Apple Reportedly Lays Off 40 Final Cut Employees

[MacRumors]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com/2010/02/18/apple-reportedly-lays-off-40-final-cut-employees/)

AE Portal News reported (http://aeportal.blogspot.com/2010/02/lone-twitter-apple-lays-off-40-of-final.html) last week on a Twitter post (http://twitter.com/petewarden/status/9014940274) claiming that Apple has laid off 40 members of its Final Cut (http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/) team focused on the company's professional-level video editing software tools. The cuts were apparently focused on remote teams based in the Los Angeles and Austin areas.And while it doesn't mean that Final Cut is doomed, it is interesting that Pro App teams in LA and Austin were cut so confidently before NAB.Apple's last major release to its Final Cut Studio product was made in July 2009 (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/07/23/apple-updates-final-cut-studio-final-cut-server-and-logic-studio/), bringing a number of new features and a lower price tag to the company's highly-regarded video editing suite.

Article Link: Apple Reportedly Lays Off 40 Final Cut Employees (http://www.macrumors.com/2010/02/18/apple-reportedly-lays-off-40-final-cut-employees/)

[funnyent]

Hopefully that doesn't mean that Final Cut sales are slowing. So many annoying people pirate it instead of paying.

[trainguy77]

This could just be them attempting to centralize the team.

[racketeer71]

Well, it seems a natural move since none of the applications in Final Cut Studio seems to fit in an iPad Apple world.

[Artful Dodger]

^^^ I would hope that is what they are aiming for because from those that I know that use it they really like it. Also not sure if 40 is a large number of software employees for one program and how they were placed within the development structure of it as well.

[Bob Knob]

All I can say... a trimming fat move, these were not programmers

[opeter]

Yes, it seems, that Apple (Jobs) sees it's future as an iGadget company. So, it is questionable, if there will be more refreshes to the Pro section of the Mac Computers.

Does this mean, they will in the comming years drop the Computer manufacturing all together?

[bobbleheadbob]

It's always terrible when companies make these kind of moves. Apple is doing so well now, why lay people off when they've billions of excess capital in the bank?

[jaw04005]

I don't know what the Los Angeles team does, but I do believe Final Cut Pro professional phone support comes from Austin.

Austin is also the headquarters of AppleCare.

[puckhead193]

I hope this isn't the beginning of the end of FC.. I guess then I would have to start to re-learn avid and that god-dam red arrow!

[MacFly123]

Hopefully that doesn't mean that Final Cut sales are slowing. So many annoying people pirate it instead of paying.

I have never heard of anyone pirating it. It is one of the few applications for Mac that requires a key.

All I can say... a trimming fat move, these were not programmers

I hope you are right!!! :(

I have been worried about the pro area with Apple lately! The hope I see is that they just took Logic and Aperture 64bit! Why would they do that if they are going to ditch the pro apps? And if they were going to get rid of any pro apps, I think they would start with Aperture, then Logic, and Final Cut last. Final Cut is HUGE in the industry!

I am a video producer and I don't want to imagine my life and profession without FCS and Macs! :(

Apple can make all the gadgets they want, iPhone, iPad, whatever, I don't care because I love those products too, but PLEASE don't abandon us Apple! You have been the professional creative tools maker for so long and have done such a good job!

I know things have been slow lately in the pro area, but I think that was a combination of the recession and the pro apps not being 64bit and optimized to use all the technologies in Mac OS X like Open CL and Grand Central. I don't think many pros want to upgrade to an 8-core Mac Pro with 32 GB of RAM when the pro apps like Final Cut can't even take advantage of that! I have to say I was a bit disappointed with FCS3! We also need another LED Cinema Display bigger than 24", preferably 32"! Bake some Shake into Motion as well!

If FCS was 64bit and optimized for Snow Leopard, I would wait for the Mac Pro refresh on the horizon and drop $20,000-$30,000 EASY on a new system and software!

COME ON APPLE make us proud!

[baryon]

FCP is the only good video editor for Mac... Premiere for Mac sucks, although its Windows counterpart is pretty good in terms of performance.

I really don't think they would stop making Final Cut Pro, with so many people using it... It just needs a new user interface because this looks very, very old, but other than that, it's an amazing application.

Maybe they're just stopping with Final Cut Express, since they have iMovie... Or maybe they're teaming up with someone... I totally can't live without FCP.

Weren't there rumours of a REAL big update coming like now-ish? (the rumour was like 6 months ago, haven't hear anything about it since...)

[Stridder44]

Does this mean, they will in the comming years drop the Computer manufacturing all together?

No. They would murder, I mean absolutely destroy, their user base and their profits if they did this. Besides, the whole point behind gadgets like the iPod/iPhone/iPad are to get people who wouldn't normally look towards Apple when purchasing a computer to actually consider buying a Mac. They buy the iPhone/Pad/Pod, they love it and realize it's made by Apple. They've never used a Mac before, so they figure if their iPhone, or whatever the hell, is so easy to use then their computers must be just as easy.

[LethalWolfe]

I have never heard of anyone pirating it. It is one of the few applications for Mac that requires a key.
Pirated copies of FCP are all over the place. It's not that hard to get a working key.

FCP is the only good video editor for Mac... Premiere for Mac sucks, although its Windows counterpart is pretty good in terms of performance.
I think you are forgetting about Avid and at least the Adobe Creative Suite lets you author Blu-ray DVDs.


Lethal

[baryon]

I think you are forgetting about Avid and at least the Adobe Creative Suite lets you author Blu-ray DVDs.


Yes there's AVID but I haven't heard much about that recently, the last time I used it it was a mess compared to the competition... But I really don't know! Yeah at least Adobe is ahead of things, Premiere is modern, it's just realllllly not CPU efficient for the Mac. I mean even scrolling the list of filters is as slow as hell, it's unusable! Adobe loves to port their apps to the Mac, resulting in a mess...

[haydn!]

I can't help but think some of you are over reacting. How does the loss of 40 jobs signal the end of the Final Cut software, even more so the end of Mac computers all together?

40 employees, amongst Apples tens of thousands in California is really no big deal. They're most likely doing what all large businesses are doing right now. Streamlining their businesses to make them more efficient. Multiple people in multiple locations working on a single product is not the best business model.

Plus, didn't Apple state several years ago when they announced plans to extend the main Campus that they'd be relocating/redeploying all the staff at satellite locations to Infinite Loop? This is probably just the start of that process...

[Bob Knob]

People have to remember that (for example) the iPod team does not take resources from the FCP team and vice versa... that includes programmers, R&D money, or anything else.
Apple is a large corporation with many completely separate divisions. What Apple has done that MS simply can't seem to do is keep all of them on the same page when it comes to the OS and keep the divisions from blocking/cannibalizing each other, to me that is all because of Steve Jobs.

[swissmann]

Final Cut used to be great but now it is just a bag of frustration. I've been using Final Cut since version 1 and have gone through all the upgrade steps. It was so great when it came out but now where it is compared to where it could be so many years later is just frustrating. I think it needs a major rewrite from the ground up and some innovation. Wow me again please. Oh and please do something more with Blu-Ray it is so much better than your iTunes and Apple TV offerings.

[jaw04005]

People have to remember that (for example) the iPod team does not take resources from the FCP team and vice versa... that includes programmers, R&D money, or anything else.

That's not true. Apple has freely admitted that they robbed engineering resources from the Mac OS X team to work on iPhone OS, and that's why 10.5 Leopard was delayed. That's likely why 10.6 Snow Leopard wasn't as big of a release as past operating system releases too.

Jobs also recently said that he had the iWork team create iWork for the iPad. Where do you think those resources came from? It's not like Apple's been on a hiring boom these last few months.

Resources are being diverted to the iPhone and iPad that otherwise would have went to the Macintosh/Application division. Those products are Apple's focus right now.

[appleguy123]

I have never heard of anyone pirating it. It is one of the few applications for Mac that requires a key.

KcnScrew, I don't pirate apps (anymore than I would steal merchandise) but I think that's how they get keys.

[elppa]

I'm surprised with all Apple has on the go they can afford to get rid of any resources.

That said looks like one of the workers (http://petewarden.typepad.com/searchbrowser/2010/02/your-chance-to-hire-an-amazing-qa-engineer-in-austin.html) was a tester. I guess there's no need for them anymore. I mean if Apple were the kind of company to release software with memory leaks that ate up a harddisk, bugs which delete user accounts then you'd think they'd need more testers. Hang on...

[BlueRevolution]

That's not true. Apple has freely admitted that they robbed engineering resources from the Mac OS X team to work on iPhone OS, and that's why 10.5 Leopard was delayed. That's likely why 10.6 Snow Leopard wasn't as big of a release as past operating system releases too.

iPhone OS is ostensibly a cousin to Mac OS X, and iWork obviously to its iPad version. That doesn't mean the Final Cut folks will be working on Photo Booth now. They might end up helping out with Logic or another pro app, but Apple can't just shuffle its developers around however it sees fit.

[tk421]

I am kinda frustrated with Final Cut at the moment. The job I'm working on now has had its fair share of problems with crashes and other bugs. Even besides those, I can think of all sorts of things the Final Cut team could work on.



I have never heard of anyone pirating it. It is one of the few applications for Mac that requires a key.

I know of some that will buy one license, install it on multiple machines, and then disconnect the network so the machines won't see another copy running at the same time. It really frustrates me that people do this. :mad:

[jaw04005]

iPhone OS is ostensibly a cousin to Mac OS X, and iWork obviously to its iPad version. That doesn't mean the Final Cut folks will be working on Photo Booth now. They might end up helping out with Logic or another pro app, but Apple can't just shuffle its developers around however it sees fit.

Maybe not Photo Booth (although really if there was perfect app for the iPhone it’s Photo Booth), but they can shuffle them to the iLife team or possibly even the team that does the iPhone OS video editing features.

If you remember, one of the Final Cut Pro team members actually created iMovie ’08.

Pretty much all of Apple’s products use the same core technologies and overlap. For example, QuickTime player for iPhone looks like QuickTime X for the Mac, the Photos app looks similar to the way iPhone displays photos in grids, Calendar app looks just like iCal, etc.

That is why we like Apple products. They can shuffle them anywhere they want.

Looks like most of these employees were QA testers. Heh. Who needs those?

[LethalWolfe]

Yes there's AVID but I haven't heard much about that recently, the last time I used it it was a mess compared to the competition... But I really don't know!
Although Avid stumbled a bit they've been the lead dog since the 90's. The most recent version of Media Composer really nice from what I've read and will probably pull me away from FCP for certain projects.

EDIT: From people I've talked to Apple only had a dozen or so guys testing the Final Cut Suite so 40 people could be a lot because it doesn't sound like the teams working on the ProApps are very big. With that being said, from what I heard Apple did broaden the net for Final Cut Studio 3 and have more beta testers, but compared to other companies that make similar products Apple doesn't seem to match up well in terms of man power.


Lethal

[Xavier]

Twitter is such a reliable source

[Stella]

Unfortunately, I can see Apple dropping its Pro products and becoming 100% consumer product company.

Their Pro product range seems to be dropping slowly, sadly. Macbook Pro's will be regulated to consumer status.

[thejadedmonkey]

Unfortunately, I can see Apple dropping its Pro products and becoming 100% consumer product company.

Their Pro product range seems to be dropping slowly, sadly. Macbook Pro's will be regulated to consumer status.

They already are. Apple has slowly been phasing out prosumer/professional features, and replacing them with SD card readers and not USB 3.0/eSATA/Core i5...

I hope this doesn't have to do with the rumor I heard (somewhere, might have been here) about Apple not offering any more updates to FCE.

[brianbobcat]

I have never heard of anyone pirating it. It is one of the few applications for Mac that requires a key.

That key is Very easy to find a code for online, and one thing that makes it so easy for us legitimate users makes it easy for cheapskates to pirate. I'm in college now and know several students who have pirated it, some helping each other to get codes. I've bought every copy I've ever used starting with Final Cut Studio 1 and continuing through to when I bought my upgrade to Studio 3.

-Brian

[portishead]

I know of some that will buy one license, install it on multiple machines, and then disconnect the network so the machines won't see another copy running at the same time. It really frustrates me that people do this. :mad:

Relax dude, I've seen my fair share of this too, but it's usually people who either can't afford it, or would never really need to purchase an additional license anyway. There's a lot of things to get worked up over, but a few students pirating FCP isn't going to break the bank.

[DakotaGuy]

Yes, it seems, that Apple (Jobs) sees it's future as an iGadget company. So, it is questionable, if there will be more refreshes to the Pro section of the Mac Computers.

Does this mean, they will in the comming years drop the Computer manufacturing all together?

I don't think they will drop computer manufacturing, however I do believe going forward their focus will be mostly on consumer notebooks and iDevices. In my opinion the only desktop that has a long term future with the new Apple is the iMac. Their future growth will target consumers not professionals. There are plenty of solutions over on the PC side for professionals. The real money is in the iDevices.

[Keebler]

i'm interested to hear more and to contact the fellow with whom I had been communicating on the pro AV team in Austin. I've been having major issues with Compressor and I'm convinced that it's not user error (specifically with cluster usage).

Anyhoo, I have a ticket issued with them. I should follow up again this weekend after running more files.

Still, sad to see folks lose their jobs.

[Earendil]

It's always terrible when companies make these kind of moves. Apple is doing so well now, why lay people off when they've billions of excess capital in the bank?

The simplest answer is the most obvious: The employees were not worth the wages they were getting. Which does not necessarily mean the employee had anything to do with it.

An employee has to add more or equal value than what he/she is compensated for. If you fail in this for an extended period of time, you should be fired/laid off. This goes for departments as well. If Apple realized they could produce a better product by getting rid of these people, and focusing that money on either different employees, or more employees, awesome.

If Apple were getting rid of Final cut, but these were solid, intelligent, worthwhile employees, they would not have been fired, they would be transfered.

Sucks to be fired though...

