iPhoto to be replaced by Photo app in OSX
Photos, the amazingly simple, yet powerful app introduced with iOS 8 is slated for release as an OS X application. While a definitive date is still tentative, it won’t be long before iOS users can access their photos on iCloud, just as easily on their Macs.
Photos is designed to be an iPhoto replacement, currently the primary application to edit images on a Mac, whose biggest problem being the inability to access photos on iCloud.
Photos’s OSX experience is expected to be much of the same as on iOS. The view will display hundreds of images simultaneously, in the same way as it already does on iOS. Access to the same libraries, such as Moments, Years and Collections will be finally available, with all images stored on iCloud libraries expected to sync up across all connected Macs, iPads, and other devices supporting Photos, including the Apple Watch.
Apple Photos was announced early this year at the WWDC, alongside OSX Yosemite, by Craig Federighi, who didn’t release an official date, leaving it tentatively at “early 2015”, which could mean anytime within the first quarter. Photos has not been made available as preview to developers yet.
Editing features
With the discontinuation of Aperture and Final Cut Pro, over the summer, Apple gave out strong signals to “pro-sumers” about its future stand on professional image-editing applications, but is it official?
While Photos doesn’t seem to pack any pro-feature as yet, Apple did release a statement in regard to opening the app to third-party plugins. iOS users looking to accomplish specific tasks, can already do that through iOS apps tapping directly into the mobile version of Photos. OS X users looking to enhance the look of their images with a semi-professional approach, could be looking at a possible wealth of third-party plugins available soon after Photos for Mac is released.
In the meantime, there are a few low-cost alternatives for professional and semi-pro image editing, like Adobe Photoshop Elements, or Lightroom.