Since 2002, iPhotos and Photos on the Mac have always offered the ability to create books, cards, and calendars, as well as to order prints of favorite photos. With the recent update to macOS 10.13.6, Apple quietly announced that it would no longer offer Photos Print Products after September 30, 2018. The announcement came in the form of a dialog that appears when selecting any of the File > Create options in Photos:
The project extensions described in the dialog have actually been available for some time, primarily for those who wanted an alternative to Apple’s Photos Print Products.
Related article: How to Combine Multiple Photos Libraries Into a Single Library
At this time, clicking the Open App Store button on the dialog launches the Mac App Store and displays product extensions from a handful of vendors that provide printed products from Photos (see image below):
It’s unknown why Apple has decided to drop “in-house” printed Photos products, but it is most likely due to the explosion in the use of iPhones and iPads to view photos. That reduced the demand for printed photos and books, and as a result, the ability to create printed projects was never added to the iOS version of Photos. The current macOS 10.14 “Mojave” beta also directs users to Project Extensions in the Mac App Store.
Implementing or not implementing a responsive design website should fall under the category “it depends”. Not every website needs to be responsive and each project should look at metrics before making a decisions one way or another. Apps are nice and have a purpose, but maintenance of apps will kill you in the end.
Server logs and analytics should indicate the type of browsers and platforms visiting your site. The last project was an even split of desktop to mobile visitors with over 90% of all visitors visiting surfing a small group of pages. So why build two different sites for a handful of pages. If your client is planning to post URLs on billboards, transit and transit stops, then a mobile first option should be considered. RWD is really about building for ubiquity. We do not know the platforms or devices that will be used six months from now. But we do know that they will most likely have a web browser or browser based services. Responsive, progressive enhancement and adaptive design are all part of the evolution of delivering content. In the end, users are only looking for content. So realistically, we should be looking at a content first strategy. Give the users what they want and let the content be the same independent of platform. If you don’t, users will get the content they want using clipping services such as Instapaper or Readability.
The article is very good with useful content . Thanks for info .
I have created a book but not using extension can I now transfer data to extension without losing all the work.
I just got a new Macbook Air. Started it with my time machine backup. In my old computer I was developing the phonebooks in photo and then converting them to mimeo to print them. I made 4 books and need to edit the pictures in the book because they are dark. I was waiting for the new computer as my old mac is very slow. On the new computer I can not use Photos to edit the books. I can look at them but can not edit anything. Is there any way around this. I am trying not to go back to the old computer to edit the photos in the book as it is very slow. The books are already made so I can’t edit them in photos outside of the book creator software. Any one know of how I can change this or is this the way it is?
You don’t say what your old computer is. Are there upgrade options available for it that could improve performance? That’s a pricy but straightforward solution. Replacing the hard drive with an SSD would do the most good, performance wise. But more RAM is also a good idea.
Just spent 2 days creating photo book of vacation. I went to pay for it and was unable to do this as the service is no longer available. Why does it allow you to create the book in the first place with no notification up front that it won’t work. What do I do now so I don’t lose all this work?
Save or export it as a PDF. You can then use any number of other printing services to make your book. There are a number of reliable online services, as well as walk-in service bureaus that will be glad to print it for you.
Told I cannot print book (which has taken me a day to put together) as need to upgrade photos software. Then told cannot do this. Tried to phone support but told no one there to answer. This is terrible ‘service’ from Apple – no wonder people are falling out of love with its products. Total waste of my tin… VERY ANGRY,
hopeless – it works well, now its a pain in the bum. moving to photo box for these products.
I have made the family calendar for years, finished this one, only to find out I can’t print it anymore. I AM FURIOUS. Why did they not let us know far in advance. My calendar has due NOW, and I can’t figure out how to get it somewhere to print. VERY BAD of APPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!
We discovered the same thing. Found Mimeo. Was able to
Print our iPhoto calendars with same quality as Apple and for same price with quicker delivery. When you want to order your product, hold down the option key when you click “buy” and export a pdf file to the desktop. Upload that to Mimeo and complete the order process. Simple as that.
