Sandman
So I installed the beta of the OSX Photos app, and opened my iPhoto/Aperture library with it, which worked just fine. Then I went into preferences to enable iCloud Photos, which was the entire point of OSX Photos. And this is what I see:

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Yeah, that's right, you can't used referenced photos if you want to sync with iCloud, you have to keep all photos inside the library, totally managed by Photos.

Which of course is a problem, since Photos isn't a professional tool, and most of these photos need to be available to Lightroom. If I consolidate them into the library, my entire Lightroom catalog will crumble and die.

It seems that this Photos thing is always on the edge of a good idea, but then a deal breaker comes along... :/

MC
It is Apple so what do you expect.

Sandman
I've had very low expectations for Photos, but Apple did release Aperture, which is by far the best photo management app to have ever existed,

nospam
maybe you think it's wonderful, but the rest of the world disagrees.

so few people bought aperture that apple didn't bother putting much resources behind it and ultimately canceled it. the writing was on the wall years ago.

Sandman
so it's not like they can't do it.

nospam
nobody said they can't. the point is that they don't want to.