At this year's Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple gave fans a brief look at the new Photos app coming to both iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite. While the reveal was long enough to showcase a particularly robust phone photo solution, it left Apple fans wondering how the company's professional grade offering on desktops and laptops, Aperture, might fit into updated services such as iCloud photo storage, if at all.

Today, after weeks of speculation—fueled particularly by beta versions of Yosemite not supporting Aperture—Apple confirmed that it will cease development of Aperture upon the launch of the next OS X this fall the new Photos app early next year.

Apple offered a statement directly to Ars Technica: "With the introduction of the new Photos app and iCloud Photo Library, enabling you to safely store all of your photos in iCloud and access them from anywhere, there will be no new development of Aperture. When Photos for OS X ships next year, users will be able to migrate their existing Aperture libraries to Photos for OS X.” In addition to telling users that iPhoto will be discontinued and rolled into the new Photos app, Apple also confirmed to Ars Technica that Aperture will be updated to ensure Yosemite compatibility, but users shouldn't expect any further development or updates beyond that.

The little we've seen of the new Photos app included more editing sliders and options than the default app has included in the past. However, Apple didn't take today as an opportunity to announce more Aperture-like features coming to Photos ; rather, it told TechCrunch that its developers are "working with Adobe to work on a transitionary workflow for users moving to Lightroom," which may be indicative of the impending app's lack of robust, professional-grade options.

Apple confirmed that development of its other professional media editing offerings, including Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro, will not be impacted in any way. To that point, Apple announced updates to Mainstage, Final Cut Pro X, Motion, and Compressor today.

Update: When asked about what Aperture-like features users can expect from the new Photos app, an Apple representative mentioned plans for professional-grade features such as image search, editing, effects, and most notably, third-party extensibility. The representative also clarified the timeframe when Aperture development will end, along with an announcement about its other Pro app offerings receiving updates today; those details have been updated in the text above.

Update 2: TechCrunch updated its report to clarify that Apple will not, in fact, offer a transitionary workflow to Lightroom. Instead, Adobe itself issued a statement offering potential future support to Aperture users.