I agree Apple is inconsiderate of their long time customers with this type of move, but it is typical of their company. (Another move recently was removing the headphone jack on iPhones and USB ports on their MacBooks). Oh well, for some reason I still stick with them.
Thank you … BEST SUGGESTION EVER !!!
Saved my day!
I’m in the exact same boat as Tina – spent hours and hours creating my calendar on iphoto and then was devastated when it wouldn’t allow me to buy it. Can you provide a little more guidance on how to use Mimeo? I don’t see a calendar option on the site. Did you use their presentation printing to create one?
THANK YOU! I wasn’t able to pdf the calendar I made in iPhotos but I recreated it in Mimeo, with more photos per page and it was delivered within 5 days!
Angry that Apple Photos doesn’t provide information that you can no longer print so people are wasting time putting together albums and calendars that cannot be printed directly with Apple. And a misleading message in Photos about upgrading the app which turns out to mean the operating system but even when upgraded, still the same issue!! gggggrrrrrr!!
Thank you thats so helpful!! I’ve been struggling with how to export this for months!
Apple sucks !!! Over the years I have made quite a few iPhoto albums , been delighted with results . This year I have spent 6 months doing an album on and off of a 35 day Pacific cruise we did in June . About a week before Xmas I finally finished it – all sorted , it looked wonderful pressed the “ buy now “ and kept getting a notice saying “ cannot connect to Apple at moment , try again later “
Of which I did many times over next few days THEN being a 70 year old started to blame myself for it not working . As people my age do with technology !!!
After many hours and research discovered of course iPhoto albums have finished .
Would have been nice if Apple had sent everyone who has used that service over the years an email ?? An even when I tried to buy my album a note to telling me it was finished . I have spent days , weeks and months doing this album and like other people I was in tears after all my work . VERY very poor Apple . All my technology is Apple but after this I will seriously consider going to another company
Received my Mimeo Calendar (ordered Dec 10) today and it looks great! Same quality as the Apple ones I have ordered for several years. This thread was a calendar saver. Thanks all.
Just a heads up for those using Mimeo to order your project. You need to use Safari, at least that was what my experience was. With Google Chrome it was just spinning when I clicked ‘buy’.
Is anyone having trouble purchasing on Mimeo. When I click the ‘buy’ button after uploading the pdf it just spins.
It has worked flawlessly for me. We have ordered 3 different calendars from them and the first two have arrived quickly and are excellent quality. Ordered the third today. Used Safari and iPhoto.
My thanks to those who took the time to post the Mimeo solution.
After the hours it takes to create a calendar, and patience requested by the Photo App to:
1. Upgrade App
2. Retry order due to error
3. Retry later due to Apple Store updating
After 2 days, I finally got tired of waiting. A little transparency with the process at the start of creating the calendar was all that was necessary on Apple’s part. I don’t begrudge them shutting down any feature they’ve created for our benefit; just requesting a little courtesy for my loyalty to their hardware and software.
Thank you all for the solution.
I am having the same problem attempting to purchase my calendar and Christmas card. I spent all day putting both together and then learned I could not purchase through iPhoto like I had been doing for years. After spending too much time trying to figure out the solution, I downloaded the apps Mimeo and Wix (I really, really don’t want more apps!) but neither app was easy to use. They weren’t intuitive and did not walk me step-by-step through the process. When I tried to open my card through Mimeo, it was changed. Does anyone recommend which app is the easiest to use and produces the best product?
My wife had worked many hours on a calendar for Christmas with the last version of iPhoto, which we still prefer to photos, only to have the error message when we tried to buy the calendar. Fortunately, thanks to this thread, we were easily able to export the calendar to a pdf file and upload it to Mimeo and order it. It went flawlessly, and the upload was quicker than the old uploads to Apple. I am keeping my fingers crossed that the item arrives as ordered and is the same quality we’re used to with Apple print products (or at least close). The price was the same as Apple’s old price for the calendar. Thank goodness I didn’t do as Apple recommended and convert everything to Photos and start from scratch on the project.
Can you be more specific about the steps you took to upload the pdf file of the calendar to Mimeo? I am trying to do the same thing! Any help is appreciated, thank you!
