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 17 Air Size Feature

'iPhone 17 Air' With Rear Camera Bar Allegedly Shown in Leaked Photo

Tuesday January 21, 2025 12:46 pm PST by
A leaker known as "Majin Bu" today shared an alleged image of a component for the rumored, ultra-thin "iPhone 17 Air" model. The blurry, pixelated image shows a pair of rear iPhone shells with a pill-shaped, raised camera bar along the top. On the left side of the bar, there is a circular cutout that appears to be for a single rear camera. On the right side of the bar, there appears to be an ...
iOS 18

Here Are Apple's Full Release Notes for iOS 18.3

Tuesday January 21, 2025 4:31 pm PST by
Apple provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate version of iOS 18.3 today, and with it comes release notes confirming what's new. While we knew about several of the features that are in the update, there are some lesser known tweaks and bug fixes. The update adds new Visual Intelligence features for iPhone 16 models, it tweaks Notification summaries on all...
Apple Pay Walmart Feature

Walmart Stands Firm on Why It Doesn't Accept Apple Pay in the U.S.

Thursday January 23, 2025 7:32 am PST by
Walmart still does not accept Apple Pay or other NFC payments at its more than 4,600 stores across the U.S., and it stood firm on its reasoning for that today. A spokesperson for Walmart today informed MacRumors that its position on contactless payments has not changed since we last reached out about the matter in 2022. The big-box retailer said it remains focused on its own convenient...
Generic iOS 19 Feature Mock Light

iOS 19 Leak Reveals All-New Design

Friday January 17, 2025 2:42 pm PST by
iOS 19 is still around six months away from being announced, but a new leak has allegedly revealed a completely redesigned Camera app. Based on footage it obtained, YouTube channel Front Page Tech shared a video showing what the new Camera app will apparently look like, with the key change being translucent menus for camera controls. Overall, the design of these menus looks similar to...
iOS 18

Apple Expected to Release iOS 18.3 Next Week With These New Features

Thursday January 23, 2025 6:41 am PST by
iOS 18.3 should be released to the public next week, following beta testing since mid-December. While the software update is a relatively minor one, it still includes a handful of new features, changes, and bug fixes for iPhones. Below, we recap everything new in iOS 18.3. Notification Summary Changes Examples of inaccurate Apple Intelligence notification summaries Apple Intelligence...
truecaller

Truecaller iOS Update Rolls Out Real-Time Caller ID Support

Wednesday January 22, 2025 2:07 am PST by
Popular caller ID app Truecaller is rolling out an update that brings real-time caller ID support to its iOS subscribers. Apple introduced Live Caller ID Lookup in iOS 18, allowing third-party caller ID apps to securely retrieve information about a caller from their servers, hence today's Truecaller update. iPhone users can enable the Live Caller ID Lookup feature by going to Settings ➝ ...
ipad pro 2024

New iPad Pro Reportedly Launching This Year

Tuesday January 21, 2025 6:40 am PST by
Apple plans to release at least one new iPad Pro model this year, according to a supplier-focused report today from Korean website The Elec. It is likely that the 11-inch and 13-inch iPad Pro models would be updated simultaneously. After receiving an OLED display last year, the report said the iPad Pro will receive only "minor" changes this year. Overall, the next iPad Pro is expected to...
airtag 4 pack blue

AirTag 2 Launching This Year With These 3 New Features

Sunday January 19, 2025 8:11 am PST by
After a four-year wait, a new AirTag is finally expected to launch in 2025. Below, we recap rumored upgrades for the accessory. A few months ago, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said Apple was aiming to release the AirTag 2 around the middle of 2025. While he did not offer a more specific timeframe, that means the AirTag 2 could be announced by the end of June. The original AirTag was announced...
iPhone SE Dynamic Island Majin Bu

iPhone SE 4 Leak Shows Dynamic Island, Casts Doubt on Rumored 'iPhone 16E' Name

Monday January 20, 2025 9:01 am PST by
A new iPhone SE is widely rumored to launch this year, and the device has potentially been confirmed today by known leaker Evan Blass. In a private social media post, Blass shared an image of what appears to be source code mentioning an iPhone SE (4th Gen), which casts doubt on the alternative "iPhone 16E" name rumored for the device. However, the name in the source code could be a...

Top Rated Comments

spaceballl Avatar
138 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
138 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
138 months ago
<SIGH> does it work without the 'cloud'?
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Gizmotoy Avatar
138 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
138 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
138 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)