[Scott6666]

Whatever they use at Pixar should be boxed and sold as the Pro video product!

I know Pixar is animation but would they need (all or some of) the functionality found in Final Cut Pro? Does anyone over at Pixar use FCP; if so, it's not dead.

[zedsdead]

Final Cut Pro is not going anywhere. It is constantly gaining market share and has become an important part of the video production world.

This is interesting news, and it is a concern to me that Apple has pushed Pro App development to the back burner. Final Cut Studio is in dire need of a real upgrade that brings all the apps to 64-bit and one that can effectively leverage Grand Central and Open CL. A new look wouldn't hurt either.

[tk421]

I know of some that will buy one license, install it on multiple machines, and then disconnect the network so the machines won't see another copy running at the same time. It really frustrates me that people do this. :mad:

Relax dude, I've seen my fair share of this too, but it's usually people who either can't afford it, or would never really need to purchase an additional license anyway. There's a lot of things to get worked up over, but a few students pirating FCP isn't going to break the bank.

I didn't say students, did I? And I wasn't talking about students, or people who couldn't afford it or didn't need another license anyway. I was talking about two small production companies that I have worked with in the past... hence my frustration.

That said, I still think wrong is wrong. I purchased it back when I was a student. The academic prices are very low, and are nothing compared to the cost of tuition, books, etc.

[brianbobcat]

I can't help but think some of you are over reacting. How does the loss of 40 jobs signal the end of the Final Cut software, even more so the end of Mac computers all together?

40 employees, amongst Apples tens of thousands in California is really no big deal. They're most likely doing what all large businesses are doing right now. Streamlining their businesses to make them more efficient. Multiple people in multiple locations working on a single product is not the best business model.

Well you're mostly correct IMHO. However, that's 40 people from the Final Cut division. What we don't know is what their position was (development, support, etc.) and how many people were and still are part of the team. 40 out of 400 isn't that much, but 40 out of 80 IS a lot.

People have to remember that (for example) the iPod team does not take resources from the FCP team and vice versa... that includes programmers, R&D money, or anything else.
Apple is a large corporation with many completely separate divisions. What Apple has done that MS simply can't seem to do is keep all of them on the same page when it comes to the OS and keep the divisions from blocking/cannibalizing each other, to me that is all because of Steve Jobs.

Exactly!! With the rare exception of when Apple delayed the release of Leopard and took resources away to supplement the final development of that, all these divisions are separate. That's the same reason why I don't see how real Blu-ray burning and playback has been added to the Mac yet. iTunes movies are a completely separate group at Apple and the Pro apps are another completely separate team.

-Brian

[tk421]

Whatever they use at Pixar should be boxed and sold as the Pro video product!

I know Pixar is animation but would they need (all or some of) the functionality found in Final Cut Pro? Does anyone over at Pixar use FCP; if so, it's not dead.

Pixar uses Avid for editing. They always have.

They use a bunch of other software for animation, much of it proprietary.

[cumanzor]

Pixar uses Avid for editing. They always have.

They use a bunch of other software for animation, much of it proprietary.

And most likely they also have render farms with Linux ;)

[ZebraineZ]

I am kinda frustrated with Final Cut at the moment. The job I'm working on now has had its fair share of problems with crashes and other bugs. Even besides those, I can think of all sorts of things the Final Cut team could work on.





I know of some that will buy one license, install it on multiple machines, and then disconnect the network so the machines won't see another copy running at the same time. It really frustrates me that people do this. :mad:

Even though I only support piracy for kids and college people pretty much who don't have money yet, but hopefully when they get jobs they won't pirate as much anymore, I still think it's a pretty stupid idea to have to buy a thousand dollar software, multiplied by for every computer you own, it's really useless as you own your computers and the software.

Now if it was you getting 1 software, installing on your computer then giving it to your friends I can see why it would be bad (but tbh people need to not get butthurt over piracy, their life is not over) since it's for someone else who didn't even pay, but you paid for your software so you use it on your computer(s).

[stefman]

It's always terrible when companies make these kind of moves. Apple is doing so well now, why lay people off when they've billions of excess capital in the bank?

So you're suggesting they operate like a social welfare and keep staff they don't need just because they have billions in the bank? :confused:

I do agree that layoffs are ugly and unpleasant, but companies are not welfare entities.

I don't think it's because the Pro division is doing bad, maybe more like a realignment of staff.

[tk421]

...I still think it's a pretty stupid idea to have to buy a thousand dollar software, multiplied by for every computer you own, it's really useless as you own your computers and the software...

Why would you infer that I was suggesting that? I specifically said that the network was disabled so the software wouldn't detect another copy running at the same time. That is not the same as an individual having a copy on their laptop and their desktop. I was talking about an environment where more than one person is working simultaneously.

[dtvluke]

Surprised?
Absolutely not. Doesn't anybody remember the change of the corporation's name a few years ago? The removal of the word compute should have been a big heads up. The only survivor of the original Personal Computer movement from the 70's removing that word should have heralded the final nail in the coffin of the idea of Apple as a solely computer manufacturer.

It's not to say that the CPU is out of their product range, it's more about the idea that everything is chip powered and that concept is now a 'given'.

As is the idea that if Steve thinks it is so, there is no argument.
White becomes Black, and vice versa.

Right now, portability is sexy, ubiquitous computing is sexy, digital content is ... 20th century.

I still want to believe that ProApps have some life left in them. I'm fairly certain that the people who were told to report to HR, were more than likely the skeleton Post Sales/Engineering specialists who come and go and provided the face to comfort the decision makers.

Apple would see them as having built in redundancy because they don't generate revenue and for all Apple's residual sense of being a company that cares (external perception, I promise), all they value is ... sales.

If you aren't generating any, you have no value in the organisation.
Period. The End.
There is no sweet, kind, human capital concern at the organisation.

All that there might have been, died when the NeXT guys moved to Cupertino (cue death star music). Its all about sales and will be from now on in. And if I may suggest to those of you who are affected by the reality distortion field, I doubt very much that Apple cares about pirated copies of software. What they care about is that if you use it and get used to it and refine your workflow to suit, you'll always buy another Mac. Software as loss leader, as it were.
Now, once it can show that sales are dropping off because of antiquated software, then there'll be a big ol' announcement and a new set of killer apps will emerge, which will also demand a killer machine to run them, don't forget that!
For my purposes, I would love to see an iMac with an eSATA port and I'd be happy as the proverbial Pig in Feces. I mean, seriously ... since when should editing video and compositing with either AE or Motion ever require two multi-core workstation class CPUs?

At least not with modern codecs it shouldn't! ;)

[portishead]

I didn't say students, did I? And I wasn't talking about students, or people who couldn't afford it or didn't need another license anyway. I was talking about two small production companies that I have worked with in the past... hence my frustration.

That said, I still think wrong is wrong. I purchased it back when I was a student. The academic prices are very low, and are nothing compared to the cost of tuition, books, etc.

You didn't say who you were referring to. It's a pretty small amount of businesses that are pirating final cut. I've experienced this first hand, but it's usually only temporarily, trying stuff out. Apple usually ends up getting money in the end.

If you have a problem with a company doing that, you should let them know. I think we should cut students some slack though. I can afford final cut now, but when I was a student, I had no money.

[bretm]

Yes there's AVID but I haven't heard much about that recently, the last time I used it it was a mess compared to the competition... But I really don't know! Yeah at least Adobe is ahead of things, Premiere is modern, it's just realllllly not CPU efficient for the Mac. I mean even scrolling the list of filters is as slow as hell, it's unusable! Adobe loves to port their apps to the Mac, resulting in a mess...

Avid is the #1 editing platform in the world, with offerings on Mac and PC. FCP is close second. Adobe, well, adobe has no part in the professional editing world. Never did. It's very cute that consumers have heard of it because Adobe makes a good number of products that consumers have heard of, but there isn't any professional Premiere ediitng going on. The occasional in house corporate office run by a one man team perhaps.

[batchtaster]

Yes, it seems, that Apple (Jobs) sees it's future as an iGadget company. So, it is questionable, if there will be more refreshes to the Pro section of the Mac Computers.

Does this mean, they will in the comming years drop the Computer manufacturing all together?

I imagine you probably won a Gold medal for Conclusion Jumping.

[Digital Skunk]

FCP is the only good video editor for Mac... Premiere for Mac sucks, although its Windows counterpart is pretty good in terms of performance.

It's been said to death but yes, Avid Media Composer is an awesome editor.

The one thing that it ROCKS in is a true open timeline that doesn't need to render out any footage that doesn't match the timeline.

Back when I used it heavily it was just Avid Express, and even on the Mac with the Avid Mojo (render and breakout box) we never had to slow down to render a thing. My jump to Final Cut left me frustrated for WEEKS at how much rendering needed to be done for simple edits.

Not bashing FCP however, the price and interoperability will keep me there. Avid's site will give you a great overview of Avid's best features, many of which neither Premier or Final Cut have.

[Rivix]

Bah! If Apple starts to ignore their Pro consumers, and keeps fighting with Adobe, then I might as well go back to using PCs. Nothing wrong with windows anymore.

[LethalWolfe]

Avid is the #1 editing platform in the world, with offerings on Mac and PC. FCP is close second. Adobe, well, adobe has no part in the professional editing world. Never did. It's very cute that consumers have heard of it because Adobe makes a good number of products that consumers have heard of, but there isn't any professional Premiere ediitng going on. The occasional in house corporate office run by a one man team perhaps.
It's poor form to be condescending and it's embarrassing to be condescending when you are wrong.

I'd really like you to meet up w/the guys from Bandito Brothers (http://www.banditobrothers.com/) and tell them they aren't professionals. Or maybe visit one of the TV stations owned by Hearst Television (http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/355442-Hearst_Rethinks_Production.php) and inform everyone there that they don't do any professional work. Stu Maschwitz (http://prolost.com/) has VFX credits for films like "The Spirit", "Iron Man", and "Grindhouse", but he's also a big fan of Premiere Pro so into the unprofessional category he goes as well? The difference between professional and not has very little to do w/the tools used.

I always get a kick out of FCP users/supporters snubbing their noses at 'lesser apps' when FCP was considered a lesser app not that many years ago (and still is considered a lesser app by many today).


Lethal

[robotartfashion]

I didn't say students, did I? And I wasn't talking about students, or people who couldn't afford it or didn't need another license anyway. I was talking about two small production companies that I have worked with in the past... hence my frustration.

That said, I still think wrong is wrong. I purchased it back when I was a student. The academic prices are very low, and are nothing compared to the cost of tuition, books, etc.

I'm not sure if you've noticed but the "academic price" is $899 as opposed to the $999 for the non-academic version and unfortunately is not upgradeable to future versions.

Not advocating piracy just wanted to make sure you were up on the "student" pricing.

[-=XX=-Nephilim]

Well, it makes sense...

Apple is now mobile company - and as we know - you cant really edit your videos in professional way on the iPhone - so screw it...

Fire them all and focus on HTML version of Pong for the iPad!

This is the future!

:D

[Eddyisgreat]

In this economy..sickening. For a company that posts ZOMG EPIC PROF!T$$$ year after year you think they could atleast throw a couple thou to the FC units across the nation and show a little love. Lay them off when Adobe or Avid is hiring.

I hate FC anyway, but that's not the point. I love Color though. I think it's great.

[SuperBrown]

The difference between professional and not has very little to do w/the tools used.

Agreed. I work in the television industry and most pros are well versed in several apps and know full well the strengths and weaknesses of each, and of course, have their own preferences. In college we cut our teeth in Media 100. I now work regularly, and prefer, Avid. However, more and more productions use FCP to cut costs. If I want to STAY a working pro, you better believe the tool doesn't matter as much as how well versed I am in it.

[naman34]

Apple is not going to stop making computers. They just released snow leopard, which is basically preparation to do huge things in the future. They may stop making desktops, but they are going to keep making computers, and they don't want to get rid of desktops, they want to make it smaller and smaller, like the imac.
OK importantly, proapps, aren't going anywhere. Logic just went 64bit, final cut is essentially their only app based on carbon now, hence its not 64 bit yet. It needs to be re-written in cocoa, to make it 64-bit. So they are probably re-writing it right now. And the reason final cut hasn't had got good upgrades is probably because they are busy re-writing it. They could just not upgrade it at all otherwise. They wouldn't have bought color otherwise. The developers they sacked are probably carbon developers, who don't know cocoa, so they are basically useless for apple now. So probably, final cut in 64 bit cocoa is almost done, and so they don't need carbon based final cut developers anymore..

[Mac Kiwi]

Apple are only to aware many users will jump ship if the pro apps lag to much. The same goes for the hardware.


Maybe things will go back to something resembling normal in updates,seeing as ipad has been released.

[MMX]

Some of you are really out of your minds. Maybe it's not Apple Computer Inc., but Mac is still the centre of everything and Pro applications aren't goning anywhere. This just pure speculation based on nothing but rumors. They are regrouping teams and moving some resources to other projects.

[tkatz]

Pixar uses Avid for editing. They always have.

They use a bunch of other software for animation, much of it proprietary.

A big one for animation is Renderman

https://renderman.pixar.com/

[guzhogi]

That's sad. I agree, Apple's becoming less & less a company for high end, Pro (as in Mac Pros, & Xserves) computers & more for mobility appliances like iPad & iPhone. Before this whole iPhone thing, Apple seemed a lot more interested in their computers than they do now. Heck, Apple even removed "Computer" from its name. Sad, just sad.

[ps45]

I agree this does appear to confirm a strategic move away from the Pro segment.

Unfortunately, even though this may make sense from an immediate 'bottom line' perspective, I fear it may be detrimental in the long run, as a lot of Apple's prestige and heritage comes from its positioning in the Pro area and the 'Liberal Arts'.

If so this might end up being a classic case study at business schools a few years down the line. The consumer gadgetry market is fickle, very fickle, yet the Pro area is a bedrock, even if it provides less cash flow.