The directions are spelled out on this web page -> https://import.mimeophotos.com/
Basically, you don’t need to download any app. Just hold down the option key when you push the Buy Calendar button on iPhoto. You can then save a pdf file of your calendar. Then follow the instructions on the mimeo link above to order the calendar from mimeo. It worked flawlessly. We are waiting anxiously for our calendar, hoping it will turn out in high quality and with the same formatting with which it was designed.
I cannot thank you enough for responding to my message. I was able to make my project work today because of you!! I will be grateful to you for this whole holiday season, as I had created a calendar and 5 photo books as gifts for my family back in August, and was unable to order any of them until you told me how. Apple Support was no help at all. I hope your calendar turns out beautifully, you deserve it!
I tried the above and it didn’t work. My buy calendar button is gray and appears to be inactive. I tried the option key first and then the buy calendar button. I tried hitting them at the same time. No luck. Any advice would be appreciated and I am ready to buy. Like others, this project took a long time. Ugh!
Are you using iPhoto or Photos? If iPhoto make sure it is the latest version.
Thanks for your response. I was using IPhoto. I was able to get it completed by right clicking on one of the image thumbnails at the bottom of the screen. I got the choice “save calendar to PDF”. I saved it to the desktop and uploaded to Mimeo.
Thank you so much!!!! I went to print my calendars and CRIED when my Buy Calendar button didn’t work. I was able to use your instructions to upload to Mimeo…just praying the calendar looks something like the ones Apple produced. Thanks so much!
The calendar I ordered from Mimeo on Dec 10 came today and it looks great! It looks just like the ones I have purchased from Apple for years. Whew!
Thank you so much for taking the time to respond and provide instruction. Similar to the others who have commented, I spent the entire day yesterday putting together a calendar only to find out I could not purchase through Apple. I was prepared to start from scratch on another photo site, but figured I’d see if anything was out there on this subject. THANK YOU THANK YOU for saving me hours and making it possible for me to receive my calendar gifts by Christmas. I hope you have a great holiday!
Thank you so much for your help!!!
You literally saved CHRISTMAS!!! OMG! You are amazing! Thank you soooo much! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
Press OPTION and BUY BOOK at the same time. It will download to a PDF and you can order via Mimeo
The calendars arrived from Mimeo! They are terrific. Exactly like the old Apple product. Total home run. Thank you, Mimeo!
I haven’t tried the printing aspect yet but you can export as PDF by Right-Clicking/Control-Click on one of the image thumbnails at the bottom of the screen where you create the calendar. For us, that has exported what looks like a large enough PDF to enable high quality printing.
OMG!!!!! Thank you SOOOOOOO much for printing this!! It completely saved me!!!! I am so grateful for you – thank you for sharing this information!!!!!!!!!
I did the same thing…. hold down option key while pressing Buy Calendar button in iPhoto (9.5.1) and it gave me the option to save a PDF. I followed the upload instructions at Mimeo and now hope to receive the calendars in less than a week!
This really stinks. Apple started with an iPhoto that really worked for people. They have continuously made things worse. Same on them.
I ended up using Mimeo and it worked great! I hope the calendars are printed with the same great quality that I am used to with Apple. :)
I created a Calendar in the Photos app before realizing that I wasn’t going to be able to print. Does anyone have advice on what print service I should use to print the calendar? Thanks for any help anyone can offer me!!
I ended up using Mimeo and it worked great! I hope the calendars are printed with the same great quality that I am used to with Apple. :)
This is such rubbish. I have spent ages creating a book, it then tells me I should use Mimeo to print it. So I faff about with that. And then it tells me I have to have international shipping at £10.99 because I am in the UK, even though Mimeo has print facilities in Britain. Apple, you need to do better. If you’re recommending Mimeo, you need to get them on board. This is crap.
Have just spent a lot of time creating PhotoBooks for Christmas presents only to discover that Apple will no longer be offering a printing service. Very disappointing. One of the main reasons for investing in the Macs was for their range of options through iPhotos and then Photos.
Exercise a little initiative. There are innumerable services outside Apple that will print your books.
