A report claims Amazon.com is featuring a new book as available for pre-order with a rather interesting description containing the term "Aperture X." The description does seem to imply that a forthcoming 3.0 version of Aperture, dubbed Aperture X, could be hitting the market by May 2010. Apple is known to be fond of the letters 'i' (as a prefix – iPod, iMac) and 'X' (as a suffix – Mac OS X, QuickTime X) when naming its products.

AppleInsider has found that the book talks of a guide that is "fully updated for Aperture X," while offering no other details on the alleged upcoming version of Aperture. Listed as "Apple Aperture X (3) – UNDER NDA: A Workflow Guide for Digital Photographers," the title has a release date of May 26, 2010. The book's ISBN (if the item even exists or is planned for release), is 978-0240521787, which only leads to Amazon.com. Since the alleged book is under a non-disclosure agreement, the site believes its posting was a mistake.

"Aperture is a dedicated end-to-end workflow tool for photographers, and this book guides the reader through the complete process from capture to input," the listing reads. "The beauty of Aperture is that – unlike Adobe's rival workflow software, Lightroom – it doesn't force a particular structure or workflow on the user. This more open-ended approach means it is becoming increasingly popular with photographers – but also means that there is a lot to learn from a newcomer to the software."

Aperture, as many Apple fans should know, is designed to assist professional photographers in the post-production work. The software is optimized for speed, using a powerful search engine and the Quick Preview mode for rapid-fire photo browsing. Thanks to these two elements that make up Aperture, even users working with large libraries will be able to get the best results, Apple claims. Employing an expanded suite of adjustment tools including Recovery, Vibrancy, Vignette, and a soft-edged Retouch brush – all with the highest quality RAW processing –, professionals and casual users alike can enhance their photos with ease.