Apple NAB Media Event Announcements

[aussiemac86]

Its not a new display

I used my zoom to look carefully and you are right. It's an aluminum frame with different stand.

This image first was seen about 3 months ago, and it is most definetely an old display, there is no alumnium on it whatsoever, it also has the exatly the same stand.
There are just some odd lighting effects which makes the monitor look more like the PM for advertising purposes, as under normal lighting the present displays dont really fit in with the PM's, would you agree?

 

[Wuddel]

Nice. I don't need that software, but it will help to sell more Macs.

I don't see a move to a proprietary wasteland, since Apple has been strong in audio/video apps for at least some years. Moving further in this direction does not threat Adobe or MS.

I am quite sure that Apple has non-disclosure agreements with Adobe and MS, about not competing with the Creative Suite or Office respectively, in exchange for continuing support of the Mac-platform.

 

[Dirty Harry]

Oh god, i'm already waiting to read the first "where are the pbook G5's" post..

It's a great thing for apple, their software will help sell computers. I only hope Adobe isn't going to retract AE from the mac if Motion is indeed a "killer".

So I'll switch to Motion then

If Motion has the same success than Final Cut (wich is very likely) it will kill After Effects for the Mac too. This makes me have mixed feelings...
I use Mac at home, but the TV station where I work has PC's with After Effects.
Apple, do a Photoshop killer too or buy Adobe right now, but please, stop the distress of this Apple/Adobe user I´ve been for over ten years!!!

 

[goku]

Xsan & Storenext SAN sweet

the Xsan sounds soooo cool! perfect for corp and enterprise. i hope apple can crack this market again.

ADIC has been selling Stornext san for a while and with Xsan and it this may allow some like a NASA to really use thier Macs to fullest and studios can bring macs on board where only unix and windows walked.

 

[iGuy]

alas....

If Apple can't use this to prise the enterprise open again, then something is wrong, either with their salespeople or the enterprise buyers.

Apple's commitment to the enterprise seems half-hearted.

I tried to get some help from Apple Canada and after being bounced around ended up leaving a voicemail for the 'Enterprise person' in California. That call was never returned.

Xstorage (Xserve, Xserve RAID, Xsan) are good solutions for supporting Apple's pro apps. No doubt about it.

But please don't confuse Pixar's render farm with corporate computing and storage. I have not seen any meaningful sales promotion and support in the enterprise market. Very sad.

~iGuy

 

[Frisco]

If Apple does come out with a Photoshop like app and Adobe abandons the Mac platform, it is because Adobe couldn't compete, not because Apple made it!

Adobe dropped Premiere because they knew they couldn't compete with FCE. I guess it's easier to drop a product and then try to improve it to compete. So if Adobe ever drops Photoshop it will be because of their own sense of incompetence.

Competition is what drives things to improve/advance. I can't believe people really don't want to innovate--that's why we love Apple so much afterall--it's their ability to innovate. They shouldn't have to hold back just because of the threat of companies to drop software from the Mac.

 

[MCCFR]

Not likely. Adobe's market cap often exceeds Apple's (depending on what kind of day NASDAQ is having)

Not after a few more good quarters based on exponential iPod sales. Apple is 18 months away from being able to buy an Adobe, and it could buy Macromedia today and barely pause to draw breath.

This is one of the reasons people like Thurrott try to undermine iPod and iTMS: it gives Apple a volume market, cash flow, profits and increased market cap.

And all of those things help when you're trying to win over the shareholders of potential targets and the boards of potential partners.

It's merely a question of whom they go for first: -

• Alias/Wavefront: newly liberated from SGI with an apps portfolio that would neatly round out the whole Shake/FCP/DVD SP/etc. thing.
• Macromedia: undervalued for what they have, some of their server-based stuff would look nice running on Xserve, and give Apple control of Flash and Director. Great as a new media acquisition, which is more trendy than print: $1.2 billion today.
• Adobe: there are so many reasons why this would be good. $9.9 billion today, but heavily reliant on design for print media which is at the bottom of the curve at the moment.
• Avid: Just to get Avid and Digidesign: Apple would pretty much own the low-, medium-, and high-end of editing and music production. $1.5 billion, but TV has money.
• Sun Microsystems: You can tell when a company is 'beleaguered' when it starts to make cosy pacts with the devil. Despite a short-term rise in share value following getting into bed with a scorpion, Sun has already closed down 13 days out of 14 which will continue whilst they continue to try and build Sparc into a major market force against better-funded opposition.
  
