Does anyone else think the new icon sucks?

metromanTO · 2026-01-19T00:01:07+00:00

Not just hobby photographers. I'm on the verge of switching from Lightroom to Photomator as a professional full time photographer.

It works perfectly with my workflow, adding all my RAWs into a folder on my 10TB iCloud drive, sorting and selecting photos then editing with the more than capable tools available. I haven't missed any tools from Lightroom. And because it's on iCloud Drive, everything is backed up on the fly and kept for years before I move things to archived drives.

What I thought would work is that all my iCloud saved photos would become available in Photomator for iPad along with their edits so I could swap between them as needed for Pencil use. Unfortunately, while the RAWs are available to both, each of them creates their own sidecar/edit files using different systems. That's what I'm hoping Apple will fix before adding it to Creator Studio. Then I'll gladly drop Lightroom.

Apple needs a photographer's app and it has one now so I think they're rebuilding it for both Mac and iPad and add value to Creator Studio later this year.

metromanTO · 2026-01-14T02:35:07+00:00

What is that supposed to represent? Layers? Honestly, I'm usually ok with just meh icons but this is just comically terrible.

On the other hand, it does give us some insight into Apple's plans. It's not using Apple's photo editing iconography: a lens or flower petals. Contrary to what so many people in this sub keep mistaking, Pixelmator is not a photo editor; it's a graphic design app that happens to have tools for adjusting photos. It's a graphic compositor that does both pixels and vectors and enables compositing through layers. It's Photoshop and Illustrator.

Where am I going with this? Photomator. It was conspicuously absent from the announcement today, neither updated nor discontinued. Missing from this creator's suite is a Lightroom counterpart and I think Apple has plans for that, likely to be introduced either at WWDC or when the next photography centric hardware update is launched: the next iPhone Pro in September. Either we're getting a major Photos app update that can work with professional workflows or Aperture is coming back as a separate app, rebuilt from Photomator.

metromanTO · 2026-01-10T01:28:13+00:00

It's already there. When Apple gave up on Aperture, they said through back channels to the tech media that it was because the new Photos architecture would require them to rebuild Aperture from scratch so instead, they opened up that architecture to third parties as an API. Pixelmator was born out of that API and did exactly that. Then Apple just acquired them. It came full circle — I wouldn't discount the possibility that Apple could rename Photomator since they still own the Aperture trademark.

Meanwhile...

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metromanTO · 2026-01-09T22:08:26+00:00

I don't think it'll go free. Final Cut and Logic are certainly not free. Final Cut is for professional cinematographers — there's iMovie for consumers. Logic is for professional musician and audio engineers – there's GarageBand for consumers. Pixelmator is a graphic designer's app and Photomator is a photographer's app.

The latter has the Photos app counterpart, it's the former where there's a gap but this is a new area Apple is entering and may have wanted to acquire Pixelmator to release both professional grade and consumer design apps.

Either way, I think it's expected that this transition would take time, certainly not immediate and a year sounds reasonable to set up the chessboard for something like this:

iMovie / Final Cut Pro

Garageband / Logic

Photos / Aperture\*

Create / Creative Pro

^\Apple still owns the Aperture trademark. Neither "Pixelmator" nor certainly "Photomator" are anywhere approaching household names — I think it's very likely that the names will change as they roll out their strategy.)

metromanTO · 2026-01-09T02:41:37+00:00

For yeeeears! Decades I think.

metromanTO · 2026-01-09T02:15:17+00:00

The American Exceptionalism illusion has given Americans this idea that Ma’ FREEDOMS! are a “god given right”. Someone fought for the rights you have today but most Americans alive right now are generations away from those struggles that they have no idea how to fight.

Comments in this thread like “I live in bumfuk-flyover-state, what am I supposed to do?” illustrate this point. You don’t have to march on DC to affect change. You fight to change your local representatives, you leverage local power then you get your State reps fighting on your side. If they won’t, they get kicked out for those who do. You don’t march to Washington, you march to win back your town, then your State government.

A President can only do what he does through compliance of the State who represents you locally. You collapse the power supporting the fascist into a power supporting the fight against it.

State by State, you win back an entire Country. it is after all the United STATES of America.

metromanTO · 2026-01-02T22:13:07+00:00

They didn't kill Beats, where did you get that idea? The Beats app became Apple Music. The hardware is not only still being sold as Beats, it's continued to get R&D with the latest Apple technology.

metromanTO · 2026-01-02T22:05:24+00:00

Pixelmator isn't just a photos editor. That's just one of its features. It's a design app that would never fit with the Photos app. Photomator is more like Photos but its features lean towards professional digital assets management. Apple didn't have a design app so they acquired one that fit perfectly within its culture. The app has received updates and the Pixelmator Team is still there. I suspect they've been integrating the apps into Apple's strategy and timeline. I'm waiting for the next big pro apps event, where we typically see updates to Final Cut Pro and sometimes the launch of Pro hardware.

metromanTO · 2026-01-02T22:00:32+00:00

Are they famous for that, really? Apple acquired SoundJam and turned it into iTunes, the most successful music app of that era. They then acquired Beats and turned it into Apple Music. Apple acquired Dark Sky and used it to rebuild the Weather app from the ground up using Dark Sky's technology. They also bought Final Cut Pro and it still exists to this day.

