started using LR if I was paying for their monthly cloud BS.

Not to mention that I have to keep paying that monthly extortion or I lose access to my library.

People like you are playing right into their schemes where everything is "pay pay pay" and never own anything. $10 might not seem like much, until there's no other game in town and they triple that to $30 a month.

In a world where you don't own any of the software you use and have to pay monthly subscriptions for all of them those costs are going to wind up being what a car payment used to be.

$30 for adobe software.
$50 for MS software
$30 for Quicken software

Do you see why people are irritated? It's like streaming movies. Pay $20 for a virtualized copy of a movie you can't download and watch offline. Maybe doesn't seem like a big deal until the company goes out of business, or loses distribution rights to that movie, or your internet is down for a weekend when you want to watch movies (like during a blizzard).
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)
pubwvj Avatar
131 months ago
Adobe's subscription model kills the deal. I have been buying and using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop since versions 1.0. I don't want to be paying them a monthly or an annual subscription fee. The issue is not the cost but that if I stop paying or they go out of business or they discontinue the product I lose access to my data and can't do my work. With my owning a bought copy I don't lose access to my data and I can always still do my work. Subscriptions are a no-go.
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)