  I can't help but feel that a SunFire would look better running a hyperthreaded PowerPC processor capable of running OS X Server and Solaris in tandem, whilst wearing an Apple badge. But that's just my opinion. Price today $14 billion, but in 18-24 months, $10-12, whilst Apple moves past $20 billion.

 

[altivec 2003]

Just below the main text it has, "Get RADY to Xperience it" What's with the typos today? Haha...

And with all these updates (from Mortal Kombat the movie): "It haaas begun!"

If it weren't for the other ones being spelled properly I would think:
RADy => RADEON?
Oh well, maybe this is all a conspiracy to ruin the spelling of consumers.

 

[iGuy]

If it weren't for the other ones being spelled properly I would think:
RADy => RADEON?
Oh well, maybe this is all a conspiracy to ruin the spelling of consumers.

I'd settle for the use of 'ly' endings on adverbs.

The ATI spelling is a tricky one though. I so want to pass comment on American's lack of spelling - ok, outright butchery of the English language, but ATI is a canadian company. I know people who work there. I even had a contract there myself back in the late 1980s.

Oh, the shame of it....

~iGuy

 

[MCCFR]

Apple's commitment to the enterprise seems half-hearted.

I tried to get some help from Apple Canada and after being bounced around ended up leaving a voicemail for the 'Enterprise person' in California. That call was never returned.

Xstorage (Xserve, Xserve RAID, Xsan) are good solutions for supporting Apple's pro apps. No doubt about it.

But please don't confuse Pixar's render farm with corporate computing and storage. I have not seen any meaningful sales promotion and support in the enterprise market. Very sad.

~iGuy

I've put together infrastructure projects for major corporates, so I don't confuse the two in any way.

The problem with Apple and the enterprise is that it is having to (re)build slowly from the centre: that is going to mean that it will focus its Enterprise people on Corporate America first, before going onto Japan, Germany, France, UK and Canada.

It's also going to have to correct past mistakes: like taking customer's orders for granted by responding professionally and creatively to every corporate RFP, and not just pushing the sale onto resellers who don't have the expertise or the profile to respond.

All of that said, if you don't think that several large-scale and well-publicised (think VaTech) implementations of Xsan and Xserve RAID won't start to create a groundswell of interest in CIOs, it really doesn't say much about the intelligence of CIOs. 42TB for $250K against IBM's 42TB for $1.5 million isn't really a fair fight.

 

[nuckinfutz]

These are cool announcements, but they're pissing off Avid and Adobe again. Every shop I work at is AE/Avid/Pro Tools, not Motion/FCP/Logic. A few have final cut boxes, but not for 'serious' editing. All the kick-ass freelance editors are Avid guys. All the kick-ass freelance mixers are pro tools guys. All the kick-ass freelance effects guys are AE guys. When are all these people (who are booked all the time anyway) gonna learn new software? They only will if it kicks ass and makes them more money...

What makes you think Apple cares about pissing off Adobe and Avid? Apple wants to be a player in Digital Video period. It doesn't matter if there are legions of Protools and AE users. Evolution moves on and unless people adapt tomorrows "kick-ass" creative Pro will supplant those who cling to old methods.
Adobe will maintain AE until it is no longer profitable to do so. If you know AE then you basically know how Motion Graphics/Compositing works and 80% of that knowledge translate to another program. I learned basic image editing in Photoshop but that knowledge carried over to any other app I used. I just needed to mentally link the nomenclature used in the app with Photoshop nomenclature.

If there's no AE, and motion is good, but not great, it leaves a HUGE gap on the mac side between the $300 motion and the $5000 shake. Apple runs the danger of being associated with the wedding video crowd, while HBO et al look down their noses at it. It took years for AE to make progress against HALs and Flames.

Adobe doesn't run a platform. Apple does. It took all of what 3 years for Apple to supplant Adobe Premiere? BTW Shake Mac is now $2999 that gap is much smaller now

First with FCP 2, now with DVD SP 2, they announce a new version ONE WEEK after I paid for v2, so now I don't officially qualify for the up to date program....