Thanks Jeff but complaining about Apple discontinuing something useful, as opposed to the nonsense called “upgrade”, is something Apple should pay attention to. Telling people to suck it up is exactly backwards in a consumer-company relationship.
Maybe they should, but they don’t. That’s the bottom line. I’m just suggesting that you spend your time and energy on something more productive, like finding a service bureau or online substitute. Of course I suppose you can do both, if complaining makes you feel better. But go over to the Apple forums (if you have not done so already) and pick your bone where they might actually see your remarks—if you actually expect then to do anything about it.
I am not sure why you feel compelled to criticize others who express their frustration. Unless you own Apple, leave them alone.
I can see blaming Apple when a decision of theirs leaves you out in the cold with no other choice. I can think of many of those. But in this case choices abound. It seems to me that people are blaming Apple in this instance because they are too lazy to look for those other choices. So I’m calling them out for their lack of initiative.
As I said, Apple has a history of abandoning perfectly useful products, like Aperture and OS X server. They have long had a severe case of ADD, going back to well before Tim Cook took over the company. No one should be surprised by that any more. Unless you’re new to Apple products and thus new to having your expectations dashed.
If people have a right to make futile complaints, we have an equal right to complain about their complaints. Sauce for the goose, as they say. In the meantime, thanks for your complaint about my complaint about their complaints. ;-)
I spent over an hour on the phone to Apple and a full day upgrading to a new operating system after I rang to ask them why I couldn’t print a book I had made. Nice lady at Apple didn’t tell me that they had stopped this service. I wasted time upgrading to a new system and still cannot printvthe book.
The print services Apple linked to are still there. You just have to look for them outside Photos. You know, like everyone else does. I won’t mention names; just do your homework.
As for your OS upgrade, if you were wise enough to make a backup you can revert without too much trouble. If you don’t have a backup then you’ll just have to do it the hard way. Find an online service to print your book independent of Apple.
I’m in the same boat Liz – SO SO frustrating!! I spent hours and hours selecting and arranging photos in a book, clicked buy and was told had to upgrade to new OS/photos to print it. I did that (took hours) for the sole purpose of printing the book I made, only to find out that now the service isn’t offered!! B. Jefferson Le Blanc’s rude and unhelpful comments don’t point to any solution. Sure, I’ve used Shutterfly before for similar projects and know of many vendors, but exporting to those vendors won’t be perfect and will require hours and hours of additional work to get the same arrangements. Wish Apple was more transparent about this so I didn’t waste so much time!!
I’m sorry if you thought I was rude. But do you have any other choice than to look for another publisher? No you don’t. That’s not rude, it’s just real. If Apple cared about your concerns they wouldn’t have dumped their services. Alternatively, you could have taken the usual precaution of backing up your old system before upgrading to a new one so you could revert to it if need be. If you made no such backup, then you have no one but yourself to blame for your lack of caution and foresight. Maybe Apple misdirected you, but ultimately you are responsible for your own success or failure. Apple provides Time Machine as a painless backup solution. If you didn’t use it, Apple’s not at fault, you are. Blaming Apple for your troubles may make you feel better, but it’s ultimately a wast of time and energy that would be better spent of solving the problem rather than complaining about it. After you’ve found a solution, you can write about it and we’ll all be grateful rather than censorious.
It’s not as if Apple hasn’t done this sort of thing before. Right now they are dumbing down macOS Server software; anyone who needs it would be well advised not to upgrade. Apple abandoned iPhoto and Aperture several years ago, and an excellent version of iMovie before that. And iWeb. And AppleWorks. The iPod. The Mac Cube and the equally elegant but dead end waste basket Mac Pro. For anyone who has been around awhile Apple clearly has Attention Deficit Syndrome and we don’t depend on Apple software in particular for serious work.
As for hardware, they surprised everyone with a new version of the Mac mini, which many thought had reached EOL. Apple is back in the desktop Mac business, after a long hiatus, with an improved iMac and a workstation level iMac Pro. And they have even promised a new, user serviceable Mac Pro for next year. Which will be a good thing because you cannot even upgrade the RAM in the iMac Pro.
