Maintenance updates generally don't offer much more than bug fixes, which makes last week's release of Aperture 2.0.1 stand out. The update provides an array of performance and stability improvements (called out by category, though, without specifics of what was changed), and Apple also rolled in enhanced AppleScript support.

A page in the AppleScript section of the company's Web site demonstrates how a page layout program such as Adobe InDesign CS3 can fetch an image directly from the Aperture library, using the photo's generated preview within the InDesign document. When the image is edited in Aperture, the changes are reflected in InDesign without re-importing the new version. A video explains fingerprinted previews, the new method that Aperture uses to keep its previews and source files linked together using unique identifying codes.

(Incidentally, the two videos on that page use Apple's Victoria text-to-speech voice for the narration instead of a human voiceover, a practice I've not noticed before. It took a few seconds to pick out what was "wrong" - the occasional clipped words and odd pronunciations that indicated an artificial voice.)

Aperture 2.0.1 is available via Software Update or as a 43.9 MB standalone download (a valid serial number is required to download the latter version).