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Pro apps, FCPx and Apple priorities. Now You get it?
Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2011 third quarter ended June 25, 2011. The Company posted record quarterly revenue of $28.57 billion and record quarterly net profit of $7.31 billion, or $7.79 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $15.70 billion and net quarterly profit of $3.25 billion, or $3.51 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. “We’re thrilled to deliver our best quarter ever, with revenue up 82 percent and profits up 125 percent,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Right now, we’re very focused and excited about bringing iOS 5 and iCloud to our users this fall.”
Sony PMW-EX3, Canon Mark II 5D, FCS3 in Moscow
http://www.mokaeff.com -
81 Replies
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I don’t get your implication Everest. What exactly are we supposed to infer from this? And, how exactly does your concept apply, given Apple’s reveal of this product in Vegas at the world’s largest gathering of broadcast professionals?
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.comDon’t miss my new tutorial: Prepare for a seamless transition to FCP X and OS X Lion
https://library.creativecow.net/weiss_roth_david/FCP-10-MAC-Lion/1POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums.
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In other news, nobody should take Sony’s broadcast and digital cinema cameras seriously, because look at how many PlayStations they sell!
Seriously, this argument has always been silly, and for some reason the same sort of thinking never gets applied to other companies. Apple just released a huge OS X update, a new 27″ Thunderbolt display (that’s for soccer moms, right?), and updated half of the Mac model line-up, and people can’t give this a rest for a few hours?
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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I didn’t mean to be vague on purpose. There were lots of theories proposed as to whom Apple were supposed to be loyal to. People were upset because they thought since they were there on the very beginning Apple ought to be more attentive to their wishes. Press release shows that Apple owes you, final cut editors and others pro application users, nothing. It’s all about big money, not how many fcp editors were nominated for Oscars(tm).
Sony PMW-EX3, Canon Mark II 5D, FCS3 in Moscow
http://www.mokaeff.com -
We don’t have any reason to give it a rest. I think the point that Everest is trying to make is that Apple has not done anything positive for the professional end of things in the past year, and are doing just fine. Many asked how Apple’s stock was going to be affected by their rollout blunder (most people can agree that the rollout was clumsy, despite how they feel about the software). Obviously, they weren’t hurt at all by it, so there is absolutely no incentive to respond to the criticism.
I don’t think the Sony (or even Microsoft) comparison is valid. Apple is a much smaller company than Sony when it comes to personnel. They often make conscious choices to divest resources from one product to another, rather than doing a mass expansion or mass hiring. Perhaps this will change with the new campus, it’s hard to say.
Regarding Apple’s choice to have the NAB event, I think it was precisely because they knew their new product was not ready for the pro market. My viewpoint is cynical for sure, but I also believe it is accurate. By announcing this new product at NAB, and giving it the FCP name, it bought itself instant credibility. Apple used the power of the FCP brand, to cloutify (I made up a word) a product of questionable professional value. It’s kinda be like announcing a new 3-cylindar Corvette at the Daytona 500.
Perhaps I am being too cynical (though I’ve been pretty good at predicting these things), but I think that anyone who believes that Apple is going continue supporting the professional apps is being naive. I think that rather, they are going to redefine what a professional is, by lowering the bar significantly.
Professor, Producer, Editor
and former Apple Employee -
[Everest Mokaeff] “Press release shows that Apple owes you, final cut editors and others pro application users, nothing. It’s all about big money, not how many fcp editors were nominated for Oscars(tm).”
Honestly Everest, that’s like looking at a pancake with a vague outline of a human figure and declaring that it’s an image of Jesus. Your interpretation doesn’t fly for me.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.comDon’t miss my new tutorial: Prepare for a seamless transition to FCP X and OS X Lion
https://library.creativecow.net/weiss_roth_david/FCP-10-MAC-Lion/1POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums.
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[Chris Jacek] “Apple has not done anything positive for the professional end of things in the past year”
Thunderbolt is for consumers?
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[Chris Jacek] “I think it was precisely because they knew their new product was not ready for the pro market. My viewpoint is cynical for sure, but I also believe it is accurate. By announcing this new product at NAB, and giving it the FCP name, it bought itself instant credibility. Apple used the power of the FCP brand, to cloutify (I made up a word) a product of questionable professional value.”
And this seems like a strategy to market to consumers and prosumers?
I know Apple has serious marketing problems with FCPX but if they were genuinely abandoning pros for prosumers and consumers, this wouldn’t be the marketing approach they’d even bother to attempt.Regardless of the flaws, Apple intends this to be a “Professional” product although their definition of Professional may not match that of some others.
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[Craig Seeman] “I know Apple has serious marketing problems with FCPX but if they were genuinely abandoning pros for prosumers and consumers, this wouldn’t be the marketing approach they’d even bother to attempt.”
I’m not sure I agree with this. If you humor me for a moment: Assume that Apple WAS looking to greatly expand the prosumer market, without little or no regard for industry pros. Wouldn’t the employ a strategy similar or exactly like they are currently doing? Label it as pro, and keep shouting about how awesome and revolutionary it is. If you want to attract the hobbyist/student who aspires to do it like the pros do, this is the exact marketing strategy you would want. You leverage the fact that the FCP name is the industry standard, and them co-opt the name for your new prosumer-targeted product. It’s manipulative and also brilliant.
Professor, Producer, Editor
and former Apple Employee -
Apple could dump the remaining “pro apps and tell every pro users they never want to see you again and stop buying our stuff and they would never miss us! Look at the quarterly report – they’ve done everything right as a high tech company! They sold almost 4 million Mac’s in the quarter and grossed over $28 billion!
In the last quarter of 2002 – before the iPod/iPhone/iPad, when they were still Apple Computer and they couldn’t survive without us: they sold 734 thousand Macs for the quarter and posted a net loss of $45 million lol! Total annual revenue was $5.7 billion – that’s for the YEAR!
On a positive note – I think FCPX has to get better because Apple now has a much larger audience than ever before and those new converts expect great things from Apple!
Lance Bachelder
Writer, Editor, Director
Irvine, California -
[Craig Seeman] “Thunderbolt is for consumers?”
I think you can argue that it is. It is a one-size-fits-all connector that allows you to connect a drive, monitor, and crock pot to a single port. It’s very iMac when you think about it. It also is the exact kind of connector you might want in a tablet with limited space for ports. Wouldn’t it be perfect for connecting an iPad HD to a 50 inch flat panel? AppleTV could stop being a set top box, and actual take the form of an App for your iPad.
Professor, Producer, Editor
and former Apple Employee
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