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Final Cut Pro Trademark Update Suggests Apple Eyeing Future Subscription Model
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I don't like it, but I get it. Adobe going subscription made the decision to get it easy for me to get Lightroom and Photoshop. If it means there are regular updates and content then I wouldn't mind paying $10 a month to get FCPX, Motion, and Compressor as a bundle the same way Adobe bundles Lightroom and Photoshop for $10 a month.
Or it could be a service, with cloud rendering, storage and collaboration tools, not a replacement for Final Cut Pro as it is. I guess we will have to wait and see if this amounts to anything at all.
Granted, the model that says pay once and get constantly upgraded software with no follow on charge, does not work for many things (one needs a market that has a large enough influx of new users to continue funding product development).
MacRumors attempting to justify Apple's possible decision to change FCP from a 1x payment to SaaS subscription model is pure ********.
Apple's annual gross profit for 2020 was $104.956B, a 6.67% increase from 2019. We're talking about PROFITTING IN THE BILLONS ladies and gents. This means AAPL has plenty of money on hand to commit towards paying "prominent video makers" to create original content such as tutorials and walkthroughs ... 🥴 ... and updating FCP periodically as they have been doing for years without the need for a SaaS model. I fully expect Apple will attempt to present their greed as "adding value."
[Lights on]
[camera zooms in]
[Tim cooks walks on screen]
[Praying hands engaged]
"With a susbscription service, we've found a way to add more value to our FCP users. You'll get more frequent updates, and more features along with exclusive tutorials and walkthroughs by your favorite celebrities such as John Legend, Jim Carrey and the hologram of Tupac from Coachella. Sure we profit billions every year, but we just can't find the budget to provide you with content that's pretty much already available on YouTube along with UI changes and features we've been purposely holding back as a means to strategically give ourselves the room to artificially inflate prices by tacking on these features while making you believe we have been patiently seeking a way to perfect them. In the immortal words of Gordon Gecko, "Greed... *ahem* ... SaaS is good!"
[and... scene!]
Apple's annual gross profit for 2020 was $104.956B, a 6.67% increase from 2019. We're talking about PROFITTING IN THE BILLONS ladies and gents. This means AAPL has plenty of money on hand to commit towards paying "prominent video makers" to create original content such as tutorials and walkthroughs ... 🥴 ... and updating FCP periodically as they have been doing for years without the need for a SaaS model. I fully expect Apple will attempt to present their greed as "adding value."
[Lights on]
[camera zooms in]
[Tim cooks walks on screen]
[Praying hands engaged]
"With a susbscription service, we've found a way to add more value to our FCP users. You'll get more frequent updates, and more features along with exclusive tutorials and walkthroughs by your favorite celebrities such as John Legend, Jim Carrey and the hologram of Tupac from Coachella. Sure we profit billions every year, but we just can't find the budget to provide you with content that's pretty much already available on YouTube along with UI changes and features we've been purposely holding back as a means to strategically give ourselves the room to artificially inflate prices by tacking on these features while making you believe we have been patiently seeking a way to perfect them. In the immortal words of Gordon Gecko, "Greed... *ahem* ... SaaS is good!"
[and... scene!]
It's a good thing that I really don't really NEED Final Cut Pro anymore. Any videos I do these days are simple, little family affairs and the native software that comes with Macs suffices. The need for Apple, Adobe, the automakers and others to please Wall Street with higher transaction prices and higher earnings is at odds with my need to stay solvent. Any product that pulls the "buy now, pay forever" formula loses my business. Adobe already has.
I would be all for a monthly SaaS option that included cloud rendering, storage and collaboration tools as long as Apple maintains the current one-time paid version without stripping away any of the features that currently exist.
Do you think this should include free upgrades forever? I am happy with something in the middle, major versions upgrades cost money, minor versions are free and whatever version I purchased works on the hardware/os on which it was purchased forever.
It makes sense, it can't be a sustainable model having it on the App Store with every update for the one price of $300. Ether they would need to do FCPX 2.0 as a paid thing or a subscription model. Personally I would rather pay $5/month than $300 every update.
Just curious... were you a previous user of Photoshop and Lightroom? When you could buy perpetual copies?
Back then Photoshop cost $700 to buy and upgrades were $250 every couple years or so.
But you're now getting Photoshop and Lightroom for $10 a month. Nice!
You'd have to subscribe to Photoshop for almost 6 years before you spent the same amount of money as a person who bought a copy of Photoshop outright.
AND... you'd have gotten updates the entire time... while the other guy was still using the same version of Photoshop all those years. (unless they spent another couple hundred dollars for upgrades)
So yeah... I think it's fine to spend a small amount of money each month rather than spending huge amounts of money on major purchases and upgrades. It can be a lot more manageable. (I'm a full Creative Cloud subscriber, BTW)
I'm not saying all subscriptions are great... some are downright nasty (silly little apps for a couple dollars a month?)
But in your case... Photoshop and Lightroom is a great deal at $10 a month. Hopefully Apple will be similar to that.
haha, lightroom and photshop is 10 dollars a month. That's fairly reasonable for hobbyists.
Indeed. All the way back in 2000 (when Apple was still struggling and most people assumed they'd fold soon) they gave members of the 'Apple Solutions Expert' program plenty of high profile FCP tutorials to share with clients in order to facilitate sales and training. I remember there was one tutorial with all the assets for recreating a previously aired ESPN program (can't remember which one). It was extremely effective.
You could be right. Our O2 supply is already constrained.
On the subject, I have just purchased all Apple softwares, I wonder what would happen for these who purchased these programmes?
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Exactly. It's an awesome deal.
It's certainly better than the old days of paying $700 for Photoshop. That was definitely not for "hobbyists"
But if subscriptions aren't your thing... Affinity Photo and Pixelmator are damn good too. It's great to have options!
They’re kinda developing them. I’ve been a Logic Pro user since emagic days, and their useful professional upgrades have been way behind the curve. The last good addition was Articulation Sets. I still haven’t upgraded to 10.5 because many of the plugins I use regularly are not yet compatible with it. That’s obviously somewhat up to plugin developers, but only in part.
My profession revolves around Logic and, like others have mentioned, it’s one of the only reasons I’m a forever Mac user. But man they are behind the curve.
Logic’s surround channel routing is a mess and works differently (read: incorrectly) than all other DAWs. They still have no Atmos support. (Funny that a company with a business model now based on content and hardware that tout Atmos support, don’t even offer pro software that can author that content.) I run into major problems once every few years—last year was a major memory mismanagement/hard crash issue when working with NI Kontakt, basically the largest and most ubiquitous plugin makers, and NI pointed their finger entirely at Logic (no other DAWs had the issue). Who developed the fix? NI.
Logic’s updates have focused largely on “wow” features that mainly interest newcomers, and not meeting industry standards for pros.
Even before reading this article, I’ve been plotting a switch to the fantastic Nuendo for years now. If they made Logic a subscription it would fast-track that switch for me. There is an ever so slight chance I’d stick with Logic ONLY if they put all that subscription money to pumping out worthy additions that made their software more up to speed with the industry. And I mean PUMPING out.
From what I’ve heard, I assume my experience with Logic is pretty analogous with Final Cut users. It’s fantastic software but come on Apple! Care about it a little more!
Yep, It's like don't eat fast food ONCE a month and you're good.
Some people are cray cray.
I intend to buy Apple's Professional apps.
I imagine that renting model will extend to most pf them, if not all.
Then, I will jump ship, without a blink and I will not look back.
I imagine that renting model will extend to most pf them, if not all.
Then, I will jump ship, without a blink and I will not look back.