It appears that Aperture lives long and prosper, a blog posting by Blake confirms that a new Aperture team is being formed.
In case the article goes down, here's the re-post:
One of the reasons I left my previous job was to focus all my time and energy on Cocoa and Mac OS X. Well, a little over 6 months has passed, and I’m ready to solidify my Mac OS efforts a bit: Starting this Monday, I will be joining the Aperture team at Apple.
I don’t have a whole lot to say about the change except that I’m incredibly excited. (And hopefully this puts the recent rumors to rest.) I plan to continue posting here whenever I can - but I know those are famous last words for people starting new jobs! I can’t guarantee that postings will be frequent, but I definitely don’t plan to drop it. And the same goes for Mugshot. I would like to update all of its components in the same way that I updated MUPhotoView - clean the code, document it, etc. I’ve already started that effort in a few areas. However, like the blog, I have no idea when or how often I’ll be able to publish updates. I will continue to work on it whenever I have time.
So, here’s to starting new projects, joining new teams, and contributing to a kick-ass product!