from ars:
t saddens me to say that Aperture's innovations are only skin deep. If it could deliver on the promise of being both fast and produce flawless results, it would be the dream package. At this point it is an expensive and questionable alternative to Camera Raw, a free extension to Photoshop, and Adobe's Bridge which can batch produce better quality images in arguably less time. For US$500 (Photoshop itself retails for US$649), there is no excuse not to be aware of professional needs like a high-quality sharpen tool, DNG exporting or more basic things like curves, a sampler tool for RGB pixel readings, or retention of EXIF data on output.
I'd like to get excited about things like instant books and the light table, but if the base technology in Aperture is flawed, it can't be the high-end imaging hub it wants to be. The quality of Aperture's RAW converter is bad, and for an application that's selling point is iterative nondestructive RAW editing, that's like building a house on a plate of Jello. It doesn't matter how nice the Ming vase looks next to the Fabergé eggs, or how fast the place heats up; it's all built on a bad foundation so the chances of anyone wanting to live the good life there are next to none.
It is also disappointing to see form beat out function here, but hopefully this will be Apple's software equivalent of the G4 Cube. They have only themselves to blame: they set themselves up for a big fall by attempting to dig themselves a chunk of the pro market by purporting to have the lossless holy grail of imaging. The trouble with that is they obviously didn't have the engineering or expertise in RAW processing to pull it off or, if they did, they chose not to include it because of speed constraints due to Core Image. For things like the 8-bit TIFF export problem, which can be fixed with a 1.01 update, it's not a complete dealbreaker but Aperture's faults are many and can't be fixed overnight.
Maybe by 2.0 Apple will have the foundation sorted out. At this stage Aperture is a big, expensive misfire and considering the hefty price tag, I can't think of a reason to recommend it. Reading this review, you may think I sound jaded, but I am genuinely angry for those who shelled out US$500 for a program that promised professional results and failed to deliver. Thanks for coming out Aperture, now get off the stage.