[jrlcopy]

Yes there's AVID but I haven't heard much about that recently, the last time I used it it was a mess compared to the competition... But I really don't know! Yeah at least Adobe is ahead of things, Premiere is modern, it's just realllllly not CPU efficient for the Mac. I mean even scrolling the list of filters is as slow as hell, it's unusable! Adobe loves to port their apps to the Mac, resulting in a mess...

I will admit I'm a total Avid Fanboy over FCP anyday, and have the reasons to back it up. But I have yet to encounter a broadcast tv show or film that is being done on FCP, and the ones that were, "Ellen" for example have jumped ship and went right back to Avid just a few months ago.

Companies tried switching to FCP to cut costs ultimately to learn that they end up spending just as much because of the additional rendering/file sharing/merging projects time.

The biggest reason people leave FCP and think that FCP 'could be dying' is just the lack of updates and bug fixes, Premiere/Avid all ship updates/bug fixes once every other month at least, FCP does maybe once a year. The industry changes so much in a couple months, new formats, new files, etc. Other companies Adobe/Avid are more open with what changes they are making while Apple is a locked box and only what they say goes.

But the main thing is, OMG, the rendering.. It just isn't a fast system if I have to render every little thing... FCP can't do more than 6-8 streams of audio without rendering?!! WTF.. FCP needs to render a color effect when all I'm doing is lowering the saturation?!!

Eh, either way, FCP becoming popular with customers caused the other companies to work hard and improve their software, so I'm happy for that. :)

[dmcaudio]

Being in the Audio/Video industry, I can attest that Macs nor FCP are going anywhere. FCP is still gaining huge momentum because on a local machine it can do about 95% of what Avid's Media Composer can do (though MC is FAR superior in multicomputer environments and render farms). Avid's ProTools is still the king of audio (and has been for decades) and that runs best on Mac as well. Soundtrack is a joke in comparison.

Most big studios always have and probably always will use Media Composer for their bigger budget pictures. Smaller studios or smaller budget pictures will use FCP. VERY few pro studios use Premier Pro (regardless of platform) or *cringes* Sony's Vegas Pro, unless for one reason or another they don't have money or prefer Windows-based machines. Even then they could still use Avid.

Linux is principally used in the AV world for render farms or homebrew software. The only publicly available AV apps are pathetic in comparison to their PC/Mac counterparts.

[LethalWolfe]

I will admit I'm a total Avid Fanboy over FCP anyday, and have the reasons to back it up. But I have yet to encounter a broadcast tv show or film that is being done on FCP, and the ones that were, "Ellen" for example have jumped ship and went right back to Avid just a few months ago.

I think you might want to get your editing news from places besides Avid.com. ;)

20th Century FOX switched to cutting all their films on FCP 2 or 3 years ago. The last 2 or 3 Coen Brothers films were cut on FCP and Walter Murch has done a few films on FCP as well. As far as TV goes, Pie Town Productions (which does about 500-600 episodes of realityTV a year) is all FCP, Bunim/Murray is all FCP, the BBC and CNN are using it extensively, "Scrubs" is FCP, "GameTrailersTV" is FCP, "Leverage" is FCP, etc.,.


Lethal

[nuckinfutz]

That's sad. I agree, Apple's becoming less & less a company for high end, Pro (as in Mac Pros, & Xserves) computers & more for mobility appliances like iPad & iPhone. Before this whole iPhone thing, Apple seemed a lot more interested in their computers than they do now. Heck, Apple even removed "Computer" from its name. Sad, just sad.

FUD. Apple still sells Xeon based Xserves and Mac Pro. They still have the same complement of desktop and notebook computers than they had 6 years ago and probably more because of the Macbook Air. Logic doesn't support your statement. Clearly they care about their Mac lineup as much as anything else.

I agree this does appear to confirm a strategic move away from the Pro segment.

Unfortunately, even though this may make sense from an immediate 'bottom line' perspective, I fear it may be detrimental in the long run, as a lot of Apple's prestige and heritage comes from its positioning in the Pro area and the 'Liberal Arts'.

If so this might end up being a classic case study at business schools a few years down the line. The consumer gadgetry market is fickle, very fickle, yet the Pro area is a bedrock, even if it provides less cash flow.

You've made a leap to a conclusion that has no logical basis. Apple just delivered a 64-bit upgrade to Aperture which followed a 64-bit upgrade to Logic Studio. So a majority of Apple's Pro Apps are now 64-bit which means they had to remove tons of Carbon code. Final Cut Studio would clearly the the most ambitious update yet because Apple lays off 40 people suddenly their committment to their Pro Apps comes into question.

Maybe maybe "i'm" just not getting it.

Someone please explain to me how Apple is moving away from Pro's by updating two of their Pro apps to new 64-bit versions? Or why they would develop technology like OpenCL and Grand Central Dispatch?

Come on guys ...use your heads.

[surferfromuk]

I think Apple need to release a PR statement on this one.

1st they dump Shake and now they're cutting into FCP...say what you like, it's smoke on the horizon...

It would be a disaster if 30% of movie professionals got the jitters and went to get a copy of Avid over this. Kind of thing that can destroy forward momentum...

[studiomusic]

Even though I only support piracy for kids and college people pretty much who don't have money yet, but hopefully when they get jobs they won't pirate as much anymore, I still think it's a pretty stupid idea to have to buy a thousand dollar software, multiplied by for every computer you own, it's really useless as you own your computers and the software.

Now if it was you getting 1 software, installing on your computer then giving it to your friends I can see why it would be bad (but tbh people need to not get butthurt over piracy, their life is not over) since it's for someone else who didn't even pay, but you paid for your software so you use it on your computer(s).

You can legally install and run it on one desktop and one laptop. So 2 computers at a time. If you need more than a desktop and a laptop to run it, you need another license no?

[nuckinfutz]

I think Apple need to release a PR statement on this one.

1st they dump Shake and now they're cutting into FCP...say what you like, it's smoke on the horizon...

It would be a disaster if 30% of movie professionals got the jitters and went to get a copy of Avid over this. Kind of thing that can destroy forward momentum...

I agree:

Apple

"Dear morons....yes we're still developing Final Cut Studio. Have a nice day"

Apple Inc
All rights reserved

[surferfromuk]

I agree:

Apple

"Dear morons....yes we're still developing Final Cut Studio. Have a nice day"

Apple Inc
All rights reserved

I don't think there was any need to be so rude.

Are you a film maker? Is your productivity invested in FCP?

I ask the questions though I can't say I even relish the answers - laced as they will be with veiled insults and your own sardonic wit.

Put simply, you don't know what Apple is doing with FCP so don't make ludicrous and offensive judgements about everyone.

[snowboarder]

There was still hope when they were hiring people to their Santa Monica
office to work on Phenomenon - Shake replacement/Flame competitor.
It was pretty clear it was going nowhere when Ron Brinkmann left Apple
and joined The Foundry to work on Nuke 2 years ago.
His words:

http://twitter.com/ronbrinkmann/status/2943137747
"Always been a bit amazed/amused that people continued to hope for a Shake replacement from Apple. Maybe, finally, they'll accept reality :-)"

and:


Ron's ronbrinkmann Says:
February 23, 2008 at 5:53 pm
I really can’t say much about where Apple may or may not be going with future products. Although the fact that I decided it was time to move on might be a reasonable clue as to my confidence level that any alleged ‘next generation’ tool will be focused on the market (high end vfx and animation) that I’m interested in… And why I’m now working with The Foundry on Nuke…


one more thing Ron posted on appleinsider when Shake got killed:

http://forums.appleinsider.com/showpost.php?p=1457213&postcount=44

I'm actually pretty surprised that this is even news. Shake was discontinued years ago and a good chunk of the team (myself included) have long since moved on. Apple doesn't build products for high end niche markets... the support requirements alone make it uninteresting to them. As for 'Phenomenon', I believe it's hanging out with the Yeti in Area 51...


Now Apple is letting go some key people from the Motion and FCP department.


If anyone still believes Apple cares about anything but iPhone
is simple dreaming :(

[blkraemer]

Adobe, well, adobe has no part in the professional editing world.

False. CS4 is one of the first desktop products to support .R3D workflow native. It also has the ability to seamlessly port sequences between premiere and AfterEffects... the #1 desktop motion graphics application in the world.

If your going to present things as fact... make sure they are.

[nuckinfutz]

It wouldn't really matter if I was a film maker or not. The astonishing lack of intelligence or logic in some of the FUD posts is bordering on comical.

Final Cut Studio is Apple's largest Pro app. When Apple decided "not" to do a 64-bit Carbon version it meant that even they had to take their apps and remove the legacy Carbon 32-bit and move to Cocoa 64-bit. So they've been systematically upgrading their apps. First was Logic and last week Aperature become the next app to migrate over to 64-bit Cocoa.

I view the layoffs as a positive thing (for Final Cut Studio) it likely means that the QA testing and porting has gone well and now they do not need the extra bodies.

It's rumored that the core OS X team is roughly a hundred developers strong. These are the guys and gals doing the heavy coding and creation from the kernel up to the GUI. So in comparison one could "reasonably" presume that the 40 people let go from the Final Cut Studio project were not just engineers as it's unlikely that a video editing suite would have that many engineers working on it (too many Chefs in the kitchen).

So again ...I'm failing to see how this means Apple's committment to Pro apps or Pro users is lessening considering they've updated most of their apps.

Some of us don't suffer fools gladly.

[nuckinfutz]

Now Apple is letting go some key people from the Motion and FCP department.


If anyone still believes Apple cares about anything but iPhone
is simple dreaming :(

What key people have been let go. Can we get some names?

[WeegieMac]

Hopefully that doesn't mean that Final Cut sales are slowing. So many annoying people pirate it instead of paying.

See, that's the thing about Final Cut Pro that I've never understood.

The people who, generally speaking, need Final Cut are video editing professionals. 99% of video editing pro's use power machines, like Mac Pro's.

If you work in that industry you're well paid and your equipment including computers cost a lot of money, so why pirate a copy of Final Cut Pro?

I can't imagine every day casual Mac users downloading it illegally, I mean that makes as much sense as a switcher who used Paint on his PC for the odd picture, illegally downloading PhotoShop CS4!

[blkraemer]

I view the layoffs as a positive thing (for Final Cut Studio) it likely means that the QA testing and porting has gone well and now they do not need the extra bodies.


Agreed, 64-bit FCS to be released at NAB?

I know I was dismayed when FCS-3 came out a month a head of Snow Leopard, and had hoped a 64-bit version would follow shortly after. Seems there has been enough time to complete a kernel up rebuild?

[surferfromuk]

Agreed, 64-bit FCS to be released at NAB?

I know I was dismayed when FCS-3 came out a month a head of Snow Leopard, and had hoped a 64-bit version would follow shortly after. Seems there has been enough time to complete a kernel up rebuild?

Do Apple still attend NAB?

[TennisandMusic]

I agree:

Apple

"Dear morons....yes we're still developing Final Cut Studio. Have a nice day"

Apple Inc
All rights reserved

That's not exactly nice. Morons? Because their opinion differs from yours?

Now I could be wrong here, but let's try and examine the facts.

-Apple has just cut quite a number of people off the FCP team.

-the Mac Pros are very poor machines in general, and are being neglected.

-The fact that Apple dropped "computer" off of it's name some time ago, and this has coincided with a marked rise in their focus on consumer electronics.

-Their general "lagging" of dev work in the pro markets. Logic and FCP are widely regarded as being passed up long ago by competing products and are woefully behind the times. Haven't really followed up on Aperture 3, but the initial reports are pretty bad.

-Snow Leopard's general bugginess and slowness. This is not the company that built their reputation on the pro market, and building a world class machine. At this point, every single machine they sell is either extremely overpriced, or has major problems. Just because Apple attaches marketing names to things like "Grand Central Dispatch" or "OpenCL" doesn't mean it is industry leading stuff. OSX does not scale very well compared to Windows. Offloading work to the graphics chip has been around awhile. OSX is either par for the course, or behind at this point. It might look a little nicer than Windows 7, but it's seriously less functional.

These are of course my take on things, and I certainly am not going to refer to anyone as a "moron" who disagrees. But isn't it reasonable to be worried about Apple's pro intentions given all of the evidence that points towards them not taking it seriously any longer?

After all, Steve Jobs apparently considers the iPad the "most important" thing he's ever done. The iPad. What does this tell people?

[blkraemer]

See, that's the thing about Final Cut Pro that I've never understood.

The people who, generally speaking, need Final Cut are video editing professionals. 99% of video editing pro's use power machines, like Mac Pro's.

If you work in that industry you're well paid and your equipment including computers cost a lot of money, so why pirate a copy of Final Cut Pro?

I can't imagine every day casual Mac users downloading it illegally, I mean that makes as much sense as a switcher who used Paint on his PC for the odd picture, illegally downloading PhotoShop CS4!

You'd be surprised though... at what happens at even some big companies. I don't mean downloading cracked versions... but installing licenses on multiple machines out of convenience or to control hard costs, or so someone else can play with the software, etc. I see this as almost accepted behavior (mostly by 20-somethings) at places I have freelanced. It's annoying because it often disrupts workflow.

No software title is immune from this. Not how I roll, but it happens.

[nuckinfutz]

Agreed, 64-bit FCS to be released at NAB?

I know I was dismayed when FCS-3 came out a month a head of Snow Leopard, and had hoped a 64-bit version would follow shortly after. Seems there has been enough time to complete a kernel up rebuild?

Same here but then I thought "Apple's going to wait until they have a few 10.6.x point releases before they move on and we are on the cusp of seeing 10.6.3 delivered.

I think Snow Leopard and Leopard are ready for a new version. Apple's not abanding FCS. They've put too much work into preparing the core of the OS for some outstanding future media apps.

Imagine in a couple of years what FCS is like running on 10.7.4 with OpenCL and Grand Central Dispatch and a vastly improved Quicktime X? These features weren't put into Mac OS X to benefit iPhone users (save for QTX).

