Aperture’s New Boss

Apple News Archive, [Nov 5 1999](http://rickandrandy.com/randy/DEST/DEST.html) ([mirror](http://f.cl.ly/items/1L0x140V0Y370F2p3R3c/apple_dest.webarchive)):

> Apple is proud to announce the promotion of Randy Ubillos to the level of Distinguished Engineer, Scientist or Technologist (DEST). DEST is a job classification equal to that of director-level manager. This fosters a career path for our exemplary engineering employees that concentrates on technology rather than management.

Fast forward to today:

© Apple

Those who follow Apple events in the last couple of years will recall that Randy was the showman for the iMovie ’11 and Final Cut Pro X that he and his team put together. He was always the _video_ guy. Any photo-related demo was either done by Steve Jobs or [Scott Forstall](http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/scott-forstall.html), then Apple’s Mac Software Chief. At the new iPad announcement held earlier this week, he took the spotlight for a groundbreaking new photo app for iOS with a little addition to his job title.

Since Tim Cook took over as CEO, there has been a few changes both in the positions and the official titles of Apple’s Senior Management team. Eddy Cue became SVP of Internet Software & Services, Forstall became SVP of iOS Software, and Ubillos is now known as the Chief Architect of Photo & Video Applications.

What does this mean?

No official announcement was given by Apple and unlikely there will be any. But if Ubillos’s new title suggests is that the Aperture team is now under his wings.

As the father of Final Cut Pro, Randy was bold enough to reboot a very successful app that he pioneered, and even it did not win him many new friends, Apple is still at his back patiently working with the community in rebuilding the next generation of video editing powerhouse.

And if the iPhoto demo can reveal, is that there is a lot that can be done on the photography space too. The iPad is bringing a whole new possibilities of immersive editing environment previously only possible in the darkroom. With our eyes and hearts opened up by this new revelation, desktop photo editing can also adapt these new tricks to enrich the experience without making the software more complex.

I don’t know what Apple is cooking for the next version(s) of Aperture, nor I want to guess. But if Adobe’s Photoshop Touch can make Photoshop for the desktop looks like an old fat beast, I can only imagine what Aperture on the iPad would be like, if it ever sees the light of the day.