Apple Releases Aperture 3.2.1

Bugs were introduced in last update...

The wrong orientation on the crop tool was introduced on the last update. I never had that problem until then. It drives me crazy to have to manually switch orientation on every cropped photo.
The fix something but they always break something too... :confused:

I'm glad Apple is still showing us love (in the form of bugfixes) for those stuck with original Core Duo processors... :p but not much love elsewhere... ;)

"....in the grand scheme, it's actually positive"

How so?

The business you're in today can be reinvented tomorrow. Everyone must reinvent themselves. Tech is changing. Even specialized, niche markets. There is no niche market that is today immune from the sea-changes that take place in the wider consumer markets. It all filters and branches outward to niche segments.

And those niche segments are also changing, and are being integrated with the wider consumer segments. The average person a few years ago would be hard-pressed to do any advanced level of photo-editing, especially without purchasing ridiculously expensive software and having to put up with serious learning curves.

Now, in the span of only a few years, look at the kind of power that has been put into Joe Average's hands. It's incredible. You can even do, with some iOS apps (of all things!), things that were a few years ago only possible with much more complex and expensive software.

The line between "Pro" and "Consumer" has been blurred to an unprecedented degree. Hence, today we have what is known as the "Prosumer." And these Prosumers are growing in number and strength every day. One of the companies serving them is Apple.

The Pro market is dwindling. The Prosumer market is expanding rapidly. The skills that at one point were hard-earned and rare (Pro skills) are being steadily, slowly but surely, acquired by even average users with a little time and curiosity. As tech becomes much more accessible to Joe Average, those skills that were once prized in the industry will eventually become commonplace. What took a lot of skill yesterday can be easily accomplished and on a larger scale today, due to increased exposure and access that Joe Average, and for that matter you and I, are enjoying. It all filters down due to increased access.

The "Pro" market is not the same market that Apple allegedly turned their back on years ago. It has changed. And it is no longer a market that can sustain anyone exclusively. At all. Especially with the Rise of the Prosumer. The traditional "Pro" market is slowly dying, but also changing. It is becoming integrated with the consumer market, and Prosumers are making it happen.

In time there will be no specialized, niche markets at all in consumer tech, and that includes the "Pro" segment. We will all have access to them, with better tools that will be far easier to use.

Update from 3.2 led to app crash on start-up

on both Lion and Snow Leopard for me. I had to trash the app from Programs and reinstall completely using the App Store.

Possibly related App Store limitation: it doesn't separate different start-up volumes on one drive (one SL, the other Lion, each with its own Programs folder).

Great to see issues fixed, but I am still amazed at how absolutely inefficient Aperture is.

Incredibly slow. Yes. I have a large library. Yes, the images are large. But, isn't this the professional-level library management tool?

The issue I have here is that I know it is possible to do much better. Software can (and does) scale much better - and it isn't the hardware I'm running on :).

I think performance, scalability, and responsiveness is the next thing Apple needs to focus on here.

Unfortunately Apple is focusing on consumers, not Pros.
I've been using Aperture since v1.0 and it bothers me that it hasn't changed much since. I have too much time and effort invested to switch to Lightroom or similar. Besides it works "OK" for me on a 12-Core MacPro with 24GG of RAM and 480GB SSD. The SSD makes the whole difference BTW, everything renders a lot faster, even on my 700GB library with 600 projects in it.
Apple is focusing their efforts on consumers because they want volume but they seem to forget that Macs have been "Pro" machines since the start. Every designer, videographer, photographer or creative pro has been using Macs from the start and now they are forgetting about us.
I want a new MacPro! They release updated MacBooks and crap like that every other week and no Pro stuff... No Pro Keyboards, no Pro Mice, no Pro nothing... :mad:

The cropping bug was annoying, and Aperture in general has slowed for me on Lion compared to Snow Leopard on a very speedy Mid-2010 i7 MBP. I'm glad they're at least reacting quickly to some issues.

I'm very much starting to wonder what they're planning (and if) for a version 4.

I always wonder what causes some users to have such differences in performance. My experience with Apeture is that it has improved significantly over time on my 2009 Mini...to the point where it is now the fastest it has ever been under Lion, even compared to SL. Maybe I cleaned some things up when I installed Lion?