Final Cut creator Randy Ubillos leaves Apple after 20 years...

I admit that FCPX is not as popular as AVID or PP for serious productions, but come on...it's super fast, easy to use, audio sync and multicam are great, it talks very well with DaVinci and the latest upgrade with 3D titles and the new masks is awesome.
Even the wait for exporting has been radically improved and now it's a matter of seconds to export in 4k on a retina macbook pro.

Not to mention that PP and Media Encoder are not capable of exporting Prores to h264 without color shifts and macroblocking.
Oh...and they take ages to export!

I'm not an Apple fan anymore but I think that people should give a fair try to FCPX. Functions are there, it's just the user interface that has changed. People may like it or not.
I do!
 
Yea I don't know what you're talking about. FCPX continues to be loved by many...and their latest update seemed to get a great response. Don't take someone's retirement as people jumping ship or an NLE's demise. That's dumb.
 
I'm not saying FCPX is "bad", just that Apple has definitely been abandoning the pro apps. Now that the creator of Aperture and FCP is leaving, what does that mean? The guy is the one who inspired FCPX (and FCP, etc.) to begin with... is this not a sign of something, or is everything hunky dory? I remember when a whole bunch of people left the FCP team, people claimed "oh, it's nothing" - and then Apple shut down FCP and launched FCPX with fewer people. When the leader, originator and visionary of a product leaves suddenly, is that not concerning? The past examples have not been encouraging in Apple's history. So, this time it'll be different? Nice to see people being so optimistic, dismissive and gung ho - hope you're all right. Personally, I don't know, but it certainly gives me pause.
 
You could be right. Or, this guy simply got a very good offer from another company. Or wants to run his own business.
Who knows?
I just wish him the best.
 
Per the article:

The developer suggested he will not be taking another full-time job, as he said he's looking forward "to retirement and the adventures ahead."

Nothing to suggest that his leaving has anything to do with Apple's strategic plans for any of their products.

Of course, that could just be what they want us to believe...
 
arniepix said:
Per the article:

The developer suggested he will not be taking another full-time job, as he said he's looking forward "to retirement and the adventures ahead."

Nothing to suggest that his leaving has anything to do with Apple's strategic plans for any of their products.

Of course, that could just be what they want us to believe...
Click to expand...


No, this MUST be a conspiracy. Let us do the normal thing and interpret this theory as fact and try and rationalize things later.
 
After 20 years at Apple I'd be looking forward to sailing my yacht and driving my Ferrari. That said, if anyone thinks Apple is in for the long haul when it comes to professional apps they're sorely mistaken.
 
I think Apple put more effort into the pro apps 10-15 years ago because they helped drive computer sales, which was their primary source of income. Now their primary source of income are iPhones and iPads, so the pro apps aren't a priority anymore.
 
Just a thought... Why does Apple have to be the one making the pro apps? If other companies are making better ones, does Apple really need to? Their hardware seems to still be selling.
 
Exactly. Apple is no longer motivated to develop pro apps. They're a consumer oriented company - even in hardware, they've jettisoned more Xserve and are barely hanging on with one last piece of pro gear, the MacPro. And if they are focused on the consumer market, why would they continue to develop pro applications, especially as they deprecate even the pro-end gear - what would that even run on? Editing can be incredibly hardware intensive, with huge amount of memory, storage and throughput - how much of that intense hardware market does Apple address... not much at all apart from the MacPro - so just how hi-end does their editing software need to be? A bit of editing for home movies and some consumer editing needs on laptops, iPads and iPhones - you need user friendly and simple software... great power capability is not what's required, and that's not their market. Look at what happened to Aperture - not needed, as all the consumer needs is Photos.

So yes, other companies are there for that segment of the market. Adobe for photography and more and more editing. Even Black Magic is copying FCPX features and at some point may outdistance it. I'm not saying Randy's leaving portends the deprecation of FCPX - it's just an interesting development. It may be totally neutral and not connected. On the other hand, coupled with Apple's slow retreat from the pro app market, the departure is not reassuring and strong confidence-building either.
 
Apple is a publicly traded, for profit company. Just like Adobe, Avid and many others.

As such, they will always gravitate from the less profitable to the more profitable.

If you think that Avid or Adobe is less likely to kill your favorite product than Apple (or Tyson Foods, for that matter) then you're greatly mislead.
 
arniepix said:
As such, they will always gravitate from the less profitable to the more profitable.
Click to expand...

I heard this quote that went something like:

Today's climate isn't like in the '90s. Today, if I had a crystal ball & could prove that after all the expenses my movie would make a million dollars for a studio, no studio would go for it. They all want a billion dollar movie.
Click to expand...

I feel it is the same way when I read this. FCP has to be able to be at least a little be profitable, but if FCP only brings in a million dollars for Apple, it might be considered not worth their time. Which I'm no MBA, but I honestly don't get.

To me if someone offered me an investment where I only earned one cent, but I earned one cent every minute, then I'd be all over the $5k a year of returns. Not enough to live on, but add that to the real money I make working & the extra $5k is very much measurable.
 
You also have to consider that Apple wants/needs to keep content creators etc within their Eco system. Which mean that things like the Mac Pro and FCPX, Logic Pro etc has a value far greater than just what the product sell for...
 
zijital said:
To me if someone offered me an investment where I only earned one cent, but I earned one cent every minute, then I'd be all over the $5k a year of returns. Not enough to live on, but add that to the real money I make working & the extra $5k is very much measurable.
Click to expand...

