Apple is dropping iPhoto, Aperture for cleaner Photos app

Since 2007, when first introduced, the iPhone has taken the art of taking photos out of the hands of niche photographers and into the mainstream, where everything from selfies to citizen reporting now fit in the palm of your hands. However cute that sentiment may be, Apple’s official iPhoto application started feeling outdated after 13 odd years of updates. This is why Apple went back to the drawing board and is now introducing Photos.

So what does dropping an “i” and adding an “s” really mean for Apple’s photographers? As the name change suggests, the app looks a lot cleaner. For starters, the grey background has been changed to a cleaner white with less padding all round.

The platform works across all iDevices which means that when you edit something on your iPhone, the changes will simultaneously appear on your Mac. This is all thanks to iCloud of course.

Apple will simultaneously remove Aperture from its products on offer, which has been a strong competitor to Adobe’s Lightroom.

As noted by MacWorld, Apple’s trying to find the balance between fulfilling the needs and wants of both professional and casual photography. This is of course a big task.

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“Featuring an easy-to-use and streamlined design, Photos has been engineered from the ground up to help you keep your growing library organised and accessible,” the site reads.

“Powerful and intuitive editing tools help you perfect your images as well as create beautiful gifts for sharing. And with iCloud Photo Library, a lifetime’s worth of photos and videos can be stored in the cloud — so you can access your entire collection from your Mac or iOS devices anytime.”

While currently in what seems to be a closed-beta, the app will be shipped with Apple’s next OSX products to be introduced sometime later this year while the iOS Photos takeover will be introduced as an over-the-air update.