Former Shake Product Designer: Apple Doesn't Care About Pro Market

[telecomm]

I trust the professionals in a trade. I hold them in high regard. Their opinion matters.

Apple touts the fact that Academy Award winning editors use their products. The professional editors will state clearly that they are using FCP7.

This carries a lot of weight with me. This is why pissing off 5,000 professional editors is not good. Apple's reputation and brand is being jeopardized.

I think this hits the nail on the head. There was a time when it was important to brand the Mac platform as capable of serious computing, to establish that it's not just a toy.

The sense that there's a "upper limit" to what is capable on the platform (i.e., serious people on the cutting edge of a sexy industry don't use Macs) is really bad PR, and would probably drive away a number of average consumers. After all, look at all the coverage this topic is getting, and the discussion it's generating among people who probably won't even buy the product, let alone use it to its potential!

 

[btbeme]

wow that is over 2 million dollars. Did you get it when it was at 11.00 a share when I did. I have no where near what you have but, that is great.

Slightly more than half were purchased at a pre-split price of $18, so they have a cost of around $9 each. The rest have been purchased over the last several years and have a dollar-cost average around $60 a share. I continue to make steady (but smaller) purchases as tie goes by, as I feel AAPL is worth around $550 a share with its current product lineup. I think App Store fees and the explosive tablet growth are severely underestimated.

Anecdote - a friend of mine wanted to "buy an iMac, but Dell didn't have them for sale online." Ironic how Macs were considered to be PCs, but now the masses know they want an iMac or a MacBook or an iPhone - and the PC salespeople have to tell them how "Mac-like" their Windows or Android product is.

 

[Stridder44]

It's simple and the writing is on the wall for the old stuck in the ways pro's... NOt even Larry Jordan complains or is whining this much (if at all)... Just move on then, or think different my friend

*shakes head* Keep drinking that kool-aid.

 

[jimmc]

I still don't understand all the uproar. The fact that the product is new means that there will be a lot of missing features initially. Its like when the iPhone was first released. It lacked a huge number features that people wanted or needed, but the potential was there.

Why can't people keep using the old version until the new one is more mature?

That in fact is exactly what the "real pros" are doing. No professional film editor would even conceive of disrupting his current workflow with a brand new piece of software. It will be evaluated at our shop by perhaps one junior editor on a completed project, with a report made to management about its capabilities.

And only if we see any cost/benefit increase will we adopt it, and commit to sending staff to learn the new software.

The reason these groups are filled with "naysayers" is because the real pros are too busy to worry about it. . . .

Signed,
Management at a "real pro" editing house

 

[Jerome Morrow]

Wow … this penis measurement fest is heating up In times like this you can see the real people faces and i must say for some of you here i had more respect two weeks ago than now.

 

[captain kaos]

Well there you go!

Apple says we are not answerable to anyone and does not care for pro apps, (but like to charge pro app rates) and would like to concentrate on itoys. We may as well cut our next films in imovie for iphone.

 

[thedarkhorse]

I still don't understand all the uproar. The fact that the product is new means that there will be a lot of missing features initially. Its like when the iPhone was first released. It lacked a huge number features that people wanted or needed, but the potential was there.

Except the iphone was a new product, this is the 8th iteration of Final cut pro.

It would be more akin to apple releasing the iphone 5 without sms because it has iMessage, no support for non @mac.com email accounts because they rethought email protocols, a touchscreen rotary dialer with no option to go back to the standard dialing number pad, and on top of that no apps work on it until they are rewritten for iphone 5.
But it's faster

 

[Axelcary]

Yea, I'm sure they won't make millions from this product.

Apple has good name and fame for its products in the market. i am sure they will make it if they don't bother about the professional market even

 

[bonehead]

Alias Media Composer has "add-ons" that cost extra. Most likely FCPX will to. Eventually there could be add-ons that raise the price back up to the $1,000 level (or above since not amortizing these feature costs over the whole user base ) and they will only be leaving behind an even smaller percentage of the market. The in-app store functionality of the Mac App store are a natural next step for Apple to leverage. There is no pressing "need" to have a product with a different name to which to attach the "add ons". For example, for Lion "Mac OS Server" will just be an add-on. there will be no separate OS product SKU for Server anymore.


What is more important is to get the core out and brought to stability before adding the "add ons". Not the artifical segmentation between "Final Cut Express" and "Final Cut Pro". Some folks are too caught up in the superficial elements of product names and version numbers.

I think you are correct in your assessment (although it is Avid not Alias). Too bad Apple didn't tell everyone at their event at NAB that v1.0 would be missing a few key features.

 

[iFrankie]

Any large customer that has worked with Apple will agree with what Ron Brinkmann has said.

Customers don't have a relationship with Apple. Customers don't drive product features. It's not Apple's style. It never has been and probably never will. Steve Jobs' comments to the Hollywood VFX pros sounds exactly like Steve Jobs and this philosophy trickles down to the rest of Apple. Hands become tied in every department even when they know certain things should be done on behalf of the customer.

It's hard for the common Apple user to understand this unless you have worked with Apple on a larger scale.