Check with the publisher you finally decide to use to see what formats they prefer. Pages and InDesign are good apps to use to layout your book. And Adobe Lightroom has a book module that can export to Blurb, though that’s rather expensive. It also has PDF export, which would probably be more useful. You might even be able to import your book into Pages, or place it there. Then export to PDF if appropriate. Look for solutions, not sympathy.
Use Mimeo. You can easily print your iPhoto book there. Just hold down the option key when you click the “buy book” button, save it to your desktop, then upload it to Mimeo on their website. They walk you through the purchase. Couldn’t be easier. I haven’t received my calendar yet, but hopefully the quality is the same as Apple provided.
You can get 20% off your first order if you go onto their website and enter your email address. Still more expensive than Apple but I did not want to abandon the whole project and start again somewhere else.
I just spoke with a great support person at Apple and she helped me with this. If you go to the Mimeo website it walks you through how to download your book in a print ready PDF file. Then you upload on their website and order through them. I was able to order my book that way. Hope that helps!
I recently updated to Mojave and wasn’t aware that they would phase out their photo project features. I downloaded Mimeo, spent weeks to recreate my unfinished albums from the Apple Photo app… ONLY TO FIND OUT I AM UNABLE TO SAVE MY BOOKS AS PDF! Very frustrating. Do you recommend any photo extension that allows me to save my photobooks as PDF??
this is lousy- I make books and calendars every year for gifts- rethink this!
this is lousy- i make books and calendars every year for gifts- rethink this!
Agreed!! Plus Apple has screwed the people with older desktops who can’t upgrade to Mojave. I worked weeks on this books and now I have no way to print it
Oh please. Older Macs have always aged out at some point. I have an old cheese-grader Mac Pro that could’t got beyond Lion. It gave me good service, but my now five year old 27″ iMac dances circles around it—and will handle Mojave, for what that’s worth. And the new iMacs are hotter still, though I don’t need all that horsepower anymore. There are plenty of web publishing sites that can handle your book, which is probably why Apple gave up that game. If you can’t find someone to publish your book you’re just not trying. Blaming Apple may make you feel good in some way, but it’s a total waste of time.
Since Apple discontinued this service I started using a Project Extension called “Motif” and it offers the same printing quality that Apple’s printing service did. One thing I love is the editing tools make it easy to use my best photos and Motif even has special themes for photo books!
This is really to bad. AS I enjoyed coming back from a trip overseas and making Calender’s and Books. How very disappointing
Why is the buy book button greyed out???
I have 2 books ready and the ‘buy book’ button is greyed out. I thought I had till Sept 30??
I photo was far better than photo for Mac it prints odd borders only way I can print borderless is with photoshop Mac photo system is useless I wish apple would reinstate iphoto
I really don’t care about ordering a card. Why won’t it let me print a card I put together from my own computer?!! The print button is grayed out so I CAN’T print what I designed at home. GRRRR
Because Photos is not a graphic design app. If you want to print a hand designed card, use Pages.
what is it?
what is it?
and can it print what I have already done?
is there an app you can use which accesses iphoto as it is now as I have a book half finished but can’t complete before September 30?
Yes.
what is it?
and can it directly draw from my book already started?
I have been a mac user from the beginning and have probably most mac products at one time. I am getting fed up with the changes in OS, apps (used to be called programs) and devices. None of them work the way they have been offered. Those of us who are greater than 60 years owe to the millennials the decline and probably death of a fine way of computing. This is just one more example. I am charting my way with software even if I have to go back to the ugly windows-based software.
I totally agree with you. Im so frustrated with Apple. I bought my computer just to make books and videos for my family. They did away with IDVD, now can’t order books and I sent hours making a book that I just found out was all for nothing. I’m older too and I’m tired of the young advisors making excuses for a company that just doesn’t care.
I’d bet this has something to do with the dropping of 32 bit applications.
But since this is still a relatively free country, you will see others take advantage of the opportunity this presents.
According to Apple Support Photo Print Products is not available to users of iPhoto effective now, not Sept 30. And he made no promises that it would work using Photos, just “try it and see”. Thanks to all who posted alternatives like AdoramaPix; the options suggested by Apple are awful.