[TennisandMusic]

There was still hope when they were hiring people to their Santa Monica
office to work on Phenomenon - Shake replacement/Flame competitor.
It was pretty clear it was going nowhere when Ron Brinkmann left Apple
and joined The Foundry to work on Nuke 2 years ago.
His words:

http://twitter.com/ronbrinkmann/status/2943137747
"Always been a bit amazed/amused that people continued to hope for a Shake replacement from Apple. Maybe, finally, they'll accept reality :-)"

and:


Ron's ronbrinkmann Says:
February 23, 2008 at 5:53 pm
I really can’t say much about where Apple may or may not be going with future products. Although the fact that I decided it was time to move on might be a reasonable clue as to my confidence level that any alleged ‘next generation’ tool will be focused on the market (high end vfx and animation) that I’m interested in… And why I’m now working with The Foundry on Nuke…


one more thing Ron posted on appleinsider when Shake got killed:

http://forums.appleinsider.com/showpost.php?p=1457213&postcount=44

I'm actually pretty surprised that this is even news. Shake was discontinued years ago and a good chunk of the team (myself included) have long since moved on. Apple doesn't build products for high end niche markets... the support requirements alone make it uninteresting to them. As for 'Phenomenon', I believe it's hanging out with the Yeti in Area 51...


Now Apple is letting go some key people from the Motion and FCP department.


If anyone still believes Apple cares about anything but iPhone
is simple dreaming :(

This is a good post, and I remember reading about this. Further evidence to support people's worries. From from being foolish or moronic at all in fact.

It is quite clear Apple has gone from trying to lead the way to really lagging when it comes to their computer line. Jobs has stated the Macs in 2010 will take Apple to the next level, but we will see...

[TennisandMusic]

Same here but then I thought "Apple's going to wait until they have a few 10.6.x point releases before they move on and we are on the cusp of seeing 10.6.3 delivered.

I think Snow Leopard and Leopard are ready for a new version. Apple's not abanding FCS. They've put too much work into preparing the core of the OS for some outstanding future media apps.

Imagine in a couple of years what FCS is like running on 10.7.4 with OpenCL and Grand Central Dispatch and a vastly improved Quicktime X? These features weren't put into Mac OS X to benefit iPhone users (save for QTX).

So you think that multithreaded apps and graphics accelerated video/processing is going to take FCP to the next level? You know this stuff already exists on Windows right? Even consumer video editing programs can utilize ATI and Nvidia cards to render files, and utilize 4 cores etc...

Quicktime X is still proprietary, lacking features and generally pretty useless. Of course that could change in future updates but...

Why look forward to 10.7.4 which is obviously years away, when those things already exist? I don't get it personally.

[surferfromuk]

Same here but then I thought "Apple's going to wait until they have a few 10.6.x point releases before they move on and we are on the cusp of seeing 10.6.3 delivered.

I think Snow Leopard and Leopard are ready for a new version. Apple's not abanding FCS. They've put too much work into preparing the core of the OS for some outstanding future media apps.

Imagine in a couple of years what FCS is like running on 10.7.4 with OpenCL and Grand Central Dispatch and a vastly improved Quicktime X? These features weren't put into Mac OS X to benefit iPhone users (save for QTX).

1) Apple could have had FCS 3.0 released in 2009 running OpenCL and GrandCentral - they didn't - they just released a very marginal update

2) Not really sure I want to wait until 2012 for this stuff, but given what you call 'the moronic foolishness' of us FCP users - I suppose anything is possible.

[ps45]

...You've made a leap to a conclusion that has no logical basis. Apple just delivered a 64-bit upgrade to Aperture which followed a 64-bit upgrade to Logic Studio. So a majority of Apple's Pro Apps are now 64-bit which means they had to remove tons of Carbon code. Final Cut Studio would clearly the the most ambitious update yet because Apple lays off 40 people suddenly their committment to their Pro Apps comes into question...

The logical basis for suggesting Apple are diverting their attention from Pro level activities to consumer ones is, as you've noticed, in the very first post of this thread - namely the downsizing of the FCP team. Further examples have been mentioned by others, all of which over time have created the general feeling of this shift - there's no 'suddenly' about it.

So, the big proof otherwise is that Apple are updating the surviving apps to 64-bit? Well, that doesn't strike me as groundbreaking, more like treading water.

[Rodimus Prime]

So apple has now joined the ranks of slimmy companies lovely. You would think with all those record profits they could relocated the workers to a different department

[blkraemer]

That's not exactly nice. Morons? Because their opinion differs from yours?

Try to view the above with a sense of humor?


Now I could be wrong here, but let's try and examine the facts.

-Apple has just cut quite a number of people off the FCP team.

-the Mac Pros are very poor machines in general, and are being neglected.

40 people, likely testers based on some info... small potatoes to Apple.

Very poor machines? My system is 1.5 years old and it chews up 4K footage all day long. The new i7 12 thread machines are going to be a huge leap forward. I see no issue with the Mac Pros.


-The fact that Apple dropped "computer" off of it's name some time ago, and this has coincided with a marked rise in their focus on consumer electronics.

Semantics.. all consumer electronics are computers.


-Their general "lagging" of dev work in the pro markets. Logic and FCP are widely regarded as being passed up long ago by competing products and are woefully behind the times. Haven't really followed up on Aperture 3, but the initial reports are pretty bad.

Based on what? FCP was the first desktop app to embrace RED workflow. FCP had a better p2 solution than Avid by a mile. First app to allow mixed frame rate sequences, mixed codec editing, etc... Acquired Color, a very powerful App, allowing RAW file grading. How about some specifics to back your statement about how widely regarded it is lagging?


-Snow Leopard's general bugginess and slowness. This is not the company that built their reputation on the pro market, and building a world class machine. At this point, every single machine they sell is either extremely overpriced, or has major problems. Just because Apple attaches marketing names to things like "Grand Central Dispatch" or "OpenCL" doesn't mean it is industry leading stuff. OSX does not scale very well compared to Windows. Offloading work to the graphics chip has been around awhile. OSX is either par for the course, or behind at this point. It might look a little nicer than Windows 7, but it's seriously less functional.

I have seen very little issue with Snow Leopard, but big improvements, and I push it to the limits. Apple hardware has always cost a premium over PC systems. You get what you pay for and I think it's extremely functional. You might be able to build a hackintosh that out performs an off the shelf Mac Pro.


But isn't it reasonable to be worried about Apple's pro intentions given all of the evidence that points towards them not taking it seriously any longer?

After all, Steve Jobs apparently considers the iPad the "most important" thing he's ever done. The iPad. What does this tell people?

It tells me Steve Jobs is a man of vision, and the iPad was very important to him. Apple is bigger than one man, one product. Don't read too much into that.

Think about the origins of most of the Pro-application products... from Final Cut to Color to Shake to Logic, etc... these were all applications originally developed by other companies, with miniscule market share, mostly running on PC platforms. Apple took these products and gave them new life, greatly enhanced them, bundled them and made them affordable. Nothing in the way of news or rumor coming from Apple in the last few years has caused me concern about my investment in their software or hardware... apart from them killing Shake and "replacing" it with Motion. That just tells me Apple didn't see enough profit or market share from developing Phenomenon, and with good reason. FCS is not going anywhere. The hardware is very effective.

[nuckinfutz]

The logical basis for suggesting Apple are diverting their attention from Pro level activities to consumer ones is, as you've noticed, in the very first post of this thread - namely the downsizing of the FCP team. Further examples have been mentioned by others, all of which over time have created the general feeling of this shift - there's no 'suddenly' about it.

So, the big proof otherwise is that Apple are updating the surviving apps to 64-bit? Well, that doesn't strike me as groundbreaking, more like treading water.


Yes but that's in conflict with the recent updates to Logic and Aperture to 64-bit. If Apple was truly diverting attention then why are these new versions here and on end user Macs doing work?

It doesn't really matter whether it strikes you as groundbreaking or anything else. That's a perception that you foster internally. The prima facie fact it that today you can guy a 64-bit version of Logic or Aperture two of Apple's 3 major Pro Apps.

Considering that these apps have millions of lines of code that had to be moved from 32-bit Carbon API to 64-bit Cocoa API suggest that Apple is still committed to the Pro Apps as these 64-bit transitions took a lot of work and will continue to take work.

[nuckinfutz]

So apple has now joined the ranks of slimmy companies lovely. You would think with all those record profits they could relocated the workers to a different department

So Apple's Welfare now huh? I never knew that record profits meant you had to keep a bunch of people around that you have potentially have no need for.

I guess every retail chain that hires seasonal workers are now slimey as well since come Jan 3rd many are severing these workers from employment.

[TennisandMusic]

Try to view the above with a sense of humor?



40 people, likely testers based on some info... small potatoes to Apple.

Very poor machines? My system is 1.5 years old and it chews up 4K footage all day long. The new i7 12 thread machines are going to be a huge leap forward. I see no issue with the Mac Pros.



Semantics.. all consumer electronics are computers.



Based on what? FCP was the first desktop app to embrace RED workflow. FCP had a better p2 solution than Avid by a mile. First app to allow mixed frame rate sequences, mixed codec editing, etc... Acquired Color, a very powerful App, allowing RAW file grading. How about some specifics to back your statement about how widely regarded it is lagging?



I have seen very little issue with Snow Leopard, but big improvements, and I push it to the limits. Apple hardware has always cost a premium over PC systems. You get what you pay for and I think it's extremely functional. You might be able to build a hackintosh that out performs an off the shelf Mac Pro.



It tells me Steve Jobs is a man of vision, and the iPad was very important to him. Apple is bigger than one man, one product. Don't read too much into that.

Think about the origins of most of the Pro-application products... from Final Cut to Color to Shake to Logic, etc... these were all applications originally developed by other companies, with miniscule market share, mostly running on PC platforms. Apple took these products and gave them new life, greatly enhanced them, bundled them and made them affordable. Nothing in the way of news or rumor coming from Apple in the last few years has caused me concern about my investment in their software or hardware... apart from them killing Shake and "replacing" it with Motion. That just tells me Apple didn't see enough profit or market share from developing Phenomenon, and with good reason. FCS is not going anywhere. The hardware is very effective.

With Apple you really don't get what you pay for. I use both OSX and Windows on a daily basis. Every machine I have that dual boots OSX and Windows 7 runs Windows 7 better. I'm talking about Macs here. Windows 7 is far "snappier" and generally more capable.

Can you offer proof that the 40 people are all testers? I don't think proof exists either way, which means everyone's opinion is merely conjecture. And if they were testers, does that mean Apple is not developing code that needs to be tested? Something to think about.

And yes, the Mac Pros are very bad machines. Poorly supported, purposefully gimped (four ram slots per cpu is hilariously stupid) with almost no real choices. Build a PC for a thousand bucks that smokes just about every mac pro for most tasks, with terrific, rock solid. I don't do the Hackintosh game. A waste of time I don't have since I do actual work and produce results and all that.

As far as the FCP and Logic issues, just go read the various boards and see why people are leaving the programs behind for the competitors. There are plenty of complaints. The Logic 9 update was a complete joke. There are plenty of people out there talking about the benefits of Avid over FCP at this point.

Being a fan of Apple and an apologist are two different things. I think both Apple and MS can do good or poor work. Right now, Apple is heavily erring on the side of poor in general, both hardware and software wise. The fact that I AM a fan is why I say this. I know they can be doing much much better results wise. I think just saying everything is peachy keen and Apple rocks is more akin to cult like behavior. Does Apple do no wrong or something? Every company makes missteps.

Right now Apple is making many. In my opinion of course.

[ps45]

... apart from them killing Shake and "replacing" it with Motion. That just tells me Apple didn't see enough profit or market share from developing Phenomenon, and with good reason. FCS is not going anywhere...

The change I see is an Apple has developed a taste for the quick hit cash flows that they get from their consumer lines. OK we don't know the figures, but on the face of it dropping Shake/Phenomenon, based on bottom line reasoning, kind of illustrates this. Why persevere with this product, why try and build market share, when iPods are like shooting fish in a barrel?

Apple have learned that getting 'brand recognition' is a lot quicker and easier that getting 'reputation' - but the two are not identical. Consumer electronics have that quick high that the stock market likes, and that's fine - but it's a different business.

To simply expect them to straddle two very different businesses and achieve as much in each, and with equal focus, is asking a lot.

I agree, FCS isn't going anywhere soon - but that doesn't mean that their priorities aren't elsewhere - and that might mean we don't see FCS going anywhere soon either...

[Rodimus Prime]

So Apple's Welfare now huh? I never knew that record profits meant you had to keep a bunch of people around that you have potentially have no need for.

I guess every retail chain that hires seasonal workers are now slimey as well since come Jan 3rd many are severing these workers from employment.

It is one thing if you know you are hired to be a temp. It is another thing to show ZERO loyatiy to your employees. Laying people off and not trying to find a new position for them is an example of greed and ZERO loyalty.

You wonder what is wrong with america here is an example. Company demand you be loyal to them but will not give you any in return.

Get screwed over by a company and you start seeing the truth to the matter.

[blkraemer]

There are plenty of people out there talking about the benefits of Avid over FCP at this point.

Always has been, that cuts both ways. I assume you work on Avid. I have and do work with both, among other apps, on a few different platforms.


Being a fan of Apple and an apologist are two different things...

I think just saying everything is peachy keen and Apple rocks is more akin to cult like behavior. Does Apple do no wrong or something? Every company makes missteps.

I do work and produce results too, with no issues, mostly on Apple hardware I configure. What i am saying about my hardware and experience with the Pro Apps... that's not being an apologist or displaying cult like behavior, that is stating fact, from my experiences. The software and hardware has never gotten in my way of producing results.

Seems like you prefer the Windows OS and "PC" hardware, and if that is your preference then cool... but it seems like your perception of the so called apple cult gives you reason to argue? Your citing very abstract generalities about people leaving Apple for competitors, etc... I'm just talking about what my experiences have been, what works for me. I can't believe I'm alone in my experiences.

