Photos for Mac, a missing piece in the iCloud Photo Library puzzle, has just gotten delayed until later this year.
Last summer, Apple took us by surprise saying it would cease development of Aperture and transition users to Photos for Mac, a new app that was supposed to replace iPhoto on OS X Yosemite as well. But Yosemite came and went and native Photos Mac app was nowhere to be seen.
Apple then gave us a vague new shipping date: “early 2015.” However, the updated wording in this support docs now lists the app as being “available at a later date.”
“The Photos app for Mac will be available at a later date,” reads the document.
That’s hardly a mistake: all references to the software have been systematically removed from Apple’s website as well, including every single mention on a page dedicated to iCloud Photos and on another one detailing Continuity.
It’s unclear whether the new delay has anything to do with the Apple Watch arriving in April, another product the company originally listed as coming in ”early 2015.”
In fact, Cook’s own comment regarding the Watch release date may help shed light on the vague Photos for Mac release date.
“What we were saying with ‘early 2015,’ we’re thinking ‘early’ is the first four months of the year, ‘mid’ is the middle four months, and ‘late’ is the last four months,” he said.
I think complaints about a decline in software quality had Apple’s executives worried. After backlash ensued, priorities have changed and a decision was probably made to delay less important products like Photos for Mac in order to focus energies on stuff that matters.