I have been a user of AdoramaPix in NYC for a number of years now. I have found their products, prints of all kinds, and books as well, to be of consistently high quality, inexpensive, and fast and great service. I used to create and sell my own prints for my pro clients. But now I just refer them to AdoramaPix.
I used Apple until I discovered MyPublisher, which was FAR superior. Unfortunately, Shutterfly bought them and dropped their products. But this weekend I saw a Shutterfly book on amazing thick paper with good color, and my friend said she paid extra to have it printed without advertising Shutterly all over.
My wife just tried to order a book and got the following message, “An error occurred while trying to contact Apple Online Store.” The service is available until September 30th, correct?
Also, why doesn’t Apple sell wheel bearings for my steam powered thresher?
Why does Apple get rid of features that customers like and use? As for profitability I am richer thanks to Apple, but would be willing to make less to keep features that work well and are popular. But Apple’s decision process is opaque to even shareholders.
Yes! Thanks for your comment.
With so many other options for printing books, cards, albums, calendars, cups, canvas wall hangings, etc. available from Walmart and the local Rite Aid it’s totally understandable why Apple is getting out of the print business. While yes it was neat, easy, and cool, to do it right from your home computer, and the product was good quality – let’s face it a company HAS to be profitable and when something is losing money it has to be let go. Eventually. EVERY company must do that. The quality of what we’ve gotten from processing our photos and ordering books and cards (and cups and…) through the Fuji system at Rite Aid very closely rival Apple’s at a much more reasonable cost to us. So we already switched away from using the feature in Photos/iPhoto. (I guess we are part of the reason Apple had to drop support for it)
Paul,
You cannot be seriously comparing the quality you get from Apple to Walmart or Rite-Aid. If you cannot tell the difference that is fine, but for those that can it is a big difference.
Agree with comments made, another useful feature arbitrarily removed by “father knows best” Tim Cook. I assume this applies to iPhoto users too?
That’s a shame. I’ve used their phonebook service for over 12 years and as a print designer, the quality has been excellent (a little falloff in the last year or two). Excellent color, paper and printing.
Shutterfly was ok but not one I’d go back to. Tried Mixbook last year and found it to be the first true alternate. May try Blurb next.
Just another case where supply and demand are working together against the non-technically oriented public.
The question I have is will Photo and iPhoto still be functional for organization and archiving photos? Or is this too headed into extinction?
That’s a bummer for us. We use their print services for all sorts of ‘kids photos as gifts’ to family members. Their calendars are actually pretty great, with good quality, and they will drop ship to the grandparents. Oh well.
There is a third party extension within Apple Photos called Motif that offers good quality printing services and has a great application system. Their parent company RR Donnelley actually printed many Apple Photo Books and Calendars over the years and that is who is providing the printing for Motif.
Without a link this reference is more than useless. I tried to look up Motif on the RR Donnelley and got zip. Motif didn’t show up on MacUpdate either.
Motif won’t let you print yourself, keeps crashing, pops up asking you to download it, when it already is…. it’s not for me.
Too bad. Their products were superior the others that I tried over the years
Another bad move. The third party products are not as good as the Apple photobooks. This is clear when you look at independent reviews like the one from Tom’s Guide on Best Photo Books 2018.
Apple is rated #2 with an 8/10 score. The only service in the top 10 list is Shutterfly with a mediocre score of 6/10. Would rather have seen the prices increase than lose the Apple photobooks.
I have tried some of the extension apps before and the product quality is not good compared to what you get with Apple. Ultimately this makes Photos a more useless app since I will not be printing books with any of the low quality vendors that have extensions for Photos.
I know a few photo studios that rely on Appl photobooks for the quality and ease of deliverability to clients.
I do not think this is due to lack of demand. I think Apple decided the service was not as profitable as they want and decided to cut it rather than raise the prices and risk higher for a lower volume.
TBH, I’ve been using macs since ’96 and didn’t even know about this feature.
Where are the alternatives mentioned in the title?
They’re the third-party extensions that are already available. To be honest with you, some of them have pretty bad ratings…but I guess they’re better than nothing.