[blkraemer]

The change I see is an Apple has developed a taste for the quick hit cash flows that they get from their consumer lines. OK we don't know the figures, but on the face of it dropping Shake/Phenomenon, based on bottom line reasoning, kind of illustrates this. Why persevere with this product, why try and build market share, when iPods are like shooting fish in a barrel?

I agree with your point, and I was very upset about Shake being EOL'd. However with Brinkmans exit... Apple didn't have the firepower to launch into a new offering like Phenomenon. History tells us products like Shake and Nuke, Maya, DS, Scratch etc.. come from nimble companies. There isn't enough market share to support the development on a scale that Apple works in now for a product as specialized as Phenom. And since Apple acquired Shake from Nothings Real, there not going to sell it back to The Foundry so it can maintain a life span... and with Nuke's launch... Foundry wouldn't want to continue Shake either.

I wish Apple would have continued Shake and that is the worst move they have made in recent years.. but it has little to do with their market share in the NLE business.

[LethalWolfe]

Based on what? FCP was the first desktop app to embrace RED workflow. FCP had a better p2 solution than Avid by a mile. First app to allow mixed frame rate sequences, mixed codec editing, etc... Acquired Color, a very powerful App, allowing RAW file grading. How about some specifics to back your statement about how widely regarded it is lagging?
Apple was first to get on board w/RED for post... and did basically nothing with it. Now other companies have surpassed Apple. Apple used to have a better P2 solution than Avid. Now Avid's AMA workflow offers a better solution for tapeless workflows. Same can be said for 'open timeline' editing. FCP got in the door first (as long as you don't count apps like Vegas) but w/a flawed system that's makes many editors recommend *not* using it. Avid's version came later but, from what I hear, works like a charm. And after two years all Color gets is a .5 update? Really? Even with all its flaws I like Color a lot, but I'm afraid it could be headed down the same road to nowhere that Shake took.

I'm less afraid of Apple killing the ProApps than I am of Apple becoming complacent or just deciding that they don't want to get any deeper into the post production niche than they already are. FCP was lighting it up the early and mid part of the decade and now Adobe and Avid are really pushing back but I've yet to see a worthwhile response from Apple.


Lethal

[MacFly123]

I know of some that will buy one license, install it on multiple machines, and then disconnect the network so the machines won't see another copy running at the same time. It really frustrates me that people do this. :mad:

I have heard of people doing this too! :mad:

That key is Very easy to find a code for online, and one thing that makes it so easy for us legitimate users makes it easy for cheapskates to pirate. I'm in college now and know several students who have pirated it, some helping each other to get codes. I've bought every copy I've ever used starting with Final Cut Studio 1 and continuing through to when I bought my upgrade to Studio 3.

-Brian

That is pathetic! Students even get a lower price. And it is not like it costs very much anyway! I hate dishonest people like this that screw us, the good guys over! :(

[surferfromuk]

I have heard of people doing this too! :mad:



That is pathetic! Students even get a lower price. And it is not like it costs very much anyway! I hate dishonest people like this that screw us, the good guys over! :(

Avid costs $299 for students. Apple could do with making FCS $199 for students

[MacFly123]

Avid costs $299 for students. Apple could do with making FCS $199 for students

Show me a link! Are you talking about Media Composer? Wouldn't that be comparable to Final Cut Pro NOT Final Cut Studio which includes all the other apps in the suite?

[J the Ninja]

Show me a link! Are you talking about Media Composer? Wouldn't that be comparable to Final Cut Pro NOT Final Cut Studio which includes all the other apps in the suite?

http://www.avid.com/promos/studentupgrade/index.asp?intcmp=AV-IN-MCSU-18

Free updates for 4 years too. You don't get stuff like the other FCS apps, but still....the savings will at least cover a student copy of After Effects. ($349, I have looked into that one before myself)

Oh, and places like PowerMax sell the full retail version of FCS3 for $899, so the student discount is basically pointless. Even if you do pay the full $999 for it, it will easily pay for itself with the next version, since the student version doesn't get you Apple's hefty upgrade discount.

[rdowns]

I only skimmed the thread but am I to understand that this rumor is based on a single tweet? :rolleyes:

[localoid]

I only skimmed the thread but am I to understand that this rumor is based on a single tweet? :rolleyes:

Wha-wha-wha-what? If you can't trust tweets what can you trust on the Internet?

[milo]

While I think the pro apps aren't their highest priority, I don't believe they are dumping them either. And I'm skeptical about this rumor.

If they really stopped caring, they wouldn't have bothered with the recent Logic updates, which while they still lag some features in other apps, still showed significant work on the apps. Not to mention going 64 bit complete with a bridge for 32 bit plugins couldn't have been easy.

And if they were going to dump FCS, they wouldn't fire employees who were making a contribution, they'd reassign them to the quicktime or iMovie teams. Assuming they did lay people off (which isn't confirmed), I'd bet it was either testers or tech support people, or simply people who weren't pulling their weight. I would hope they'd dump people who weren't writing good code.


That's not exactly nice. Morons? Because their opinion differs from yours?

Because they are taking an unsubstantiated twitter rumor as "fact"?

Now I could be wrong here, but let's try and examine the facts.

-Apple has just cut quite a number of people off the FCP team.

See above. A rumor is not a fact.

Build a PC for a thousand bucks that smokes just about every mac pro for most tasks, with terrific, rock solid.

Sure, you can build an i7 for around that (you'd want to spend a bit more than a grand or you'd be cutting some corners) that will smoke the quad, but one that "smokes" the 8 core would be a fair amount more than that. Sure, the mac is more expensive, but I'd want to see a spec/price before believing it could be done for that price.

[tk421]

I'm not sure if you've noticed but the "academic price" is $899 as opposed to the $999 for the non-academic version and unfortunately is not upgradeable to future versions.

Not advocating piracy just wanted to make sure you were up on the "student" pricing.

Okay, you got me. :o Back when I bought it in college, it was $300. I was aware that later it was raised to $500. That really sucks that they're charging $899. It doesn't make much sense (especially factoring in the loss of upgrades).

[lshaner]

I have never heard of anyone pirating it. It is one of the few applications for Mac that requires a key.



I hope you are right!!! :(

I have been worried about the pro area with Apple lately! The hope I see is that they just took Logic and Aperture 64bit! Why would they do that if they are going to ditch the pro apps? And if they were going to get rid of any pro apps, I think they would start with Aperture, then Logic, and Final Cut last. Final Cut is HUGE in the industry!

I am a video producer and I don't want to imagine my life and profession without FCS and Macs! :(

Apple can make all the gadgets they want, iPhone, iPad, whatever, I don't care because I love those products too, but PLEASE don't abandon us Apple! You have been the professional creative tools maker for so long and have done such a good job!

I know things have been slow lately in the pro area, but I think that was a combination of the recession and the pro apps not being 64bit and optimized to use all the technologies in Mac OS X like Open CL and Grand Central. I don't think many pros want to upgrade to an 8-core Mac Pro with 32 GB of RAM when the pro apps like Final Cut can't even take advantage of that! I have to say I was a bit disappointed with FCS3! We also need another LED Cinema Display bigger than 24", preferably 32"! Bake some Shake into Motion as well!

If FCS was 64bit and optimized for Snow Leopard, I would wait for the Mac Pro refresh on the horizon and drop $20,000-$30,000 EASY on a new system and software!

COME ON APPLE make us proud!

+100

[LethalWolfe]

Bob Sliga, a former member of the Color dev team, said that three members of the Color team (1 engineer and 2 QA guys) were part of the 40 that were let go.


Lethal

[Nuvi]

This isn't looking good... Apple has been cutting down pro software development / slowing down on releases and now they are doing big cuts on FCS team. I'm honestly starting to hope iPad and iPhone will come down burning so Apple will go back to developing Mac's, OS X and great Pro software. I have no problem living without my iPhone but Mac without pro apps... well, it would be terrible -> I would be forced to move to Windows cause Avid on Mac, well why bother...

[milo]

This isn't looking good... Apple has been cutting down pro software development / slowing down on releases and now they are doing big cuts on FCS team. I'm honestly starting to hope iPad and iPhone will come down burning so Apple will go back to developing Mac's, OS X and great Pro software. I have no problem living without my iPhone but Mac without pro apps... well, it would be terrible -> I would be forced to move to Windows cause Avid on Mac, well why bother...

If iPhone suddenly crashed and burned, it would likely hurt mac sales and make the situation for macs, pro apps, and OSX worse, not better.

Apple definitely needs to show some progress with the FCS apps - while things seem to have slowed down, I'm not convinced that it means they're going to totally abandon or blow off development of pro apps like some on here seem to believe.

[Nuvi]

If iPhone suddenly crashed and burned, it would likely hurt mac sales and make the situation for macs, pro apps, and OSX worse, not better.

Apple definitely needs to show some progress with the FCS apps - while things seem to have slowed down, I'm not convinced that it means they're going to totally abandon or blow off development of pro apps like some on here seem to believe.

It seems Apple isn't committed on developing Pro apps the way they used to. If they were forced to go back to their core business (designing, building and developing computer systems and software for creatives) I have hard time believing this would hurt Pro apps line up. :rolleyes: The problem with Apple's current approach is that they are not fully committed on Pro Mac's or software. In world of pro software you have to be fully committed. If not, it means you're out. Why would any pro want to use some mediocre edit suit if they can get state of the art for the same money from different manufacturer / developer? From creative's perspective who has used Mac's for long time this is really sad development. The biggest threat for Pro Mac's wasn't MS. It was Apple Inc. formerly known as Apple Computers Inc.

[Winni]

No. They would murder, I mean absolutely destroy, their user base and their profits if they did this. Besides, the whole point behind gadgets like the iPod/iPhone/iPad are to get people who wouldn't normally look towards Apple when purchasing a computer to actually consider buying a Mac. They buy the iPhone/Pad/Pod, they love it and realize it's made by Apple. They've never used a Mac before, so they figure if their iPhone, or whatever the hell, is so easy to use then their computers must be just as easy.

You really do not understand Apple's business model. Two third of Apple's revenue is generated through the gadgets and the iTunes store - and both function very well with Windows and PCs. And most of the gadgets and iTunes users have never used or even seen a Mac in their whole life.

So, no, the gadgets are not a vehicle to sell Macs, and selling more Macs not even remotely their purpose.

Macs are more of a liability for Apple these days than they are a revenue stream.

[surferfromuk]

The big tragedy is that I can actually see the iPad ( or certainly at least a future 20" iPad) being something of a revolution for Pro Apps - either as dedicated or complementing the core app as it ran on the main Mac.

For example;

1) Logic - having a hands on mixer control surface would be amazing
2) Aperture - finger re-touching and pinch-zoom inspection could be really fast and productive. Flick swiping - quick and easy
3) FCP - creating a kind of 'digital' moviola flicking backwards and forwards through clips, cuting with horizontal swipes, drag and drop onto the timeline - it would be a really visceral hands on way of working with 'digital film'

I only hope Apple's Pro teams get the opportunity to 'wow' Jobs as to how all of these apps can be re-invented for touch. It would be a shocking waste of talent, momentum and market share if they allowed Pro apps to lapse.

Worse, I also feel it would ultimately end in a 'brain drain' occurring in Apple and even a loss of visionary engineers. It would be interesting to know how iMovie and FCP teams interact - I wonder if there is internal competition and tension between the groups or they are all 'under one roof'?

Still, if Apple they drop the ball someone else will pick it up...

[toke lahti]

For my purposes, I would love to see an iMac with an eSATA port and I'd be happy as the proverbial Pig in Feces. I mean, seriously ... since when should editing video and compositing with either AE or Motion ever require two multi-core workstation class CPUs?

At least not with modern codecs it shouldn't! ;)
Hmmm, "modern" codecs are much more power hungry than older ones...

But segmenting products by leaving away natural features is just unacceptable.
Imac's chipset support eSata, but apple won't put a port in iMac. And is it really so hard to put even express card slot in 27" iMac to get the smallest amount of expandablity for over $2k computer? There's plenty of empty space for that...

[toke lahti]

Acquired Color, a very powerful App, allowing RAW file grading. How about some specifics to back your statement about how widely regarded it is lagging?
Hopefully Color will get support for 10/12-bit colors with nvidia 2011.
We've been waiting only 4 years about it then...

[toke lahti]

Agreed, 64-bit FCS to be released at NAB?
For a very long time FCS update has been every other year around NAB. So next chance is 2011...

[Nuvi]

The big tragedy is that I can actually see the iPad ( or certainly at least a future 20" iPad) being something of a revolution for Pro Apps - either as dedicated or complementing the core app as it ran on the main Mac.

For example;

1) Logic - having a hands on mixer control surface would be amazing
2) Aperture - finger re-touching and pinch-zoom inspection could be really fast and productive. Flick swiping - quick and easy
3) FCP - creating a kind of 'digital' moviola flicking backwards and forwards through clips, cuting with horizontal swipes, drag and drop onto the timeline - it would be a really visceral hands on way of working with 'digital film'

I only hope Apple's Pro teams get the opportunity to 'wow' Jobs as to how all of these apps can be re-invented for touch. It would be a shocking waste of talent, momentum and market share if they allowed Pro apps to lapse.

Worse, I also feel it would ultimately end in a 'brain drain' occurring in Apple and even a loss of visionary engineers. It would be interesting to know how iMovie and FCP teams interact - I wonder if there is internal competition and tension between the groups or they are all 'under one roof'?

Still, if Apple they drop the ball someone else will pick it up...

Pro's are not looking for gimmicky "magic" or "wow". Speed, stability and support for industry standards are the cornerstones. All these "iPadish" features require too much arm movements making them slow and useless. Hence, no tricks just results required. Regarding iMovie, who cares, its a toy.

[aquajet]

So Apple's Welfare now huh? I never knew that record profits meant you had to keep a bunch of people around that you have potentially have no need for.

