Apple built Final Cut Pro 8 (64bit), then scrapped it???

Barry_Green said:
... but overall when looking at why they're so arrogant...
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Arrogant? I see how it's easy to characterize Apple that way, but I don't really think that's the case.

I'm as disappointed with FCPX as anyone. But I can see that it was a good business decision, a good creative decision, and likely in the end a benefit to the FCP editing community.

As you say, Green Barry, Apple has a history of dropping old tech and shocking people into newer tech. Their "failures" have been in some cases just too early, and in other cases recognized and rectified, in still other cases, dropped like lead. I think Apple has a record of making the best products they can imagine. They (Steve?) have stated publicly and often that they are making the products THEY want to use, not the products they think the market wants. And that approach has worked well, and has shot the industry forward numerous times when it was bogged down.

What do I mean by good for the FCP editing community? Apple might have gotten bored of FCP as it was. Refining it the way we wanted may well have become a "punishment" job at Apple, a tedious maintenance chore in which they didn't see any wild innovation without really starting over. Apple is not good at that sort of thing; and it doesn't fit their corporate culture. Someone pointed out the market for video editing is very healthy now... I think Apple perhaps did a service by making this switch at such a good time.

I mean, when has Adobe ever released a ".5" upgrade? Doesn't it surprise you that this happened just a few weeks before the release of FCPX shook everything up? That one of the major features of 5.5 was compatibility with FCP projects? To me, it seems like Apple handed the market over to Adobe. (I earlier thought of this as a deal involving Adobe defocusing on Flash). I think Apple might have wanted to get rid of the pressure of supporting the professional market for a while to do something more up their alley, and see how that goes.

Apple has in the past pulled off "miracles" to keep backwards compatibility and users of some features happy. I mean, they completely switched hardware architectures twice (68k->PowerPC->Intel), in a manner that was extremely gentle for the users, as well as switching over the software architecture with similar gentleness. I've run old system 4 or 5 68k apps on an OSX G5 (LogicWorks, anyone?), and plenty of PowerPC apps on intel machines. This is one reason why macs tend to have longer service lives than PCs. But other things are dropped when Apple decides its not worth keeping them... and these seem to be (to me) well thought-out decisions. ADB, serial, SCSI, floppies... when Apple really wanted the new technologies not to have to compete with old ones (to promote more rapid adoption, and likely to keep costs down), they've dropped 'em.

For years, we've complained that FCP was lagging, that Apple's priorities were elsewhere. As I see it, that left Apple three options: 1) keep FCP barely alive, as a low-priority maintenance project; 2) make a truly tremendous effort and investment in really making FCP a lot better while constrained by continuity with the previous version; or 3) dropping continuity it and letting a much smaller team run with their dreams. 1) would suck, with users more and more disgruntled over time, and eventually switching anyway; 2) was probably not a good business decision, given the size of the market and especially in light of Apple's hardware and OS direction, which NEEDS to move FCP to something like X (swipey swipey), and 3) is exactly what Apple likes to do, and is good at.

I love FCP7, woulda liked to have FCP8, but I see this as a necessary amputation. Hopefully a bionic prosthetic will come along. But in the meantime we have options.

Arrogant? I don't know. I don't think so. Focused, and willing to do what it takes to stay focused... even amputation.
 
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thekreative said:
The newton is an interesting one Barry. If a PC company had come out with it or Palm it would have been a lot bigger.
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Palm was, i believe, founded by ex-Newton engineers. The Newton may have flopped itself, but it certainly fathered the PDA...
 
Apples .0.1 update was bigger than Adobe´s .5 update. The introduction of XML and Roles took a lot of wind out of FCPX-dislikers´ sails. Add to it the now free automatic duck and I have a complete broadcast-delivery workflow within FCPX including 8 dedicated audio-tracks for ProTools; but then again, since we mix audio in FCPX with the same plug-ins as Soundtrack and ProTools use, there is not much need for audiowork after all. At least in my projects.