 

[the8thark]

I love reading the nostalgic responses here.

Final Cut Pro 7 and earlier. The interface was old and tired. You could learn what you needed to know but it just felt like stuff bolted on that sorta worked.

Now if I had built up braintrust in this app I too would be stressing FCPX. Any counselor will tell you that change causes stress in humans.

The trick is to realize this and continue to move forward. There's a recommendation that some people make to others "try taking a different route to work tomorrow, on that you've never taken before"

There's something exhilarating about changing one's path even if there's trepidation at first.

At this point FCPX isn't ready but it will be ready and the question that editors need to ask themselves is

"Will I be able to switch to Avid or Premiere and beat the young kid that stuck with FCPX and mastered it?"

Your competition isn't going to be afraid to learn and adapt and that could make you a dinosaur.

Brilliant post. And I agree 100%. People are treating FCPX like it's a 10.0 and not a 1.0 release. Apple did the best they could under the circumstances and with a little feedback they can make it even better. People just expect FCPX to be perfect right off the bat. That's just dumb. No one will use a 1.0 version of anything for mission critical projects.

So many people are just QQing about FCPX cause they want perfection and don't get it. But that's Apple reputation. If MS released something half as good as FCPX everyone would praise it.

Apps from Apple are either godly perfect or they are ****. And anything in between is just the same as **** to them. Apple made a pretty good app that will get better in time. But cause people over-react Apple cop flack for something that is actually pretty good.

 

[mac9000]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

I found this article very interesting as I just now explored the new Final Cut. Decided against buying it because it seems like a souped up iMovie and not something that works well with other software for some intense editing.

Very interesting commentary by the man.

The iMovie of today is a very thinned out version of iMovie HD 2006, which I still use. The same seems to have happened with Final Cut Pro. The weird thing is, the new iMovie seemed harder to use because it lacked a timeline

Why didn't Apple just leave the pro features in FCP and put in the easy ones as well? I don't want it to end up with Windows-based pro video editors on top, that would be a nightmare!
Hopefully, if Apple drops FCP, nobody will make pro video editors except for Linux programmers, then I won't have to deal with (as) glitchy software.

 

[KingCrimson]

It's very simple, now that Apple has $60 billion cash horde, they don't need those high-end professional anymore. You've been thrown overboard like so much flotsam and jetsam for the siren call of the consumerist masses.

 

[bonehead]

Most of these shops screaming about legacy interfaces (EDLs ) are conservative shops anyway.

Care to share your data on this? If you have ever worked in feature film or broadcast TV post-production you would be aware that EDLs are ubiquitous.

 

[mac9000]

Brilliant post. And I agree 100%. People are treating FCPX like it's a 10.0 and not a 1.0 release. Apple did the best they could under the circumstances and with a little feedback they can make it even better. People just expect FCPX to be perfect right off the bat. That's just dumb. No one will use a 1.0 version of anything for mission critical projects.

So many people are just QQing about FCPX cause they want perfection and don't get it. But that's Apple reputation. If MS released something half as good as FCPX everyone would praise it.

Apps from Apple are either godly perfect or they are ****. And anything in between is just the same as **** to them. Apple made a pretty good app that will get better in time. But cause people over-react Apple cop flack for something that is actually pretty good.

Yeah, Final Cut Pro X is just bad relative to the older versions. I'd take it over anything Windows-based. It seems like a bias, but I have never seen a good, well programmed commercial Windows program before, or any Microsoft product for that matter. My XBOX 360 is a broken one we got that requires a paperclip to open the DVD drive and 20 tries to turn on.

Also, Apple just uses "X" because it looks cool. Quicktime X is not QT 10, it's v8. FCP X is not the 10th version. Mac OS X should really be a higher number than "10" by now, considering the beta was first released in 2000.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

Brilliant post. And I agree 100%. People are treating FCPX like it's a 10.0 and not a 1.0 release. Apple did the best they could under the circumstances and with a little feedback they can make it even better. People just expect FCPX to be perfect right off the bat. That's just dumb. No one will use a 1.0 version of anything for mission critical projects.

So many people are just QQing about FCPX cause they want perfection and don't get it. But that's Apple reputation. If MS released something half as good as FCPX everyone would praise it.

Apps from Apple are either godly perfect or they are ****. And anything in between is just the same as **** to them. Apple made a pretty good app that will get better in time. But cause people over-react Apple cop flack for something that is actually pretty good.

If you want to call it a 1.0 release then CHANGE THE NAME. Do not call it a massive upgrade to FCP 7.

It kept the name to the consumers of this product it means it is an upgrade. Using your argument is the standard Apple appoligist argument.

Simple truth to the matter is Apple is done with the pro market. This is just another nail in the coffin that already has a ton of nails in it.
Lets see the list so far to back Apple is leaving the pro market.

1. Killing Xserver with nothing to replace it.
2. Logic has lagged behind.
3. FCP 7 was lagging behind the rest of the industry
4. Dropping Fireware.
5. Mac Pro not being updated and the updates they do get are pretty weak at best.
6. FCPX lacking key pro features.
7. This guy releasing what he saw going on.