I applaud the two people in this thread who questioned a profitable corporation's move to eliminate 40 people from its workforce. People work in order to provide for themselves and their families, with the side benefit in the case of successful corporations such as Apple, enriching the few folks making all the decisions on behalf of others. It shouldn't be a controversial issue to raise such concerns or find them objectionable unless you are a sociopath.

[Gasu E.]

As someone who works in the computer industry, I can tell you the following is endemic-- GOOD jobs are being off-shored to places like Bangalore. I am not talking about call centers-- I'm talking about jobs in software QA and even software development. Every computer company is doing this. Companies tend to be quiet about this, due to the delicate nature of these decisions, but just because you heard about a few people getting laid-off in the USA doesn't mean the overall development staff is being cut. This is a very serious long-term problem for the USA, but the fact that there were job cuts somewhere doesn't necessarily bode ill for the consumers of these products.

[LethalWolfe]

T
3) FCP - creating a kind of 'digital' moviola flicking backwards and forwards through clips, cuting with horizontal swipes, drag and drop onto the timeline - it would be a really visceral hands on way of working with 'digital film'

That might get cool points but it's going to be slow which means it won't be picked up by pros. Drag and drop editing is slow. Making a gesture instead of pressing a key is slow.


Lethal

[Infrared]

If iPhone suddenly crashed and burned, it would likely hurt mac sales and make the situation for macs, pro apps, and OSX worse, not better.

Apple definitely needs to show some progress with the FCS apps - while things seem to have slowed down, I'm not convinced that it means they're going to totally abandon or blow off development of pro apps like some on here seem to believe.

Personally speaking, I'd like to see some developer blogs so we can get
a sense of where they're heading. They would be interesting to read and
might help end this negative speculation.

[Nuvi]

Personally speaking, I'd like to see some developer blogs so we can get
a sense of where they're heading. They would be interesting to read and
might help end this negative speculation.

When Shake got axed we were promised something better and more advanced. After years of waiting we've got nothing (can't compare Motion to Shake. Its like comparing iMovie to FCP). FCP could've really used 64 bit but it seems that there isn't enough resources for QT X development. For Pro software stability is the key, something far more important then nice features. If your FCP crashes it means direct losses. FCS is speciality software and you just can't outsource Q&A just like that. I think actions speak louder then words...

[LethalWolfe]

When Shake got axed we were promised something better and more advanced. After years of waiting we've got nothing (can't compare Motion to Shake. Its like comparing iMovie to FCP). FCP could've really used 64 bit but it seems that there isn't enough resources for QT X development. For Pro software stability is the key, something far more important then nice features. If your FCP crashes it means direct losses. FCS is speciality software and you just can't outsource Q&A just like that. I think actions speak louder then words...
We were never promised something better and more advanced than Shake.
The existence of 'Phenomenon' as a Shake replacement was based solely on a single, unsubstantiated rumor from 2006 (or whenever Apple announced they were stopping development of Shake).


Lethal

[Bistroengine]

Yes, it seems, that Apple (Jobs) sees it's future as an iGadget company. So, it is questionable, if there will be more refreshes to the Pro section of the Mac Computers.

Does this mean, they will in the comming years drop the Computer manufacturing all together?

Highly unlikely. The success of iTunes and the App store has created a win-win situation for Apple. The rate of developers wanting to create Apps for the iPhone (and now iPad) has skyrocketed. Take a guess what you need to program all these apps...Apple Hardware. This is one of the major reasons their market share is growing. You can bet Apple is selling more Pro machines to developers now than to production facilities using Final Cut.

[MacFly123]

http://www.avid.com/promos/studentupgrade/index.asp?intcmp=AV-IN-MCSU-18

Free updates for 4 years too. You don't get stuff like the other FCS apps, but still....the savings will at least cover a student copy of After Effects. ($349, I have looked into that one before myself)

Oh, and places like PowerMax sell the full retail version of FCS3 for $899, so the student discount is basically pointless. Even if you do pay the full $999 for it, it will easily pay for itself with the next version, since the student version doesn't get you Apple's hefty upgrade discount.

Are you an Avid user? I personally haven't used Avid before. I had the chance to learn it but didn't jump on it. I know lots of people in the industry and all the Avid editors I know are older and pretty much just seem like disgruntled Avid users that refuse to move to Final Cut or anything else! Even most editors I know that have used both prefer Final Cut overall!

What are your impressions?

[snowboarder]

The existence of 'Phenomenon' as a Shake replacement was based solely on a single, unsubstantiated rumor...


Absolutely not true. I know a couple of people who were interviewed
in Santa Monica to work on Phenomenon or whatever name they would pick.
Apple gave up on the pro market when they realized a few hundred
thousand more iPhones sold with no extra effort brings them more money
than the entire pro division...
This market is tough, look at Autodesk, they decided to give away Toxik
for free (with every Maya license) which means they couldn't make
any profit on it.

[J the Ninja]

Are you an Avid user? I personally haven't used Avid before. I had the chance to learn it but didn't jump on it. I know lots of people in the industry and all the Avid editors I know are older and pretty much just seem like disgruntled Avid users that refuse to move to Final Cut or anything else! Even most editors I know that have used both prefer Final Cut overall!

What are your impressions?

No, I am a Final Cut user and a college student. Never used Avid before, I don't think I've even been in a room with a computer that had it installed.

[Nuvi]

Are you an Avid user? I personally haven't used Avid before. I had the chance to learn it but didn't jump on it. I know lots of people in the industry and all the Avid editors I know are older and pretty much just seem like disgruntled Avid users that refuse to move to Final Cut or anything else! Even most editors I know that have used both prefer Final Cut overall!

What are your impressions?

Long story short, Apple bought unreleased Final Cut from Macromedia. First FC was behind Avid but quickly gained new featured and matured very fast. At some point Final Cut became more versatile then Media Composer. However, Avid has constantly pushed ahead with Media Composer and now it is again better (more robust and feature rich) solution then FCP. However, its expensive but if you're student you can get at very affordable price.

[rhett7660]

Here is a question for the long time apple/fcp users. Has Apple really ever stayed ahead of the curve when it came to the programs and hardware? It seems like they have always been on there own time table when it comes to these things.

[LethalWolfe]

Long story short, Apple bought unreleased Final Cut from Macromedia. First FC was behind Avid but quickly gained new featured and matured very fast. At some point Final Cut became more versatile then Media Composer. However, Avid has constantly pushed ahead with Media Composer and now it is again better (more robust and feature rich) solution then FCP. However, its expensive but if you're student you can get at very affordable price.
IMO FCP never has been more versatile than Media Composer. Both have their pros and cons but speaking in complete generalities I don't think FCP has ever measured up to MC. I think FCP can get your 90% of the way there for a fraction of the cost and that's been a big part of it's success. People bought Avids for $25k, $80, $120k depending on the model and I don't think many people would be willing to drop the same cash on a FCP setup. The most attractive part of FCP/FCS has always been the price, IMO. It's so cheap you can't not try it out. Almost every post house I've ever been in has had a machine in the corner w/FCP installed just to see what all the buzz is about.

Here is a question for the long time apple/fcp users. Has Apple really ever stayed ahead of the curve when it came to the programs and hardware? It seems like they have always been on there own time table when it comes to these things.
Apple has always been on their own timeline, but their advancement w/the ProApps used to push the pace more than it does now. It used to be just FCP ($999) and Cinema Tools ($999) then DVD Studio Pro and Soundtrack appeared as stand alone apps. Later Compressor and LiveType showed up, FCP 4 got a huge, and free, .5 update that added native support for DVCPro HD. Which was huge because for the first time you could edit HD w/o needing a big, expensive RAID. Motion got released after that and Apple offered the Production Bundle (a suite of all the Apps for only a bit more than FCP used to cost all by itself). Not to mention Shake was purchased by Apple which turned a lot of heads. Back in these days ProApp announcements got prominent placement on Apple's main page.

Color was probably the last big splash that Apple made. Final Cut Server remains a very niche-type product that is much more geek friendly than user friendly (I only have limited exposure to it though and haven't used 1.5). Less glamorous things like ProRes and making the Media Manager more reliable (but still short of Avid) help the product feel more mature but when I look at what Adobe and Avid have done in the last 2-3 years I feel like Apple has almost been coasting.


Lethal

[Nuvi]

IMO FCP never has been more versatile than Media Composer. Both have their pros and cons but speaking in complete generalities I don't think FCP has ever measured up to MC. I think FCP can get your 90% of the way there for a fraction of the cost and that's been a big part of it's success. People bought Avids for $25k, $80, $120k depending on the model and I don't think many people would be willing to drop the same cash on a FCP setup. The most attractive part of FCP/FCS has always been the price, IMO. It's so cheap you can't not try it out. Almost every post house I've ever been in has had a machine in the corner w/FCP installed just to see what all the buzz is about.

IMHO FCP out of the box wasn't the thing. It was what third parties allowed it to do. FCP was like a PC of editing world. Stuff like AJA Kona IO allowed you to do uncompressed capture and editing on-location with laptop. Something that couldn't be achieved with AVID without racks of hardware. Several other third party providers came up with their offerings which made FCP very flexible and as some people say better alternative to MC. You had AJA Kona, Pinnacle, Black Magic working on FCP so you really didn't have shortage of solutions in a time which AVID was trying to battle FCP first with AVid Xpress and then with lowering prices of MC.


Apple has always been on their own timeline, but their advancement w/the ProApps used to push the pace more than it does now. It used to be just FCP ($999) and Cinema Tools ($999) then DVD Studio Pro and Soundtrack appeared as stand alone apps. Later Compressor and LiveType showed up, FCP 4 got a huge, and free, .5 update that added native support for DVCPro HD. Which was huge because for the first time you could edit HD w/o needing a big, expensive RAID. Motion got released after that and Apple offered the Production Bundle (a suite of all the Apps for only a bit more than FCP used to cost all by itself). Not to mention Shake was purchased by Apple which turned a lot of heads. Back in these days ProApp announcements got prominent placement on Apple's main page.

FCP is the crown jewel but I have never really figured out how Live Type and Soundtrack fit in the picture. I think the problem is that all of the titles are brought out from third parties and then tried to be shoehorned in to one suit. I think the biggest WOW was the purchase of Shake. It could've been huge. There were also exceptions for Apple to release true Avid MC killer, a turn key editing system (Final Cut Extreme) However, in 2006 NAB there was FC Extreme nowhere to be seen.


Color was probably the last big splash that Apple made. Final Cut Server remains a very niche-type product that is much more geek friendly than user friendly (I only have limited exposure to it though and haven't used 1.5). Less glamorous things like ProRes and making the Media Manager more reliable (but still short of Avid) help the product feel more mature but when I look at what Adobe and Avid have done in the last 2-3 years I feel like Apple has almost been coasting.

Its not like "Apple has almost been coasting"... Its exactly what has happened here. Shake got axed but we haven't seen the replacement. We still haven't seen the ultimate integration of hardware and software (and we know how Apple likes that stuff) aka FC Extreme. FCP server has had more then its fair share of problems however, I haven't used 1.5 so it might be OK now. FCP itself feels like it only got few tweaks with 7.0 which to me was more like a point update then real upgrade. FCP could've used the RED integration to their full extent but unfortunately this wasn't the case. Compare this with the free FCP 4.5 upgrade turning FCP 4.0 into FCP HD and it shows how far the Apple has fallen from the tree.

[LethalWolfe]

IMHO FCP out of the box wasn't the thing. It was what third parties allowed it to do. FCP was like a PC of editing world. Stuff like AJA Kona IO allowed you to do uncompressed capture and editing on-location with laptop. Something that couldn't be achieved with AVID without racks of hardware. Several other third party providers came up with their offerings which made FCP very flexible and as some people say better alternative to MC. You had AJA Kona, Pinnacle, Black Magic working on FCP so you really didn't have shortage of solutions in a time which AVID was trying to battle FCP first with AVid Xpress and then with lowering prices of MC.
Considering the laptop and HDD tech of the time I don't know how well the AJA Kona IO would work for uncompressed mobile editing in '03/'04, but you are right that FCP users had 4 or 5 options for I/O hardware where as Avid software only works w/Avid hardware. Around the same time the AJA Kona IO was released Avid did release the Mojo (to mixed reviews) which was a firewire break-out box as well. Whether or not having multiple venders is good or bad depends on your POV. If Apple software tied to Apple hardware is supposed to provide a better computer experience then wouldn't the same be true of Avid software tied to Avid hardware? Options are good unless you see them turn into hardware/software/firmware conflicts between different venders (who inevitably point the finger at the other guy). It all depends on how you want to look at the situation, IMO.

Again, I do think FCP offered better solutions under certain circumstances and as long as price was always a consideration. I don't know very many people who would've been willing to pay $50k or $60k for FCP like they would Avid though. I think Premiere was really the NLE that suffered the most at the hands of FCP's success.


FCP is the crown jewel but I have never really figured out how Live Type and Soundtrack fit in the picture. I think the problem is that all of the titles are brought out from third parties and then tried to be shoehorned in to one suit. I think the biggest WOW was the purchase of Shake. It could've been huge. There were also exceptions for Apple to release true Avid MC killer, a turn key editing system (Final Cut Extreme) However, in 2006 NAB there was FC Extreme nowhere to be seen.

LiveType and the like were definitely attempts by Apple to bolt on added functionality w/o having to do the work in house. The upside is they don't have to go thru the growing pains of making something from scratch, but the downside is that round tripping ranges from cumbersome to painful (Color is probably the best example of this).

FC Extreme was a completely baseless rumor, IMO. The same guys that reported that also reported the RED One camera would cost over $200k and this was *after* there were a number of signs that the camera would be inexpensive (relatively speaking). FC Extreme would involve making FCP a tiered product (which goes against Apple's MO as well as industry trends) and it would tie it to hardware acceleration (which goes against Apple's MO as well as industry trends). FCP has always been a scalable app both in terms of the type of video you could throw at it and the type of performance you could expect depending on the specs of your computer.