Why did you buy a video app knowing NAB was coming on April 19th? No offense but do you realize how stupid that was??? Hint for the future..get used to knowing when Apple is likely to announce new products and be patient. I'd call someone and see what you can do...but in the future do not buy anything a month before NAB if you're looking to remain current.

If you're saving 50K by getting an FCP box over an MC box, it's worth a risk to replace a product you don't really like using. And FCP is STILL regarded as a toy by many producers... changing mindshare takes a lot of time

What do producers know? If Walter Murch can edit a top notch film like Cold Mountain then I'm inclined to think he see's something that the Bollywood Buffoons can't.

I am quite sure that Apple has non-disclosure agreements with Adobe and MS, about not competing with the Creative Suite or Office respectively, in exchange for continuing support of the Mac-platform.

That would be illegal. Anti-Trust...you can subert competition only to a certain point. Apple won't threaten Adobes lead in Print Publishing because it's a slow growth area. If you doubt it hit the classified and look for all the out of work Graphic Artists. When the dot.coms died so did a lot of GA business. Seattle was hit hard.

Motion is not going to kill AE. People that use AE also have plugins that cost them a pretty penny. They're unlikely to give them up. Motion looks very nice but it's going to be missing a lot of features that a mature app like AE has. We always tend to jump the gun a bit with new Apple applications. First you must ascertain motions weaknesses and strenghts before you can see the full picture. There will be many tasks that Motion is superiour to AE in and those with both apps in their toolkit will choose the tool that best accomplished the desired result. It's not always either/or. Especially when you're talking $299(Cheaper than many AE plugins).

I don't look for Apple to buy Adobe or Macromedia or any large company. Companies like these tend to be bloated and overvalued. Adobe has relatively little IP that Apple wants. Apple does not care to get into Print Pub...it's adequately handled by Adobe and Macromedia. If Apple makes more aquisitions it will be centered around a Digital Video company or Enterprise company. That's going to be Apple's focus for the near future. Expanding their market in these areas is paramount.

 

[iLilana]

cards

those specs are crazy

9800 or better=better cards coming soon

no geforce 4 ti support or radeon 9000 support (it's better than the 5200fx)

madness

there are those new nvidia cards 6700? or something like that that they tested on TSS a few days ago. They kicked the 9800's ass in the PC side. Maybe something for like that is gonna happen on the Mac side?

it was the 6800
http://www.nvidia.com/page/geforce_6800.html

 

[gwangung]

"And FCP is STILL regarded as a toy by many producers... changing mindshare takes a lot of time"

I'm reminded of the time when the first photo-typesetters entered the market.

"This stuff looks like crap."

"It costs $15,000"

"Say, this is pretty GOOD crap...."

As FCP gets closer to good enough, it'll start eating into the Avid market (if it hasn't gotten there already).

 

[numediaman]

The problem with competing with Adobe PS is that the low-end (Elements) is often bundled with scanners and cameras, and there is no major dissatisfaction (like with Quark).

They may do it, but I think they would be better off coming out with products that serve new, emerging needs. I think GarageBand is a good example. The line-up introduced today is fairly impressive. Too bad they couldn't introduce a new PB G5 to go with this stuff, or updated PowerMacs -- but one day at a time, I guess.)

 

[iGuy]

no, you're right

I've put together infrastructure projects for major corporates, so I don't confuse the two in any way.

The problem with Apple and the enterprise is that it is having to (re)build slowly from the centre: that is going to mean that it will focus its Enterprise people on Corporate America first, before going onto Japan, Germany, France, UK and Canada.

It's also going to have to correct past mistakes: like taking customer's orders for granted by responding professionally and creatively to every corporate RFP, and not just pushing the sale onto resellers who don't have the expertise or the profile to respond.

All of that said, if you don't think that several large-scale and well-publicised (think VaTech) implementations of Xsan and Xserve RAID won't start to create a groundswell of interest in CIOs, it really doesn't say much about the intelligence of CIOs. 42TB for $250K against IBM's 42TB for $1.5 million isn't really a fair fight.

You said it yourself. Apple has put money into marketing, not sales support.

Apple can't rely on VaTech for ever.

~iGuy

 

[wdlove]

I agree that competition is a good thing. With an Apple product you know that you are getting quality. Programs by Apple just run better on a Mac.

