AppleInsider:

When rumors of Aperture first surfaced, the common reaction was to assume that this was Apple attempting to make their own version of Photoshop. Aperture was for editing photos, it did feature some tools that photographers know from Adobe’s software.

Apple’s software wasn’t Photoshop, it was a new class of app entirely. It was for photographers to handle large numbers of photographs, to do the kind of processing and editing they need daily, and then to send these images on to clients.

Then Adobe released Lightroom, a very similar idea to Aperture, and that seemed to validate the concept. There were key differences between the two but they both aimed to serve pro photographers.

Adobe Lightroom succeeded and is still in use today. Apple’s Aperture is no longer in development or on sale.

It’s a surprising story because Aperture had much going for it. The Mac is the preferred computer of photographers across the world and Aperture addressed a genuine need. It’s too simplistic to blame its failure on a handful of specific issues but as a whole those problems do mean that Aperture is a major Apple app that died.

The article makes a lot of claims about Lightroom that are inaccurate but it’s still an interesting look at Aperture. And no, it’s not a “surprising story”. It’s a common one at Apple – they will develop cool, interesting tech but then lose interest in it. Sadly, the full story of the development and subsequent abandonment of Aperture will likely never be known.