Lethal

[OdysseyExplorer]

I currently have Final Cut Express and was looking into Adobe Premiere. Maybe that is the way I should lean now...

[Xtoo]

I have read every post in this thread to educate myself about the thoughts of users and non-users of FCP. It looks there's a 50-50 even split between Avid and FCP users. But the surprise is that more than 70% of you are dissatisfied, to a level, with FCP. FCP has been a great tool for almost 10 years. It helped employee editors like myself start a post-production business with a relatively low investment in a time when Avid was completely out of reach (we started with a G4 and FCP v1 out of my bedroom in 2000).

10 years ago, Avid was high on his horse as being the de-facto non-linear application. They sucked at customer support, the systems were very expensive, the software was buggy as hell, and their updates did more damage than good. Avid was the king of the desktop editing but also the king of crash and corrupted media.

Year 2000... say hello! to FCP.

Apple took Avid by surprise with a new approach, a variety of third-party vendors and an open timeline at a 10th of the cost of an Avid with regular updates and football field advances from version to version. We all loved FCP for many years but it also cannibalized the industry in a horrible way. FCP being so affordable let your nephew and my little sister become an editor. All of the sudden ANYONE with FCP could called him/herself an editor while a flood of poor-low quality work was dumped on the entertainment industry.

Obviously, there are many many exceptions of great quality editing work done with FCP, the good laptop editors are a dime in a dozen and a few boutique businesses have mimic professional Avid suites with professional quality hardware centralized with FCP. FCP and FCS has not been updated in a few years. The latest good update was the purchase of FinalTouch (now known as Color) a $25,000 license key for professional color grading on the mac. Since then there has not been any DECENT upgrade to FCP.

As a FCP post production boutique owner I am concerned about the future of FCP. I love the app but I also understand that Avid has regrouped, become more humbled about their position in the industry and make a huge effort to change its image. Today, their systems are handling multiple formats better than before, the media management and metadata handling is and has been outstanding and their market share is regaining momentum as they have dropped the cost of their systems. Today, 90% of every major studio movie, TV production and TV news are done on Avids. Well known universities are making an effort to teach their TV and Film students to concentrate on Avid for professional work while leaving FCP for home.

As a business owner, I am keeping an opened eye on Avid. For the first time in my 10 year affair with FCP - since v1, I am considering to give Avid a second look. I am not 100% sure what to do right now but I am positive that other post production businesses that are serious about their work and conscious about where their investment should be placed are thinking if continuing with FCP at the core of the infrastructure for the next 5 years is suitable.

[techwhiz]

I'm in Silicon Valley.
I have a friend that was laid off from the Pro Products group.
So if they say it was remote only, that is a lie.

[MacFly123]

Long story short, Apple bought unreleased Final Cut from Macromedia. First FC was behind Avid but quickly gained new featured and matured very fast. At some point Final Cut became more versatile then Media Composer. However, Avid has constantly pushed ahead with Media Composer and now it is again better (more robust and feature rich) solution then FCP. However, its expensive but if you're student you can get at very affordable price.

Ya, I know the history of FC, but Media Composer is JUST editing correct? See my huge thing is not just Final Cut, but Final Cut STUDIO! With all those apps integrated for that price when I am not an effects person that uses After Effects and so on, there is really no better solution for me! I do hope Apple will take it all 64bit and get back on the ball though! :o

[zorinlynx]

That's sad. I agree, Apple's becoming less & less a company for high end, Pro (as in Mac Pros, & Xserves) computers & more for mobility appliances like iPad & iPhone. Before this whole iPhone thing, Apple seemed a lot more interested in their computers than they do now. Heck, Apple even removed "Computer" from its name. Sad, just sad.

Think again. Aperture 3 was just released.

[toke lahti]

I currently have Final Cut Express and was looking into Adobe Premiere. Maybe that is the way I should lean now...
I think you are not alone.
Many indies need photoshop anyway, Motion is good with particles and stuff it can preview realtime, but more complex things are way better to do with After Effects. And with CS you can author a real blu-ray.
Then Premiere just comes "free" on top of those and depending on how compex editing and how much collaboration you will have with others in your projects, Premiere can be "good enough".
At least when you don't have money for both CS and FCS.

It's pretty hard to see these FCS team's layoffs any kind of positive signal for FCS development. You could easily ask if there's any?
Color has been waiting suport for 10/12-bit colors with nvidia for so many years. DvdSP hasn't got any real update for over half a decade.

A decade ago there were interesting editing solutions like FAST's Liquid and others that were already using background rendering and instant background saving of changes in projects, so you would never loose your work. I'm just wondering what's wrong with these features when today's macPros' have 100 times more horsepower, but still I have to wait for rendering and sometimes loose 30 mins of work because of crash and nerves because I don't remember exactly what did I do to get there. Or auto-save destroys concentration every now and then.

In last decade FCS had a big advantage over Avid: OsX.
Now that you don't need to struggle with windows even with Avid and also windows has became a bit better, this advantage has gone.

I guess that in near future more pros are choosing Avid, if they have money for it and if not, then CS.
Unless Apple shape up with FSC.

[Nuvi]

Ya, I know the history of FC, but Media Composer is JUST editing correct? See my huge thing is not just Final Cut, but Final Cut STUDIO! With all those apps integrated for that price when I am not an effects person that uses After Effects and so on, there is really no better solution for me! I do hope Apple will take it all 64bit and get back on the ball though! :o

Actually Avid Media Composer comes with so called production bundle which comes with Boris Continiuum Complete, Sorensons Squeeze etc. etc. making the suit similar to FCS. Honestly, overall the Avid package is better especially when there has been "specials" in which they have thrown in ProTools LE with M-box mini for free and cut the price of the MC package by 40%. That said Apple needs get it together if they want to have any chance competing with Avid.

[Nuvi]

I guess that in near future more pros are choosing Avid, if they have money for it and if not, then CS.
Unless Apple shape up with FSC.

I'll bet Avid will be doing their best to get FC users if Apple starts loosing the grip on moving image. Avid screwed it up when FCP was introduced and they've made big changes to fight it back.

The sad part is, I'm sure Apple could stay competitive or better yet lead the way if they wanted to but it seems with the lay offs and lack of new releases they are concentrating more and more on consumer products and not only that but leaving the computers in general as second class citizens of Apple world. If you take a look at Apple's press releases and marketing its all about iPod's, iPhones and now iPad's. Then you have Apple's attitude towards Adobe which really isn't helping. I'm afraid it doesn't look too good for pro users.

[Digital Skunk]

In last decade FCS had a big advantage over Avid: OsX.
Now that you don't need to struggle with windows even with Avid and also windows has became a bit better, this advantage has gone.

Alright everyone.... let's get it together now.

Avid ran on the Mac since day 1

[Saxguy87]

Hey FCS employees,

We need to centralize our operations, so we want you all to come live and work in Cupertino. We know a bunch of you guys wont like that, so we'll give you the option of being laid off until further notice and give you a big fatty severance check to sweeten the deal. However if you come to Cupertino we'll make sure it's worth your while. We treat our engineers pretty damn well here. Just let us know asap.

- SJ

[Nuvi]

Hey FCS employees,

We need to centralize our operations, so we want you all to come live and work in Cupertino. We know a bunch of you guys wont like that, so we'll give you the option of being laid off until further notice and give you a big fatty severance check to sweeten the deal. However if you come to Cupertino we'll make sure it's worth your while. We treat our engineers pretty damn well here. Just let us know asap.

- SJ

Sure it did... Wake up and smell the coffee. I don't think people who got laid off find it funny.

[seamer]

Cutting 40 people from a project is not a big deal. Ending the project AND dumping 400 people would be a big deal.

These guys were either a) getting ready to move to a new job, b) sucked at what they were hired to do, or c) finished the project they were working on.

If it's c), other people in the team would have been kept for the release iron out any bugs the public come across for the first few weeks.

[Nuvi]

Cutting 40 people from a project is not a big deal. Ending the project AND dumping 400 people would be a big deal.

These guys were either a) getting ready to move to a new job, b) sucked at what they were hired to do, or c) finished the project they were working on.

If it's c), other people in the team would have been kept for the release iron out any bugs the public come across for the first few weeks.

a) Not true according to people who got the boot. b) sure, its common that whole Q&A department sucks... c) Apple finished working with FCS? Hope not...

I'm not sure whats your angle to the subject but, its not based on facts. Regarding the number of people getting the boot, 40 is a LOT OF PEOPLE! How many you think work for Q&A for FCS? For FCS users this is huge deal because stability is the key element of successful pro application.

[Macist]

This thread is insane. Firstly, the employees seem to be testers. It's likely they were little more than freelances/contractors, testing the software in advance of a major release. Now it's released they simply aren't needed in the same numbers but may be again during the next release cycle.

Firstly, just because Apple has done well in the consumer sphere doesn't mean they have ditched pro users. They've never made such great pro products. Apple often gets the latest Intel processors before the rest of the market, which suggests that they actively persue the best stuff for pros ahead of time.

It's almost unbelievable how Final Cut appeared from nowhere and turned the market upside down. It might not make as much money as flogging iPod Nanos to tweenies but it's a killer app that brings people to the Mac and keeps them there a long time.

Pro apps have longer developmnent cycles because they have to be got right and be robust enough for heavy use. That's why sometime you have to wait for that much-wanted new feature - it's not because Apple 'love the iPhone more' or some unrelated nonsense.

Logic is another app that really pulls people onto the Mac. Again, it Apple took it from a pretty decent desktop app competing with Cubase to something that's increasinly used instead of ProTools. It's amazing value to boot.

The only pro app that's on shakier ground long term is Aperture - not because it's not great but because its hard for Apple to really differentiate it from Lightroom and other products. It doesn't have the killer app status of FCP or Logic.

[*LTD*]

This thread is insane. Firstly, the employees seem to be testers. It's likely they were little more than freelances/contractors, testing the software in advance of a major release. Now it's released they simply aren't needed in the same numbers but may be again during the next release cycle.

Firstly, just because Apple has done well in the consumer sphere doesn't mean they have ditched pro users. They've never made such great pro products. Apple often gets the latest Intel processors before the rest of the market, which suggests that they actively persue the best stuff for pros ahead of time.

It's almost unbelievable how Final Cut appeared from nowhere and turned the market upside down. It might not make as much money as flogging iPod Nanos to tweenies but it's a killer app that brings people to the Mac and keeps them there a long time.

Pro apps have longer developmnent cycles because they have to be got right and be robust enough for heavy use. That's why sometime you have to wait for that much-wanted new feature - it's not because Apple 'love the iPhone more' or some unrelated nonsense.

Logic is another app that really pulls people onto the Mac. Again, it Apple took it from a pretty decent desktop app competing with Cubase to something that's increasinly used instead of ProTools. It's amazing value to boot.

The only pro app that's on shakier ground long term is Aperture - not because it's not great but because its hard for Apple to really differentiate it from Lightroom and other products. It doesn't have the killer app status of FCP or Logic.

Well stated.

[toke lahti]

Alright everyone.... let's get it together now.
Avid ran on the Mac since day 1
I haven't used Avid for years, but correct me, if I'm wrong:
First Media Composer to OsX 2003.
First Media Composer with HD to OsX 2006.

[Michaelgtrusa]

I read somewhere that Steve jobs fires employees every day and the management staff rehires them.:apple:

[Digital Skunk]

I haven't used Avid for years, but correct me, if I'm wrong:
First Media Composer to OsX 2003.
First Media Composer with HD to OsX 2006.

It's not a big deal, I didn't mean anything negative about it.

Just hoping people would remember that films have been cut (in the non-linear fashion) on the Mac since day 1

All versions of the Avid (AFAIK and have read) have had Mac versions. I've actually never cut with Avid on a PC until I got to my senior year of college, and even then it was only because my school never installed Avid Express HD on the Macs. The dongle that came with it allowed you to run the same software on the Mac and PC.

Wiki also has a page or two about it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avid)

Also here... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-linear_editing_system)

p.s. Forgot to mention, there are versions of Avid software that are PC only, like iNews.

[toke lahti]

All versions of the Avid (AFAIK and have read) have had Mac versions.
Yeah, Mac versions, but not OsX versions.
I remember that at least in poor small economic areas back in 1999 nobody wanted to invest major loads of money to Macs, which seemed to be dying very soon and NT4 was much more powerful. So between 1999-2003 everybody who bought Avid, ad it with windows. And used it for the next 5 years to earn money for next generation of machines.

So if you wanted to edit with Mac & OsX in 1999-2003 only choise was FCP.
If you wanted to edit HD with Mac & OsX in 1999-2006 only chose was FCP.

I guess that after "year of hd" (=2005, by SJ, I'm still waiting for BD) nobody wanted to buy edit that can't handle HD.

So FCS had kind of monopoly on Macs 1999-2006.
And FSC1 was released 2005 and lots of users bought it and new intel hardware in 2006. So they have not yet been ready for new upgrade round, but very soon will be. And somehow apple doesn't seem to care.

It looks like something similiar that happend to the company "geographically north" with its monopoly OS, might be happening to FCS.
Technological decisions are no longer made to satisfy the customers, but to restrict them as the company wants.

Where's the iPad's "magical wow-effect" when your dumping P2-card to your macbook and 10 minutes of footage takes 30 minutes to transfer. Plenty of time to remember when back in 90's this was real-time...

[LethalWolfe]

So if you wanted to edit with Mac & OsX in 1999-2003 only choise was FCP.
If you wanted to edit HD with Mac & OsX in 1999-2006 only chose was FCP.

I think you are putting way, way, way too much on the importance of OS X. As recently as a few years ago it wasn't surprising to see Macs running OS 9, w/just as old versions of Avid, in Hollywood cutting content for prime time TV. You are also forgetting about Adobe Premiere.