Opportunity cost. What could you be doing instead while making that $5k? If you could be making $50k instead of chasing $5k, you'd do that.
I don't think that's really what's going on with Apple. They have reached a maturity level with the hardware where the products have created a self sustaining ecosystem. There are enough people using Macs that other people don't need as much incentive to join the Mac community. They've eliminated a lot of the concerns that people had in the 90's of buying a Mac and not getting some PC software. The major barriers to entry are gone, and there is less need to spend a lot of effort on special enticements. FCP was a good reason for video professionals to get Macs. Now there is Premiere, Avid, FCPX, etc that all run on Macs so Apple can realistically drop all their pro apps if they wanted to and we'd still be able to get work done on a Mac. I don't think they're going to do that, but even if they did it wouldn't stop most of us from using a Mac.
I use Lightroom for my photos and my mom uses Photo. I can use Premiere, while my mom would use iMovie. As a professional my needs are still met and so are those of the amateur.
I don't think Apple will completely end pro app development, but even if they did it wouldn't be that big of a deal.
 
Of course, there are always options. I don't think those who are concerned are worried about not having an NLE to edit on. Some may be sad at the prospect that the Apple option is gone insofar as Apple has always had a certain mojo to their software and not to have that option in the marketplace is just a pity, makes for a less rich ecosystem. But mostly, for those that are worried, it comes down to time/money/effort investment. Perhaps they've invested a lot of time in learning the ins and outs of a particular platform, and if forced into a different NLE, sure they could do it, but that investment would be gone and no longer paying dividends. Even the monetary investment might be a factor for someone who has purchased a lot of ancillary software, plugins and the like that works for FCPX and a given workflow, that is now gone. So those would be the concerns. I doubt anyone imagines that if Apple closes down their pro editing division, all of a sudden there is no NLE to edit on. It's about sunk costs, monetary, time, skill, and fewer options.

But that's life. Nothing lasts forever. Gotta stay flexible. If Apple disappeared tomorrow, life would go on and we might be shocked at how easy it would be for 99.9% of people to adjust to that - there is almost nothing that Apple makes that cannot be replaced with something roughly equivalent.
 
OldCorpse said:
I'm not saying FCPX is "bad", just that Apple has definitely been abandoning the pro apps. Now that the creator of Aperture and FCP is leaving, what does that mean? The guy is the one who inspired FCPX (and FCP, etc.) to begin with...
Click to expand...

From what I read Randy was working on a logging app to compliment FCP but when Jobs' saw it he loved the simplicity and decided that's what the next version of FCP should be modeled after. Regardless, losing someone with Randy's skill and expertise always leaves big shoes to fill, but companies lose talented people all the time. I don't think it's indicative of Apple's direction, just that Randy wants to take a long deserved break.


-Andrew
 
dmitrizigany said:
You also have to consider that Apple wants/needs to keep content creators etc within their Eco system. Which mean that things like the Mac Pro and FCPX, Logic Pro etc has a value far greater than just what the product sell for...
Click to expand...
I think that's true. Apple cultivated certain products for years that didn't make a lot of money because they brought other value to Apple.

There was a prestige to having a top performing shared storage platform, there was a prestige to having famous film makers publicly endorse their use of your product. That prestige helped sell other, less prestigious but more profitable products.

That's called marketing.

But you have to balance the not very measurable benefit of that prestige with the very easily measurable cost & profit of the product itself. When XServe RAiD fell behind emerging competitors, they canned it rather than dump piles of money into competing with a growing pool of rivals that was more focused on that type of product.

And Apple has always been a very forward looking company that was always willing to push over it's own apple cart. The introduction of the first Mac ultimately led to the death of the Apple II. And the Apple II was the product that built Apple into a real, profit making company. But it was not the future of computing, after the introduction of the Mac, Apple II was already the past.

The introduction of FCP-X is very similar. Apple was willing to cut loose a small, demanding and finicky group of elite "pro" users who were connected to the mainstream feature film & TV industries. But at the same time they were embracing a new, emerging market of film makers who were not necessarily married to that elite, established mainstream. Film makers who had never used Avid or FCP "classic". Film makers who found out that FCP-X was much easier to learn than the established "pro" software. Film makers who found that they could work faster and with more formats. Film makers who found that FCP-X had features that they found useful and easy to use, while the "pro" software either lacked those features, or implemented in a way that made them unusable.

And the majority of people who earn money making videos, which makes them "professionals" by definition, don't need those "professional" features. There are many more of these "small" film makers that make wedding and corporate videos than there are film makers making feature films and TV shows.

Who cares if it isn't being used for features if you're making a training video for a local business? Who cares if you have trouble interfacing with tape decks if you're not using tape? Who cares that you can't export an OMF if you're not sending your sound to a mixer who needs OMF?

But keyword collections, that's cool. That saves time. That makes you work faster.

The ability to create multicam edits from cameras that don't match compression and frame rates is killer.

Likewise, desktop workstations, desktop all-in-ones and laptops are no longer the future of computing. Mobile is already eclipsing desktop & laptop. Companies like Apple, HP and Lenovo already know this, but they still gain a lot of name recognition and other value by staying in those businesses. For now.

At some point, desktop & laptop will become exotic, specialty products. Maybe by the end of this decade. For the home user, that's happening now. For the business user, that seems to be in the near future.
 
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