 

[TMay]

Motion is not going to kill AE. People that use AE also have plugins that cost them a pretty penny. They're unlikely to give them up. Motion looks very nice but it's going to be missing a lot of features that a mature app like AE has. We always tend to jump the gun a bit with new Apple applications. First you must ascertain motions weaknesses and strenghts before you can see the full picture. There will be many tasks that Motion is superiour to AE in and those with both apps in their toolkit will choose the tool that best accomplished the desired result. It's not always either/or. Especially when you're talking $299(Cheaper than many AE plugins).

Amen. I heard this identical argument when iPhoto arrived, that Adobe would kill Photoshop Elements for the mac. Didn't happen. Probably won't happen. Still, if Motion is the consumer version (if you will) and Shake is the professional version, then I argue that Apple will announce a prosumer version of Shake (lite without the annual maintenance requirements) at some time in the future. This WOULD be targetted at AE. More to the point, AE is really a standalone application, that Adobe has been unable to buttress with a Creative Suite as it did with PS,IL,GL,and ID. Apple wants to dominate the entire video/audio workflow, seamlessly I might add, and AE is in the way.

As for the argument that lack of Photoshop would kill the mac platform, I wouldn't be so sure. If anything, there are very good packages lanquishing due to Photoshop's mindshare. I would expect that some developers would see an opportunity to convert mac PS users to something else, not unlike Adobe's conversion of Quark users.

Either way, Adobe won't take the chance.

 

[e-coli]

That means the death of After Effects for the Mac.

That certainly can't be good.

I guarantee this product has a LONG way to go before it competes with AE6.

 

[nuckinfutz]

As for the argument that lack of Photoshop would kill the mac platform, I wouldn't be so sure. If anything, there are very good packages lanquishing due to Photoshop's mindshare. I would expect that some developers would see an opportunity to convert mac PS users to something else, not unlike Adobe's conversion of Quark users.

Yes this is generally stated by those who really how no inkling about the demographics of the Mac platform. LOL these are the people that proabably still say "Mac are good for Graphics" ...relics. Print Publishing is stagnant. Adobe has carte blanche to rule this market. Apple's not going to touch it. Even if Adobe had a brain fart and decided to cancel Photoshop there would be plenty of options for Apple. The two developers from Caffenie Software creators of TIFFany III work for Apple. GIMP code could be whipped up into something(if that awful UI could be fixed). What about dormant code like Xres(Macromedia) or Live Picture could be purchased? It's intriqueing. Photoshop or the lack thereof cannot kill the Mac for the basic reason that Photoshop does not give "life" to the Mac. People can run Photoshop on Mac or PCs. I think some people need an "Introduction to Logic" course or something.

You know. I wonder if Apple isn't sending a thinly veiled message to Adobe with Motion. As if to say " We have the framework in place to replace you if you get too squirrely". Make no bones bout it I'd venture to guess that Motion could easily have some major features bolted on that "would" make it a staunch competitor. Apple may have done the opposite and actually "solidified" the availability of AE on the Mac.

 

[mullet]

I highly doubt Motion is an AE killer. Adobe might get pissed, but Motion is more like AE lite than anything else. While it does include features such as B-Splines, a particle generator, and a Primatte keyer, it doesn't include motion tracking like AE. If you're going to have decent splines, why not have motion tracking? Also Motion doesn't have Keyframe Assistants and Expressions. Motion will probably be gobbled up by the corporate video market where FCP has made inroads. It looks like its AE lite with some powerful features and more automation than AE and Combustion. It will be interesting to see what Apple will do with future versions of Motion. Then I'd start worrying about Adobe axeing apps like AE for Mac.

-mullet

 

[wbrowne1]

Why did you buy a video app knowing NAB was coming on April 19th? No offense but do you realize how stupid that was??? Hint for the future..get used to knowing when Apple is likely to announce new products and be patient. I'd call someone and see what you can do...but in the future do not buy anything a month before NAB if you're looking to remain current.

Now i won't take offense, but just for the record I was waiting until May for that very reason.

My prof then asked me to give me a copy of my reel on DVD for a presentation he was giving at NAB. Since iDVD doesn't work on my G5, I figured that that was reason enough worth it to buy the App. I bit the bullet and bought DVD SP2 in the hopes that Apple wouldn't already be updating a program that isn't even a year old.

