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

We met Kawasaki at a Macintosh Summit Conference in Santa Barbara 1994 along with Kai Krause, Deke McClelland, and other pioneers.

My wife and I saw a Radius board on a Mac showing a surfing movie in a postage sized QT frame.

First time I ever saw digital video.

If we had all the money we spent to keep up with technology since then, I wouldn't be posting here.

Point being that both companies and strategies evolve. Apple isn't a person; it's a company. It cares about the bottom line.

My view is that we should to. Find the tools that work for you, and edit.
 
We met Kawasaki at a Macintosh Summit Conference in Santa Barbara in 1994 along with Kai Krause, Deke McClelland, and other pioneers.

My wife and I saw a Radius board on a Mac showing a surfing movie in a postage sized QT frame.

First time I ever saw digital video.

If we had all the money we spent to keep up with technology since then, I wouldn't be posting here.

Point being that both companies and strategies evolve. Apple isn't a person; it's a company. It cares about the bottom line.

My view is that we should too. Find the tools that work for you, and edit.

Threads bashing Apple and $3.00 will get you a cup of coffee.
 
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David, you have some very valid points in your comment. However, as a professional FCP editor, you "shouldn't" have the need to read the "clear signs" , which were never an official statement.

A product that was 2 years ago Marketed with Francis Ford Coppola editing "Tetro" on it (I remember a very flashy first page of FCS3 with Coppola and " Tetro" proudly in Apple's site) or with the Coen Bros latest film and describing its usage in a professional workflow suddenly turning a 180 Degree turn in its approach is not a "clear sign", is it?

The problem is not the introduction of new tech. New tech is welcome. The problem is the completely out of nowhere snub of professional workflows. Add to that the silence that was only broken because of the public ridicule and criticism.

Its not something as simple as "Move On", you " should've seen the signs" , etc. This was an insult to professionals, Apple costumers that relied on Apple for their livings, and were strong advocates of the Apple ecosystem. And it still continues to be. They started to "feed" information to so called "opinion makers" under their payroll. Since that didn't work out, they finally publicized the same information in a Faq placed in the support area of the product. But a faq written in both a condescending and misleading way - yes, you can do external monitoring; yes, you can hide events by creating a folder; "we are aware of the importance of XML..." is an insult to all of us Apple FCP (legacy) users.

I love Apple, and I own Ipods, Macbook Pro's Macpro's, Iphones, Ipads, Airport Extremes, even the Ispeaker. Because of me and my enthusiastic approach towards apple products, many over here have switched and bought into the Apple Ecosystem. My whole department is working on Apple equipment. Is this what I deserve from Apple's part after this launch?

This is, in a certain way, venting. But its also a discussion with fellow peers in a forum for filmmakers and professionals, and I feel this outcry is plainly justified.

David, you say "No one promised anyone anything here". Then why did they go to NAB and promoted it like the next coming, and talking about Premiere and Avid as their competitors, when clearly they are not?

All the information you are taking for granted and are telling us to chill upon, like FCP 7 working with Lion, the introduction of Multicam, working with providing XML, etc was ONLY RELEASED with this FAQ, because of the outcry. How do you know it wasn't because of this huge backlash they decided to go back to the drawing board and include these features?

What I know is that the noise made Apple react. As an Apple user, an Apple owner and also a professional FCP editor, I find that we all need to continue with this action until some clear, humble communication from Apple about their plans for FCP is stated. I don't need them to talk to me, but to talk to Larry, the writters from creativecow that said its time to switch, all those that told it like it really is for us FCP editors right now. And not with a huge paycheck. These guys are our voice right now.
 
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Gary Huff said:
I hope you're not saying "Just suck it up and spend the money when a company screws you over."
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I'm not. I am saying to purchase wisely, insulate yourself against market changes, understand your market and the companies that serve it.

Apple has been on the iPhone, iPod, iPad development cycle for years now. It's hardly a secret that the Lion's charge of its revenue is drive by that hardware and software that supports it.

At NAB2009, it clearly demonstrated its roadmap for the pro apps. Anyone that ignored the clear implications of the release of FCS 3 (2009), and what it didn't provide was a candidate to get screwed.

You can't sit there and watch a car barreling at you at full speed for more than two years, and then claim that you didn't have the last clear chance to avoid getting screwed.