Lethal

[Nuvi]

So FCS had kind of monopoly on Macs 1999-2006.
And FSC1 was released 2005 and lots of users bought it and new intel hardware in 2006. So they have not yet been ready for new upgrade round, but very soon will be. And somehow apple doesn't seem to care.


Its very unfortunate for those who rely Apple hardware and software to put food on the table. What bothers me most is Apple's inability to be strong or push ahead on more fronts then one simultaneously. I've find out that best way to know what Apple is pushing is to check out their "job opportunities" section. Now its filled with "embedded technologies", iPod this iPad that etc. etc. to summarize "consumer gadget engineers wanted". However, there were at least one position open for FCS dev team so they are doing something :o

BTW. Why on earth Apple wants user interface guys with expert level skills in Flash when they are saying its sucks so hard and iPod/Phone/Pad don't need it... Marketing meets reality :p

[Digital Skunk]

Yeah, Mac versions, but not OsX versions.

I do also mean OSX versions too. Avid Xpress DV ran on Mac OS 10.2 and up. Then Avid Xpress HD (the one that I used in college on both Mac and PC) on 10.3.

That was around the time I did learn FCP and was hooked by the glossiness of it all. Thanks for the reminder Lethal, there was also Adobe Premier in that time frame, with only CS --> CS3 being PC only and CS4 seeing it brought back to the Mac.

Not trying to hound you toke lahti because I do somewhat agree. The biggest reason I have cut solely on FCP with the Mac is because of the price. I get an effective edit for the work I do with FCP and pay half as much as I would with Avid.

[J the Ninja]

Laconic reassurances from Lord Steve:

http://macsoda.com/2010/02/26/steve-jobs-final-cut-pro-is-alive-and-well/

[CmdrLaForge]

Steve says

No worries. FCP is alive and well. (http://macsoda.com/2010/02/26/steve-jobs-final-cut-pro-is-alive-and-well/)

I am glad to hear that.

[LethalWolfe]

Jobs will say whatever is in Apple's best interest regardless of what's really going on. If FCP wasn't doing well do you think he would really say so and poison the product like that?

Actions peak louder than words so I'll continue to let Apple's hardware and software releases speak for themselves.


Lethal

[Nuvi]

Laconic reassurances from Lord Steve:

http://macsoda.com/2010/02/26/steve-jobs-final-cut-pro-is-alive-and-well/

Even if the comment is from real Steve I'm not really re-assured by it. It seems when he gives one of his one liners they are half-truths ("Apple is not interested in netbook market" -> iPad). All we know they might be ready to sell FCS. All I would like to know is get some sort of estimate for next major release but then again if such release is not coming its hard to give any estimates...

Steve has had bad habit of speak non-truths:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/02/17/steve.jobs/index.html?hpt=Sbin

[CmdrLaForge]

Jobs will say whatever is in Apple's best interest regardless of what's really going on. If FCP wasn't doing well do you think he would really say so and poison the product like that?

Actions peak louder than words so I'll continue to let Apple's hardware and software releases speak for themselves.


Lethal

Why did he then even bother to answer? I think way to much is interpreted into this story. We have no clue what really happened and why.

FCS is on a 2 year release cycle. Apple has fallen behind in particular in the area of DVD Studio. The stupid take on Bluray is beyond me.

[J the Ninja]

FCS is on a 2 year release cycle. Apple has fallen behind in particular in the area of DVD Studio. The stupid take on Bluray is beyond me.

The weird bit on the whole blu-ray thing is Compressor. Aside from DD+/TruHD support on the Dolby encoder, is it really missing anything it would need in a blu-ray capable FCS? I can't think of anything else. It's almost as though they started working on BD support, but part of it was never finished. Makes me wonder if they were working on a new app for that sort of thing, but couldn't finish it for the launch.

[CmdrLaForge]

The weird bit on the whole blu-ray thing is Compressor. Aside from DD+/TruHD support on the Dolby encoder, is it really missing anything it would need in a blu-ray capable FCS? I can't think of anything else. It's almost as though they started working on BD support, but part of it was never finished. Makes me wonder if they were working on a new app for that sort of thing, but couldn't finish it for the launch.

Could be - but highly unlikely from my point of view. They decide on the product requirements for the next release 2 years or more in advance and then change it shortly before launch ? Then something really went wrong during development.

Anyway - creating BD discs is a requirement today for many individuals and small production shops that like to stay on one platform and use one product.

[LethalWolfe]

Why did he then even bother to answer? I think way to much is interpreted into this story. We have no clue what really happened and why.
He answered because he wants customers to feel secure buying FCP even if FCP's future is in doubt. Just like Jobs said flash memory was a bad idea for MP3 players, no one wants to watch video on a tiny iPod screen, they have no interest in making a smart phone, and on one reads anymore... by the way here is our iPad which we think will be a great book replacement. ;)

The weird bit on the whole blu-ray thing is Compressor. Aside from DD+/TruHD support on the Dolby encoder, is it really missing anything it would need in a blu-ray capable FCS? I can't think of anything else. It's almost as though they started working on BD support, but part of it was never finished. Makes me wonder if they were working on a new app for that sort of thing, but couldn't finish it for the launch.
What changed, IMO, is Apple getting heavily involved in media distribution. They want you to buy movies and TV shows from them, not on Blu-ray and the collateral damage of that is DVD SP staying gimped. Years ago Apple touted DVD SP as being the first desktop authoring App to be able to burn HD discs (a rather gimped HD-DVD process that would only work on other Macs and certain Toshiba HD-DVD players) and now we just here crickets... The Blu-Ray Share function is just an attempt at appeasement I think.


Lethal

[CmdrLaForge]

He answered because he wants customers to feel secure buying FCP even if FCP's future is in doubt. Just like Jobs said flash memory was a bad idea for MP3 players, no one wants to watch video on a tiny iPod screen, they have no interest in making a smart phone, and on one reads anymore... by the way here is our iPad which we think will be a great book replacement. ;)


It could be you are right, or wrong. No one outside Apple really knows. Could be those 40 employees are laid of in the US and 200 are re-hired in India. When I worked for HP and Agilent it happened all the time that factorys have been closed in the US and moved to China. The products didn't disappear, they just moved manufacturing and laid of many many colleagues.

What changed, IMO, is Apple getting heavily involved in media distribution. They want you to buy movies and TV shows from them, not on Blu-ray and the collateral damage of that is DVD SP staying gimped. Years ago Apple touted DVD SP as being the first desktop authoring App to be able to burn HD discs (a rather gimped HD-DVD process that would only work on other Macs and certain Toshiba HD-DVD players) and now we just here crickets... The Blu-Ray Share function is just an attempt at appeasement I think.
Lethal

Thats used as an argument all the time but those things have really nothing to do with each other. If someone has a desire or need for creating a BD disc he will. If you have to deliver on BD disc, you will. Unfortunately you cannot use Apples FCS for doing so and in addition you cannot watch the movie after that on your Mac.

The main difference is that FCS is used for creating movies and not for consuming them whereas iTunes as a sales channel. I think it has less to do with the creating but more with watching the movies.

[LethalWolfe]

Thats used as an argument all the time but those things have really nothing to do with each other.
Unfortunately they are related because if Apple gives professionals the ability to properly author Blu-ray discs that means they also give consumers the ability to playback Blu-ray discs. So while I agree that there is a difference between a pro creating content and a consumer watching content the two require some of the same basic technology to accomplish their goals.


Lethal

[Macmel]

No. They would murder, I mean absolutely destroy, their user base and their profits if they did this. Besides, the whole point behind gadgets like the iPod/iPhone/iPad are to get people who wouldn't normally look towards Apple when purchasing a computer to actually consider buying a Mac. They buy the iPhone/Pad/Pod, they love it and realize it's made by Apple. They've never used a Mac before, so they figure if their iPhone, or whatever the hell, is so easy to use then their computers must be just as easy.

I know tones of people with iPods/iPhones that will never buy a Mac. One of my friends hates Apple computers and still he has an iPhone. The million of users of iPods and iPhones (iPads) are the new user base. Apple puts so much effort on it.

[CmdrLaForge]

Unfortunately they are related because if Apple gives professionals the ability to properly author Blu-ray discs that means they also give consumers the ability to playback Blu-ray discs. So while I agree that there is a difference between a pro creating content and a consumer watching content the two require some of the same basic technology to accomplish their goals.


Lethal

I know, I know - and I agree to some degree. My point is that a Pro that has to deliver a BD disc will do so w/ or in this case w/o Apples apps. The simple solution is a BD burner and Toast 10, the better solution is Adobe and probably the best and most expensive is Sony.

[LethalWolfe]

I know, I know - and I agree to some degree. My point is that a Pro that has to deliver a BD disc will do so w/ or in this case w/o Apples apps. The simple solution is a BD burner and Toast 10, the better solution is Adobe and probably the best and most expensive is Sony.
Oh, definitely. No one who needs to create Blu-Ray discs should be waiting around for Apple to update DVD SP.


Lethal

[toke lahti]

No one who needs to create Blu-Ray discs should be waiting around for Apple to update DVD SP.
Yeah,
one just needs to buy CS and that makes one wonder the next time FCS is due update that if one has to buy CS anyway, why bother with FCS.

[JimAtLaw]

That's not true. Apple has freely admitted that they robbed engineering resources from the Mac OS X team to work on iPhone OS, and that's why 10.5 Leopard was delayed. That's likely why 10.6 Snow Leopard wasn't as big of a release as past operating system releases too.

Jobs also recently said that he had the iWork team create iWork for the iPad. Where do you think those resources came from? It's not like Apple's been on a hiring boom these last few months.

Resources are being diverted to the iPhone and iPad that otherwise would have went to the Macintosh/Application division. Those products are Apple's focus right now.

+1.

[Digital Skunk]

Yeah,
one just needs to buy CS and that makes one wonder the next time FCS is due update that if one has to buy CS anyway, why bother with FCS.

Oh brother, there are TONS of people wondering the same thing.

On of the biggest advantages that a user with an entirely Adobe workflow has is the ability to leave Mac OS X.

Going back to what you said early on, a person with Lightroom instead of Aperture and CS4 Production Premium instead of FCS can essentially run it on the Mac for those few remaining apps that are useful to the freelancer/professional, or grab Windows licenses and get a workstation with current technology for $2000.

[CmdrLaForge]

Yeah,
one just needs to buy CS and that makes one wonder the next time FCS is due update that if one has to buy CS anyway, why bother with FCS.

Thats true and that might become a problem for Apple. I myself still use FCS2. I wait until CS5 and FCS4 is out and then make a decision. Avid is not for me as it is to expensive.

Not having BD disc might hurt Apple as well in the consumer space. I guess some people in particular switchers will look at the platform and compare it to nice laptops from Sony.

[devinci99]

No. They would murder, I mean absolutely destroy, their user base and their profits if they did this. Besides, the whole point behind gadgets like the iPod/iPhone/iPad are to get people who wouldn't normally look towards Apple when purchasing a computer to actually consider buying a Mac. They buy the iPhone/Pad/Pod, they love it and realize it's made by Apple. They've never used a Mac before, so they figure if their iPhone, or whatever the hell, is so easy to use then their computers must be just as easy.

There's a lot of truth in this, people are buying more Macs these days, and these are new customers, not existing loyal mac customers who are upgrading or earn more money to buy even more macs. Apple are gaining new customers every day, and these are a combination of marketing, retail stores, and people who had bought an iPod, iPhone, or Touch. These gadgets appear to also help build a better Apple brand to people who normally buy Window-based PCs, and someday they just want a Mac.

[toke lahti]

...a person with Lightroom instead of Aperture and CS4 Production Premium instead of FCS can essentially run it on the Mac for those few remaining apps that are useful to the freelancer/professional, or grab Windows licenses and get a workstation with current technology for $2000.
Is crossgrading from/to windows nowdays free with CS?
Or does it include both windows & mac serial numbers?

[Digital Skunk]

Is crossgrading from/to windows nowdays free with CS?
Or does it include both windows & mac serial numbers?

I've heard from others that have switched from PC to Mac say that Adobe will just send you Mac serials and make your PC serials null. Then you can just buy the trail disc of the software and plug in the serial. Take this with a grain of salt since its not first hand.

The only time I've done it was with my university's newspaper, going from PC to Mac as well. It was about 7 years ago or so and they just gave us Mac serials on some login page they had where we could grab every serial we purchased. It was free of charge.

That was with CS1, so I have no idea if that's changed recently.

Oh, definitely. No one who needs to create Blu-Ray discs should be waiting around for Apple to update DVD SP.


Lethal

I agree 100% and if you don't mind me co-signing, no one that makes money off of any Apple Pro-App should be waiting for Apple on anything. You might find yourself waiting for years. The only sad part is that you might find yourself with two competing sets of software. My machine has both Aperture and Lightroom and I use both apps from time to time.

[Denzo]

So you're suggesting they operate like a social welfare and keep staff they don't need just because they have billions in the bank? :confused:

I do agree that layoffs are ugly and unpleasant, but companies are not welfare entities.



Harsh words from what appears to be a person not running a household, doesn't have kids and a mortage, or never lost his job.

I've got this feeling from you like "as long as Steves happy!" like some people on here.

In no way is apple running like a charity. They are a premium brand charging healthy amounts for what they provide.

To clarify, I'm from a descent neighbourhood, haven't lost my job and don't have family to support. But it doesnt take much insight to feel the impact for these people.

[Michaelgtrusa]

Thats true and that might become a problem for Apple. I myself still use FCS2. I wait until CS5 and FCS4 is out and then make a decision. Avid is not for me as it is to expensive.

Not having BD disc might hurt Apple as well in the consumer space. I guess some people in particular switchers will look at the platform and compare it to nice laptops from Sony.

Not to mention that Avid Media composer 4 has sound driver issues in Snow leopard that has caused me headaches. I will pass on this overpriced app that does not allow you to update you're os past their specs.

[CmdrLaForge]

Didn't Steve replied in an email and said those engineers worked in customer support and Final Cut is doing great? Something like that.