Apple continues to make moves that directly impact users who shoot photos and store them in iCloud.
The company, which announced Feb. 6 that its new Photos app will replace 13-year-old iPhoto, also is phasing out Aperture, its professional-level photo-management software.
Aperture users were notified March 5 that the application will soon be removed from the App Store. Alternatively, Apple asked Aperture users to try out Photos, which is available now in Apple’s OS X 10.10.3 open beta.
Aperture users received an email from Apple that included the following instructions:
“When Photos for OS X launches this spring, Aperture will no longer be available for purchase from the Mac App Store. You can continue to use Aperture on OS X Yosemite, but you will not be able to buy additional copies of the app.
“You can migrate your Aperture library to Photos for OS X, including your photos, adjustments, albums and keywords. After migrating, your Aperture library remains intact. However, Aperture and Photos do not share a unified library, so any changes made after the migration will not be shared between the apps. We thank you for using Aperture and hope you will enjoy the new Photos for OS X app.”
Last June, Apple introduced its new Photos apps for iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite, along with iCloud Photo Library, which lets users store all their photos in iCloud and access them from anywhere.
On Feb. 6, Apple made available for its worldwide list of registered developers and OS X beta testers the first OS X 10.10.3 Yosemite beta, which is basically v10.10.2 with Photos as its one major additional feature.
Although iPhoto has been Apple’s sturdy photo app since January 2002, the company needed a completely updated image app because a lot of IT advances have happened since then, such as the cloud. Aperture had been offered by Apple since 2005.
To find out more about Photos for OS X, go here. If you’re interested in trying the OS X 10.10.3 Public Beta, which includes Photos for OS X, go here.
eWEEK Senior Editor Sean Michael Kerner assisted in this story.