Steve
Just another in a long line of betrayals by Apple. I am no longer a from the beginning total fan of Apple. When there is a decent alternative I am ditching all my mac setups. Why create such animosity?? Why betray the professional base?? Because they are rich and don’t care about quality and creativity anymore. Sad world we live in. Thankfully we have OWC!!
Oh please. I guess you never noticed all the projects Google and Microsoft have abandoned over the years. If they fail financially, they fail altogether.
What professionals ever used iPhoto of Photos to manage their projects? It was always a consumer related enterprise. And consumers have gone elsewhere.
The only alternatives are Linux, not a viable graphics platform, and Microsoft. You’re welcome to choose Microsoft—if you’ve got lots of money to replace your computer and all/any software you use. Oh, and don’t forget the learning curve. Windows 10 is a decent operating system, but it includes no free software even slightly comparable to Photos (not to mention Pages, Keynote and Numbers). You’ll have to spend additional money for that, too.
As for publishing your photos in cards of books, there are plenty of on-line services out there to choose from. You don’t need Photos to access them. Just a little initiative.
It’s true Apple has left plenty of abandonware in their wake—like just about everybody else you can name. They are not the least bit unusual in that respect.
You might feel justified in feeling annoyed, but betrayed? Hardly.
Justified or not, I feel betrayed, especially with the abandonment of Aperture and the numbing down of Final Cut. I don’t really use Photos that much. I resent the commercialization beyond a reasonable profit across the spectrum of big boys having a contest. I am older and can tell the difference between crass making profit and enjoying making a good fun usable product.
You are, of course, entitled to your feelings. The loss of Aperture was, indeed, a betrayal of sorts since Apple provided no comparable alternative. Long before that, though, I decided that it was unwise to depend on Apple to provide long term support for anything beyond their core services, as in Apple Mail, which has been around longer than most of the competition, though it’s far from best in class. In fact it was when Steve Jobs decided it was a good idea to mess up iMovie with all it’s third-party extensions that made it truly useful. The new iMovie was not, nor is it extensible. That was eleven years ago.
Of course Adobe abandoned Premier on the Mac in that time, but they later reconsidered their decision. Steve Jobs did not. Then too Adobe has not been entirely reliable either. Which is to say that no one has. The sad fact is that products come and go; we may not always be happy with that fact, but there it is. Coming the end of next year will be the death of 32bit apps on the Mac. Many developers will simply not make the move to 64bit and we will be stuck with finding substitutes, if we can.
Not even app developers take our feelings into account. In the end it’s the bottom line that matters. You may be older but you are mistaken if you think it was ever otherwise. If businesses don’t make money they don’t stay in business and the end result is the same. They and their products disappear—fun or not.
Well said B!
The profit us all theory does not fit here. I am tired of this excuse. It just sounds like a too bad for you tough luck kiddo bully tactic.
I think it is not either make a profit or make and maintain an excellent product. So I can’t comprehend a company removing or dumbing down an excellent product. They might find some way to increase profit from an excellent product. The debicle of Aperture and Final Cut makes no sense to me.
Isn’t it interesting how people scream about Adobe’s subscription based Creative Cloud, but then criticize FCP X when it’s considered a brilliant and affordable application used by many videomakers. Perhaps you couldn’t adapt beyond the aging interface of old-style video editors. I hear there are people who still complain about how great WordStar and PFSWrite were…
You’re very welcome to Final Cut X. I refuse to add Pro to the product’s title. Apple made a bold leap into the future with that software … with two left feet and blindfolded. Things do change, it’s true, but it’s a shame when they change for the worse. Apple lost 90% of its professional film editing software users for a good reason. IMHO.
Smitty, if demand isn’t there nor profits, then you must think Apple is not a business, and a publicly traded one. I’m a shareholder and appreciate smart business decisions using my money. But there are alternatives if you take the time to seek them out. Plus, there are far better paid products like Adobe’s for instance than “bundled” Photos. And in the same vain, Mail, Numbers and Pages are fine for free but lack a ton of features in Numbers and Outlook. Mail is atrociously underwhelming as is Contacts too boot. Have you never paid for an app found in the App Store or else where by the way?
Agree and I am a shareholder.