2014.06 News: Aperture and IPhoto Laid Off

Apple is migrating its photo-processing functionality over to the generically named "Photos", which is intended to wholly replace iPhoto and Aperture by the end of 2015. Photos is yet another step Apple is taking toward merging the way its programs work on computers (under OS X) and hand-held devices (under iOS). The program called Photos will run much the same way on your Mac that the app called Photos will on your iPad. At least that's the plan.

Furthermore, Apple evidently intends Photos to be the one and only image-processing tool it makes available to its entire range of users, from grandma's vacation photos up to intensive high-quality professional work. That's quite a range of capabilities to try to cram into a single program, and Apple will have to strike a delicate balance to deliver the desired power to the pros without overwhelming the neophytes.

Still, many people who've been frustrated with iPhoto's unreliable and utterly opaque library — which can produce a gargantuan file with all your images stored in it, God only knows how — will keep their fingers crossed and hope that there's a clear migration path over to whatever Photos will use as a storage system, hopefully one that gives the user more of a peek at (and control over) what's going on.

2014.06 News: Apple Taps Half-Century-Old Zeitgeist

Apple's technology may be on the cutting edge, but it reached back to the Kennedy presidency for the jingle that accompanies its ad for the new Health app for iOS devices.

fireworks

2014.06 Tip: Technology Reminder

Always back up your data, and … oh, yeah, what was that other thing?

2014.06 News: New iOS (8) and OS X (Yosemite) Unveiled

We've reached the point where we can reasonably expect a new release of Apple's operating systems (iOS for handheld devices, OS X for computers) every summer, and here they are again, right on schedule.

Should you upgrade? Well, you can't — not until the fall at the earliest; this is just an announcement of things to come. When fall rolls around, if you're an early adopter, of course you're going to upgrade immediately anyway, regardless of what we say here. For everyone else, give it a month for all the early adopters to finish the gamma testing for you and then download the +0.1 bug-fix release. This will all be available thru the App Store, and your currently installed operating system will undoubtedly remind you of it from time to time until you do.