MacWorld is reporting that Aperture 1.1 will be available as a free upgrade in March to Apple’s first foray into professional photography tools, and none too soon if you ask me. I preordered this, hoping for a saving grace to my 30k+ image library I currently keep in iPhoto. Well, on my Dual 2.5 G5 machine, Aperture 1.0 is continuously plagued by the spinning beachball of death. It’s frankly unusable. 1.1 reportedly improves on speed, adds some new RAW controls, among what are called ‘dozens’ of improvements – including Intel native support. I look forward to trying this one out. But for now, iLife ’06’s improvements to iPhoto are rocking my world – things will need to get much better to justify a switch over to Aperture.

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