Ullanta is right. They are not arrogant. They make better products and they know it. Although FCPX is admittedly not yet better in everything, once the 3rd party-brakoutboxes appear, it will take the pros by storm again.
 
Barry_Green said:
I think you'll get your answer with what they do with the Mac Pro. If they introduce new screaming-powerful desktops for pro users, then that will be a good indication of how they feel about the pro market.
If they drop the Mac Pro entirely, that also will send a very clear message about how they feel about continuing to support the pro market.

My guess is that we've seen the last of the Mac Pro. It may get one more refresh, but after that, it's gone. Apple has said clearly and definitively "we are a mobile products company." Desktop computers aren't mobile; I bet we'll see them outsource expandability onto the end of a thunderbolt cable, and therefore decide that an expandable pro chassis no longer fits in with their vision.

So, yeah, we'll see how things play out with the Mac Pro. If, as I suspect, there is no refreshing of the Mac Pro and it's discontinued, that will tell you pretty much everything you need to know.
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The rumor sites have been writing about the death of the desktop macpro for months now and alot of us expect this to happen and we could care less. Intels Thunderbolt may be the catalyst.

http://www.macrumors.com/2011/10/31/apple-questioning-the-future-of-its-mac-pro-line/

Some reviews of the more recent macbook pro revisions have described them as powerful as the desktops for editing.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolo...rything-you-want-even-more-than-you-need.html

I personally have always used a laptop for editing and breakout boxes like magma, who have been making breakout boxes for years now, are coming out with a thunderbolt version.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4743/the-thunderbolt-devices-trickle-in-magmas-expressbox-3t

I've seen professional editors editing more and more on laptops. I think Apple knows this too: the high desirability of a small form factor that you can travel with that has power along with it is what pros want as well as consumers.

For instance if you're using a RED camera, MAXX makes a mobile rocket for red rocket card to use with your macbook pro. The money you save by not buying a desktop could be put towards this:

http://www.maxxdigital.com/mobile-rocket-red-rocket.html

I don't think I'll take the death of the desktop macpro as an indication of them abandoning the pro's. Apple knows that the ipad and iphone can't do the really heavy lifting that still needs to get done so they'll still be making powerful laptops and when in ten years when all this trauma happens all over again when they announce ipad only editing I will be swiping, or maybe minority report virtual editing, along with everyone as long as the feature set is there.
 
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mcgeedigital said:
By the time that happens most people will have switched to either Adobe or Avid.

I see this already in my market, which is not small.
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well, it only costs them 299 to get back into FCPX.
I anyway wonder why people jumped ship so fast. FCP7 still works here if needed and it only made sense to those who had hardware that worked in both NLEs. Once AJA brings a thunderbolt to HD-SDI box and they realize what AVID means to your budgets when you want to extend it then they will come back. Premiere users might be harder to convince, because Premiere doesn´t only work well (especially if you use After Effects also), but it is also reasonable in pricing and therefore also interesting for smaller shops. Actually RIGHT NOW Premiere is maybe the best solution overall.
 
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alpi69 said:
well, it only costs them 299 to get back into FCPX.
I anyway wonder why people jumped ship so fast. FCP7 still works here if needed and it only made sense to those who had hardware that worked in both NLEs. Once AJA brings a thunderbolt to HD-SDI box and they realize what AVID means to your budgets when you want to extend it then they will come back. Premiere users might be harder to convince, because Premiere doesn´t even work well (especially if you use After Effects also), but it is also reasonable in pricing and therefore also interesting for smaller shops. Actually RIGHT NOW Premiere is maybe the best solution overall.
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Ah the switchers. We've seen this a million time's before. Make the product desirable and all those who jumped ship will jump right back. What Apple lost recently will be gained back IF they bring in all the features we want or add features we didn't even know were possible.
 
I still reckon as user group we should by there pro apps division... heck they bough FCP from Macromedia anyhow...

Cheers
 
Nice Pic... I never thought they actually ever released it.. even as a Beta... I believe it was designed by a group poached from Adobe by Macromedia.. hence it's early look was very similar to Premiere... I still got a copy of Version 1 somewhere...
 
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