 

[h'biki]

If Motion has the same success than Final Cut (wich is very likely) it will kill After Effects for the Mac too. This makes me have mixed feelings...
I use Mac at home, but the TV station where I work has PC's with After Effects.
Apple, do a Photoshop killer too or buy Adobe right now, but please, stop the distress of this Apple/Adobe user I´ve been for over ten years!!!

Motion won't kill AE Pro.

Why?

1. Motion Tracking
2. 3D Compositing
3. Expressions

NONE of which Motion does. There are other things too, but these three are key functions.

We use these capabilities extensively (particularly 3D Compositing*) in our motion graphics work as do many other post houses/design firms (e.g. MK12, Mesh22, Motion Theory, Psyops etc. etc.). We and they won't switch to Motion for that work. Perhaps for quick grunt work, but not high end projects.

Motion may add those features, but I doubt it. It seems to be an intermediary motion graphics app which combines a bunch of neat things in a cheap package. Its far more corporate than broadcast. It may evolve to broadcast level, but I have a feeling thats not the plan. Not that seemed like the plan with FCP.

AE Pro will still be the swiss army knife of motion graphics, and I don't think Motion is going to canablise any AE Pro sales. It may, however, eat sales of the standard bundle which is often over priced and over featured for many users.

Oh, if the interface of Motion is anywhere near as slow as LiveType's (which I think its based on) then its goign to really suck. LT is unusable imnsho. DVDSP2 is very clunk as well. I hope DVDSP3 fixes the sheer lag of the GUI.

* Shake doesn't support 3D compositing either. Apple doesn't offer a good 3D compositing tool, at all. Cheating Z depths can be a serious pain in the ass.

 

[MCCFR]

You said it yourself. Apple has put money into marketing, not sales support.

Apple can't rely on VaTech for ever.

~iGuy

And I'm not saying that they will!

I think they have to find a cross-section of storage customers (for each of the scenaria they describe in the Xsan mini-site) and turn them - by aggressive subsidy and hand-holding - into successful implementations of Xserve RAID/Xsan.

The other thing they might want to do is put several of those articulated roadshow trailers together - complete with extendible awning, and literally take a heterogeneous network around North America and Europe to show a vast Apple SAN in action to every IT manager and CIO they can find. Getting people to attend shouldn't be problem if they give away 5 iPods, 10 minis and a couple of hundred iTMS gift vouchers.

Xserve and Xsan have the ability to Apple's own version of Data General's Clariion product: in DG's case, it transformed them from a financial basket case to a viable takeover target (from EMC), whilst - in Apple's case - it should (with Xserve and the help of Fortune 500 apps like Oracle and Sybase) aid in the rehabilitation of Apple's image as a viable enterprise IT solutions provider.

However (and this is crucial), Apple has to be prepared to repeat the lesson of iTunes for Windows and show the technology more as a cross-platform solution than as another bit of quirky Apple ingenuity.

But - where we agree - is that Apple has to be serious, otherwise all of this R&D and cool technology is a bit of waste.

 

[mac-in-fool]

wow

It looks as if they (apple) have taken on AVID with XSan and won, made an affordable HD solution, and blown Adobe After Effects out of the water with price and performance, with the new Motion SW. They hyped, they delivered.

 

[iChan]

Having done a quick run through of the Xsan mini-site, I can't help but admit to feeling a little twinge of excitement.

Consider the following:-

• A maximum volume size of 16TB, but no mention on how many volumes. Even if the limit were relatively low (16?), you could have a SAN of 256TB.
• The ability to 'stripe' data across multiple Xserve RAID units: in other words, one RAID unit goes down, who cares?
• HSM capability through a pre-defined relationship with ADIC (who are currently my flavour du jour for tape libraries)

Now, I've just done a quick shopping list and 42TB of fully tricked-out storage costs around $200,000 including two 16 port FC-SW switches and two (well-specced dual-processor Xserve) Xsan metadata controllers.

I challenge anyone to go and beat that by a factor of two or three. I know how much that costs to implement as an IBM Faststor product, and it's horrific.

If Apple can't use this to prise the enterprise open again, then something is wrong, either with their salespeople or the enterprise buyers.

it would be unbelievable if apple could strike a deal with google to supply them with the storage for their new Gmail service... a match made in heaven methinks... both have the simple, ideological, usable view of the tech world, and it would really put apple's money where it's mouth is...