Aperture - Too slow to be really efficient?

Question

I have been thinking about whether Aperture might be a way to go for me as far as working with my photographs. The ads etc. seemed like it offered some great features and I don't like the Nikon software that has come with my cameras. iPhoto is OK for my family snapshots, but I want more capabilities for my more serious stuff.
So I when i got an email mentioning the 30 day trial I figured that was a great opportunity to check it out. I was hoping I'd be pleased enough over that 30 days that spending the $300 dollars to buy it would be justified despite the fact that I have Photoshop CS2 and a few other way to organize my photos. Thus far $300 seemed way too steep simply to duplicate capabilities I already have and doesn't come close to offering the capabilities of a full blown image editing app like PS.
So my question is this. Is this thing really supposed to be as slow as it is? The app is running so slow on my Mac G5 dual 2.5 with Radeon 9600 with 2gb of Apple installed RAM that I can't see suffering through using it long enough to even see if it does some of the things I hope it does. I certainly couldn't see using it rountinely as an app for PRODUCTIVITY. There's nothing productive about an app that takes a good 5 seconds merely to remove a master from the library. Even clicking on an image to look at it takes way too long as the preview refines it's resolution.
I did a quick search on this issue and saw lots of stuff out there. I have waded through some of it and some of it is enlightening and some just adds to the confusion. Apparently there may be an issue when running dual monitors. Am I understanding that correctly? Seems to me that most Pros and heavy duty amateurs run 2 monitors (and for good reason - most of the apps these days need to screens to display all the neccessary palattes etc.) So if 2 displays hurt performance, I can't see how this is an app that is going to work for me. I certainly don't want to go reconfiguring my Mac simply to go through the latest batch of pics. It also seems to me that a large library could also be an issue - while I don't have huge numbers of images, I do have a couple of thousand that I keep active on my machine (and a ton more on backup DVD).
So anyway, I'd like to hear from people with a similar setup to mine . . . from your experience is trying to use this app on such a system (which is by no means a slow and incapable Mac at all - I push heavy pixels doing HD work in After Effects and Final Cut all day long and never feel like the apps are too slow to even use)? I am not going to run out and buy a new system simply to run Aperture since. Even if all the bells and whistles are what they seem, they aren't enough to justify it. I also don't want to waste any time using this trial version and learning it's ins and outs if going In know the app won't run efficiently enough.
So am I crazy? Is this thing really as slow as it seems? Are there really as many speed issues as a search of the forum reveals? Is there something I am missing?

Answer 1

So am I crazy?
I have no such evidence.
Well, give it time.
In my personal experience, for all practical purposes
it's unusable on my configuration. A Mac user since
1986, I purchased my Mac Pro configured specifically
for Aperture, including an upgraded video card. The
outcome has been underwhelming.
As I can't buy a faster computer, I can only assume
Aperture is suited to hardware yet to be released.
Aperture is the lowest point in my experience as a
Mac user.
I am actually hearing that sentiment more than I would like to as I ask around. Too bad. On the surface it looks quite good. I findit odd that the company that has taken on such great things as it has in the video world can't make this a more efficient piece of software. Perhaps they see much bigger money in the volume that comes from focusing on phones with video and computers for your TV and thus don't really care about an app like Aperature which would really just appeal to dedicated photographers at it's current pricing and probably doesn't rpresent enough revenue - even amongst photogs with cash to burn.
I'm evaluating Aperture (which I have purchased at
full retail price) alongside the beta of another
professional photo app which is yet to be released.
The jury is still out, but growing restless.
Yeah, I have played with the Beta from one of the "Others". It was interesting. It was a while ago and that version didn't seem as potentially "robust" as aperture did. But I think it may be time to go back and take another look.