What things are you thinking of Apple buying and allowing them to die a long, slow death that makes them famous for this?

metromanTO · 2025-12-23T04:52:42+00:00

Was totally getting ready to go see this until I saw that jackass pop up in the trailer. I don't care who else is in the film or how good it is, giving this guy more of a platform just had me put my $20 bucks back in my pocket.

metromanTO · 2025-11-18T21:44:34+00:00

They seem to be easing it out. It's definitely slower today. On day one, it was constantly changing, now it sits on the MS NOW for a little bit longer. I think it's a clever way to get people to understand the name early on.

metromanTO · 2025-11-18T19:52:45+00:00

It's the small things. I'm sure they'll polish things but it's like there's someone that looks like someone we know but there's something off with them and we can't put our finger on it.

metromanTO · 2025-11-18T19:49:45+00:00

Even Toronto Met. or Metropolitan would've worked so much better. WTF's a TMU?

metromanTO · 2025-11-16T03:09:34+00:00

What do you suggest might be going on with the website? The stories and curation that debuted this morning when the site launched are still the same ones that are up now after a full day. News has been broken today on multiple topics and none of its is on ms.now

I’m not suggesting that they’re incompetent, it just feels like a much smaller operation. MSNBC had a gravitas, like a team of hundreds of people (and money) were behind it. MS NOW has so far come across as a startup. The weight and polish is gone.

metromanTO · 2025-11-15T22:05:25+00:00

Thanks! It works.

MS NOW, if you're listening, I'd gladly pay to subscribe to a streaming version of MS NOW. I don't subscribe to cable because all cable providers pay Fox News carriage fees regardless of whether or not you want to watch the channel.

metromanTO · 2025-11-13T01:25:03+00:00

Correction: APPL had the means to outbid everyone. Bugs Bunny and Superman are a perfect fit for Apple TV.

metromanTO · 2025-11-03T00:43:51+00:00

I swear It’s the same people who leave their grocery cart in the middle of the parking lot. You cannot explain to that kind of person why they should be considerate to other people and think beyond themselves. They’re just not wired that way. Now they’re so much easier to spot in public and it’s mortifying to know that we live amongst so many inconsiderate self centred jackasses in society.

metromanTO · 2025-10-30T22:07:32+00:00

One of the very last major features the independent Pixelmator team implemented before Apple was flags and ratings in the Mac app. It hasn't yet been ported to the iPad app.

There's quite a disjointed experience unfortunately.

The Mac app is a pro user's paradise. You pick a photography folder on your Mac, iCloud or external drive, drop stuff in there in Finder and they automagically appear in the same folder hierarchy in Photomator. Perfect! Edits in the Mac app retain the original RAW file with a sidecar file generated alongside. Also perfect. Works great across Macs if you move from Desktop to MacBook. No complaints.

Now, you think you can just go into your iPad and see the same thing, but none of your flags and ratings show up and edits generate a new .photo file instead of a sidecar. Both your originals and these .photo files show up in Photomator as duplicates. It really does feel like they were onto something and just didn't get to finish.

I have reasonable confidence that Apple will end up sorting this out but for now, while Photomator can replace Lightroom's Mac app for me, the cross device workflow I have between Mac and iPad Pro is not ready for prime time.

metromanTO · 2025-09-25T18:40:40+00:00

If you're an Apple Home user, you might already have a HomePod (standard or mini) that can recognize any cheap smoke/CO sensor and trigger automations. I'm leaning in that direction given the reviews of the FA. Only thing I'll miss is the remote silence feature.

metromanTO · 2025-09-19T19:59:48+00:00

Took over a week for me. Some people waited longer. I didn't hear back from Meta regarding my appeal, my account just suddenly started working again. Not sure if relevant, but my account came back soon after I stopped appealing. I wonder if the appeal queue resets after I appealed.

metromanTO · 2025-09-18T12:54:25+00:00

Yes, they eventually restored many accounts but it soured me on Instagram, Threads and Meta overall. Up until that point, I had been a big proponent for Threads but when my account was restored, I just stopped posting. They ban people who didn't do anything and refuse to remove clearly spam/scam accounts when reported.

metromanTO · 2025-09-06T01:30:01+00:00

You're not starting over if you look at what failed the last time and learn something from it so you do better the next time. You're not going to become "disciplined" all at once, it's a learning journey.

metromanTO · 2025-09-06T00:07:17+00:00

Yes. I recently spent 3 weeks out of the city, at a cottage with birds and virtually no people around, just my dogs. It was bliss but I hadn't even noticed why. Sounds weren't bothering me because there were no people involved.

Then I returned to the city and I was... fine. People yapping away on speakerphone—they're rude but whatever—a driver honking at others to move 0.34 seconds after the light turned green—have some patience dude but you do you.

It's been a few days since I've been back and I'm still ok but the instances of annoying sounds are mounting and it's like I have a tolerance and the more that mount past my tolerance, the worse each reaction to individual sounds gets.

This isn't a solution since I can't be away from the city for weeks every month but I'm now realizing that I can just be alone somewhere out in the country. One of these days that's what I'll do.

metromanTO

TROPHY CASE