Come on that was added to already a pretty long and growing list and I know I missed some items. Apple is done with the pro market. Apple has burned those bridges of the people that kept the company alive during the lean times.

 

[AppleScruff1]

I really don't don't see why Apple screwed up so badly. They could have kept Final Cut Pro "Pro," and dumbed down Final Cut Express or maybe created a lite version of Final Cut Pro for the masses... This is a huge mistake.

Apple makes mistakes?

Apple doesn't care about pro users, yet their computers (and every other product) is overpriced....At least spec-wise

But at least they make record profits quarter after quarter and that is what is truly important to most users here.

 

[CIA]

Brilliant post. And I agree 100%. People are treating FCPX like it's a 10.0 and not a 1.0 release. Apple did the best they could under the circumstances and with a little feedback they can make it even better. People just expect FCPX to be perfect right off the bat. That's just dumb. No one will use a 1.0 version of anything for mission critical projects.

It's funny you say that, because when I fire up the app it doesn't say 1.0, it says Final Cut Pro X Version 10.0.

 

[LethalWolfe]

Brilliant post. And I agree 100%. People are treating FCPX like it's a 10.0 and not a 1.0 release. Apple did the best they could under the circumstances and with a little feedback they can make it even better. People just expect FCPX to be perfect right off the bat. That's just dumb. No one will use a 1.0 version of anything for mission critical projects.

Apple is calling it a 10.0 release so why are you surprised when people are critical of it for missing rudimentary features?

Is FCP X a v1.0 app that Apple slapped the FCP name on to in order to cash in on a decade of brand building or is FCP X the next iteration of a very successful and very well round (though far from perfect) professional NLE and should be evaluated as such?

It can't be both.


Lethal

 

[grs]

It seems that the FCPX defenders have divided into two groups--one that tells pros they must come to grips with the paradigm shift imposed by Apple, recognize that the lost features represent the old, outmoded way of doing things, and either change with the times or go the way of the dinosaur, and another that reassures the pros there are no lost features after all, only features that haven't made their way into this initial release. Wait 'til next year and everything will be roses and sunshine again.

Of course, these are contradictory positions, and I suspect they are both based entirely on guesswork. My own uninformed opinion is that many if not all missing features will be restored, but not because that was the original plan. I think Apple misjudged the reaction of professional FCP users and will be forced to fix what has turned out to be a botched release. Just a guess.

 

[MattInOz]

So you don't believe it MIGHT be difficult to deal with a situation where a house that does work for both, say, Arnie's Abortions and Pamela Pro-Life has to do all sorts of stupid workarounds to conceal projects if a client wants to come to a sessions? No post house is going to dedicate one disk array per clients.

Why would need a dedicated disk Array?
Just different access point and control for each client/project.
I Mean if it's "that" important surely they should have created an Access Control system before this.

 

[bmk]

Brinkmann NOT a Billionaire. Nuff said.

Publicly traded companies need more than "hey this is cool" to appease
shareholders that expect a return on their investment. Projects that don't
bring in the revenue/profits don't get the most attention.

You are not a billionaire either. So by your very own logic what you say isn't worth listening to (which it's not).

 

[MacFly123]

Ever thought that the reality is more likely that you're simply underpaid? This isn't a slam on you but millions of users per quarter don't seem to be going through the same issue. Value is all perception.

Haha, LOVED ur comment Think Different!

People need to calm down! I am a video producer by profession and guess what? Apple didn't spend over a year and millions of dollars with teams of people and development to COMPLETELY rewrite FCP with a BEAST of an engine under the hood so they can just dumb it down into iMovie!!!

They will be adding the pro features back ASAP! Especially with all this backlash! They are probably going ape @%$# and developing as fast as they can to get all the missing features back. And not only back, but better and more powerful and with a more beautiful UI & UX than before!!! They have set the foundation for the next decade, and I'll bet you anything we will see some new features updated when Lion releases like project versions, XML and APIs etc., and then in about 6 months see another update with multi-cam and everything else people are whining about! In one year people will be saying FCP 7 what???

CHILL PEOPLE!!!

 

[rikscha]

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A couple of years ago macs were used only by pros and ethusiats. Now Apple doesn't care anymore? Delivering the software that people make their Hollywood movies with , is certainly not bad marketing for Apple.

 

[SkyStudios]

Well Nuke would would be just a souped up After Effects using the same logic. The complaints about FCPX mainly surround importing older projects from FCP7 and earlier, Multicam (which is coming) and being able to export OMF/AAF, XML and EDL for finishing.

Most Final Cut editors don't need all of these features. Steve was right...they're going to deliver features that most people need...not a small subset of Hollywood producers.



Every thought that the reality is more likely that you're simply underpaid? This isn't a slam on you but millions of users per quarter don't seem to be going through the same issue. Value is all perception.

its iMovie not FCP, thats the problem, and the hype that surrounded it only made it worse, it was like inviting trouble as a publicity stunt, the new FCPx is useless, iMovie now has more promising features, if you need iMovie use iMovie not this new fcpx aka imovie v8.2, whats hilarious is the adverts here about FCPX training, haha, like iMovie training