I've spoken at MacWorld in SF eight times. Five years ago, we stopped going because it was all iPod, and virtually nothing video. We knew then that the market was smaller, more insular, and Apple had shown its cards. It was true of other companies as well. Media 100 was smaller; no parties. In part it had followed the Avid market model, and that was failing with software based editing systems.

Charles McConathy spent thousands to develop a RT DV editing board, and then abandoned it because hardware was becoming so powerful that DV could be decoded without board.

The writing was on the wall then, and even more so in the last two years since NAB2009.

File based media is the future. Panasonic knows that. Red knows that. The DSLR companies know that. The prosumer camcorder market knows that.

And Apple knows that. It's going to where the dollars are.

So many complaints about Apple's focus here. ipads and iphones.

That started years ago, and if you watched the quarterly results from Apple, then you know where the resources were going.

And the pro apps weren't even a footnote on those reports.
 
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It still doesn't address the Apple evangelists who supposedly knew this was coming and still bashed all FCP competitors.
 
What if the "pro" job (as we know it today) goes completely away?

My nephew designs the front page of a major newspaper in the midwest. He knows that traditional newspapers are going to go away (and with them, many of the paper-specific jobs), so he's constantly preparing for "what's next." Unfortunately, he's the only person in his company that seems to be doing this. My friends at the NBC affiliate here in town are thinking the same thing about news distribution, recognizing that the game is changing, every day. As much as they hate moving from FCP 6 (they missed the upgrade window), and as much as they hate FCP X, they see that the future of editing video won't be like the past. What's going to cut video that will be viewed (primarily) on iPhones or iPads? What if video news moved to that context 100%, and the television was only for longer form content? If that happens, has Apple "abandoned the Pro market," or just gone where the pro market is headed, a few years before the market catches up?

There are many who will argue that Avid and PP are superior tools ("better saws, better storage, better transportation"), and I've taken a fair number of shots for being a FCS guy, but I'm always watching for what jumps to the next curve. It may not be FCP X, but it's DEFINITELY not any of the competing products that are currently on the market, and not from any of those companies. Jumping the curve that way demands cutting with the past, and that's something that only Apple (for good or bad) or a brand new player, would be willing to do. - Tim

P.S. There's an iPad app that you can use as an interface surface for Color, so I've already seen some of what you sarcastically suggest. Yes, I'm ready to use an iPad screen as a touch interface for editing, as it means the tool beneath my fingers can adapt dynamically to the task that's in context (sort of like being able to change character sets on a touch-screen phone, instead of being constrained to the physical keys of older phones).
 
This was an insult to professionals, Apple costumers that relied on Apple for their livings, and were strong advocates of the Apple ecosystem.
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With all due respect, who cares?

I don't. Apple doesn't.

I never got a dime recommending Apple products to anyone. And I won't get a dime complaining about a company's business decision that I didn't agree with.

When you try to turn a company into a person, then you will be disappointed because you take it personally.

Because it's not. It's business.
 
Gary Huff said:
It still doesn't address the Apple evangelists who supposedly knew this was coming and still bashed all FCP competitors.
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That's called marketing. Again, and that's business hype. Apple isn't the only one. But NAB2011 was hype at its best

How about:

There are many reasons why VHS is vastly superior to DVD…–Adam Omelianchuk posting on 20 Times Around the Block.
 
TimTheFoolMan said:
It may not be FCP X, but it's DEFINITELY not any of the competing products that are currently on the market, and not from any of those companies. Jumping the curve that way demands cutting with the past, and that's something that only Apple (for good or bad) or a brand new player, would be willing to do. - Tim
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Have you tried any of the competing products? What does FCPX has that is an improvement over Premiere CS 5.5, for example? The "magnetic timeline" ? Is that a game changer? I don't think so. 64bit? Check. Native codec support? Check. Background rendering? Check. Prores or native professional grading codec? Uncheck- but this was true for FCP7 also.

I need some enlightment on what FCPX is truly revolutionary in for the professional. The ice analogy makes absolutely no sense here. Every single editor is "making ice."
 
TimTheFoolMan said:
It may not be FCP X, but it's DEFINITELY not any of the competing products that are currently on the market, and not from any of those companies. Jumping the curve that way demands cutting with the past, and that's something that only Apple (for good or bad) or a brand new player, would be willing to do. - Tim
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What makes Apple more qualified compared to Avid or Adobe to know where "pros" will be? Perhaps, Avid and Adobe will flop too, but I don't see what makes Apple special.
 
All of the competing products are about doing things basically the same way, but with variations to emphasize one aspect or another of the process. As I said, FCP X may not be what jumps the curve, but status quo products (which is pretty much everything in the "Pro" market) won't.

And yes, I've looked pretty seriously at Avid, mostly because of my buddies who won't stop going on and on about it. I've dabbled with PP, but the most telling argument in favor of my point is that all of my friends have said, "If you know FCP, you can move to _____ pretty easily." That tells me that the paradigm of ______ is similar, and that won't be part of a curve jump.

Every single editor is making ice... and delivering it to your house. They will keep delivering ice, even when the houses all have icemakers. I'd rather build icemakers than refine my ability to deliver ice. - Tim
 
David Saraceno said:
With all due respect, who cares?

I don't. Apple doesn't.

I never got a dime recommending Apple products to anyone. And I won't get a dime complaining about a company's business decision that I didn't agree with.

When you try to turn a company into a person, then you will be disappointed because you take it personally.

Because it's not. It's business.
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You're right, they don't. Until they see bad press, spoof videos of how their products are mediocre, and see opinion makers criticizing. Then they care. That's why they released the Faq. Its also not personal for me, David. Its business. My business relies on Apple products that untill recently were considered industry standard. Not anymore. And this means business strategy change, acquisitions change, learning new tools, migrating projects, etc. Which means time and big money. Something that could've been done differently if I knew how to "see the clear signs", but I never was very good at crosswords, and assumed investing in professional equipment from a company with the standard in editing software and hardware was a safe bet.
 
blackcat said:
What makes Apple more qualified compared to Avid or Adobe to know where "pros" will be? Perhaps, Avid and Adobe will flop too, but I don't see what makes Apple special.
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I think "cutting with the past" explains what makes them different from the others. It by no means guarantees success, but without that kind of move, jumping the curve won't happen. - Tim
 
Did they have to kill FCS3 in the process? Could they have not left it on the market for a little while longer?
 
Was killing off FCS3 a bonehead move? I think so. That doesn't mean the FCP X strategy moving forward is wrong... but it means it's definitely crippled. Since 2009, nothing's changed with FCS3 except a handful of security-related patches, so I don't get why they couldn't keep it on the shelf. - Tim
 
At the same time, as a software developer, I can imagine the issues for moving that suite (or even a single component of it) to 64-bit would be humongous. - Tim
 
I find myself agreeing with David. As I said a few pages ago, with some 85% of the app market for phones/tablets going to Apple, it simply makes financial sense for them to head that direction. It's where they are making money hand over fist.

I also don't think this is the end of the world. I remember when OSX came out (as in 10.0 "Cheetah") and how it was roundly criticized as being a clunky version of NeXT, removing many features in OS9 we all loved. Well, a few OS upgrades later the issues were fixed, and there's no way hardly anyone would ever go back, period. FCPX 3.0 could be the same way.

I have a feeling Apple is going to be okay with Jobs. Tim Cook is already running the day to day show quite well, and most everyone realizes in 2-3 years Jobs will retire to being some sort of consultant (or...). I think it could take a couple decades to derail what he got going.

As an aside, be happy, we could all be running Apple Lisa computers with John Sculley still in charge (though Spindler and Amelio were possibly worse). Speaking of, back in about 1984 a friend and I were on a long walk in the hills above Stanford I believe (he says Los Gatos). We got to the end of street and there was a gate, so we turned around. Up to the gate pulled a black Porsche 944 with a license plate that read Apple III, we couldn't see for certain through the window, but we were pretty sure the driver was Sculley.
 
TimTheFoolMan said:
I think "cutting with the past" explains what makes them different from the others. It by no means guarantees success, but without that kind of move, jumping the curve won't happen. - Tim
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I am reading Final Cut Pro X as Apple developing a prosumer market and possibly a new kind of "pro" who does more new media work, instead of heavy handed narrative or documentary. It is logical. FCPX also has some interesting features, but I am not so sure if it is really jumping the curve. There might be more people in the future who earn a living doing new media, but I don't know if Apple went about this in an intelligent way at all. People doing smaller work like to dream big. It isn't going to make them happy to work with a program that has a reputation of being less than catering to the best in production workflow. Even if they fix some of the issues themselves or with third party people, I wonder if FCPX might have a tarnished reputation now.
 
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