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3.5 year old blog post still relevant
In June of 2011 Ron Brinkmann, co-founder of Nothing Real (which made Shake and was bought by Apple) wrote a piece on his blog about X and Apple and it reads like it could have been written yesterday.
All of the points have been brought up here at some time or another but it’s still interesting to get a matter-of-fact perspective from someone that has had Ron’s experience.
Below are a few of my favorite bits from his post called, “X vs Pro”
-Apple being focused on the broad middle and not really interested in catering to high-end, niche sectors (much more work for much less revenue).
-Jobs telling the Shake team (and some of Shake’s biggest customers) that Shake development is no longer going to be driven by customer feedback. Color always seemed like an odd choice to me because it felt like the Shake experience all over again (Final Cut Server too).
-Products/features that look good in demos are typically an easier sell to management so mundane sounding feature (even if useful) get the back burner. Doesn’t sound unusual for large companies and the freedom to not always focus on ‘gee whiz’ features is something I’ve from multiple Adobe employees when talking about the upside to CC.
-Ultimately Apple still makes very good products but it’s up to the individual to determine if Apple still makes the right products for them.
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46 Replies
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Thanks for posting that, I didn’t read it the first time round, it does sum things up perfectly.
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Ultimately I think the post-Jobs era may benefit the FCP dev team. Jobs emphasis on surprise and his seeming bristling at specialized workflows may not have been to ProApps benefit.
Certainly we’ve seen FCP X development focus over the last 4 years focus almost exclusively on workflow and higher-end functionality- the very definition of “not sexy”. I can’t think of a single major feature added to FCP X since it’s introduction where the emphasis was placed on “auto this” or “template that”. Even though there have been loads templates added to FCPX, they get no documentation in release notes.
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[Andrew Kimery] “-Apple being focused on the broad middle and not really interested in catering to high-end, niche sectors “
As I said when X first came out. Having a workflow that handles the top end cameras like RED and others is a niche sector itself.
Most people are not using RED across the board and if you are working on projects with cameras like that you are working on high end stuff almost by definition.
He must be talking about the niche of the niche : )
2011? Was that around the time when folks were saying that Apple wasn’t going to make a new Mac Pro?
I think that’s high end. Most people can’t afford that product. I know very few people personally that own one of those including myself. Hopefully by this summer.From the post I see I don’t think most people on here have one.
I’m more concerned with Apple keeping up the quality standards.
As much as I like X, it’s a little bit buggier than I would like it to be. Then again, I don’t have a new Mac Pro to run it on ; p
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Eternal optimist here.
I think that Apple is shedding the Pro Vs Consumer attitude and letting the market build what they want, and they have put their money where their developing mouth is.
In order to do that, they aren’t going to build a “Pro” OS and and “Lite” OS, and a “Home Office” suite, and an “Enterprise” suite, and a “Student” suite, and a “Small Business Mobile Home Office” suite. They are just going to build a robust OS so you, as developer, can hang what you want off of it.
I think the way Apple sees it, call it the broad middle or whatever, everyone needs image editing capabilities, everyone needs video editing, everyone needs a camera. At this time, not everyone needs a nodal compositor, but feel free to subscribe to one.
As far as X is concerned, Apple has also put in direct professional features, even inventing a new interchange language. As Marcus suggests, Apple has brought unsexy back. JT is going to be pissed.
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[tony west] “As I said when X first came out. Having a workflow that handles the top end cameras like RED and others is a niche sector itself.”
Not catering to doesn’t mean ignoring. IMO, if Apple was catering to the high-end when making X they would’ve sat down with people like Walter Murch and Mark Raudonis during the early stages of development and been like, “Hey, we are remaking FCP and want to do the best we can to meet the needs of the high-end film and TV community from day 1. What is your feature wish list?” That’s catering to me and that certainly didn’t happen. 😉
I didn’t think FCP X 10.0.0 supported RED but that’s neither here nor there. And at least in LA, RED cameras are so easy to get that it’s common for no-budget short films on Craigslist to be shot with them and looking for finishing in 4k (but that’s a rant for another day). More the exception that proves the rule, I guess.
[tony west] “From the post I see I don’t think most people on here have one.”
Maybe that’s because people are unsure if Apple’s version of a pro tower jives with what they need/want out of a pro tower? Our of curiosity if Apple kept the same form factor (expansion slots, user replaceable GPUs, etc.,) do you think nMP adoption would be better, worse or about the same as it is now?
I was holding out for a new Mac Pro but now I’m giving serious consideration to a Windows PC (haven’t bought a PC since around ’99). My main tools are cross platform (FCP 7 runs fine on my existing MP and X is still a non-starter for me) so the only thing keeping me Mac is my preference for Mac OS and my investment in the ecosystem, but how much that preference is worth when it comes down to has yet to be determined.
At the very least I want to wait until Apple fixes the nMP GPU issues but lord knows when that will be (or when new, new Mac Pros will be released). Every year (obviously not)? Every two years? Every three? Is there any weight to the recent rumor of Apple ditching Intel and going with ARM chips in house so they direct control of CPU development? Probably not, but are these things I want to worry about when I’m about to drop a big chunk of change on a new tower?
Both the nMP and X jive with Ron’s story about Jobs and the change in Shake development. You’ll get what Apple gives you. Maybe it meshes with your workflow, maybe it doesn’t. No value judgement, just the reality of the situation, and it’s been like that for a long time.
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[Andrew Kimery] “At the very least I want to wait until Apple fixes the nMP GPU issues but lord knows when that will be”
So you don’t have one, but you’re experiencing problems?
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[Andrew Kimery] ” if Apple was catering to the high-end when making X they would’ve sat down with people like Walter Murch and Mark Raudonis during the early stages of development “
Maybe, but they still ended having somebody make Focus without talking to either one of those people.
I know they had guys shooting with the Alexa in their very first spot on the site. That’s a top end camera.
Was then and is now.RED a cheap camera now? I would be interested to know what kind of cameras people on here own.
[Andrew Kimery] “Maybe that’s because people are unsure if Apple’s version of a pro tower jives with what they need/want out of a pro tower? “
Maybe for those people but what about people who want a Mac Pro?
Why haven’t THEY bought one yet?
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[Jeremy Garchow] “So you don’t have one, but you’re experiencing problems?”
I don’t own one but a co-worker has experienced problems with his on a gig we were both on, and there have been posts from PPro and Resolve users about problems with theirs. Some problems were fixed with the last 10.9 update but not all. Interesting thing is that people have reported booting into Windows on their nMP and the problem goes away so it seems like a driver issue on the Mac side of things.
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Huh.
Haven’t seen any problems here. I miss my tubes when I am forced to work away from them.
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[tony west] “RED a cheap camera now? I would be interested to know what kind of cameras people on here own.”
Not sure you’ll find a ton of Red owners on a forum mostly dedicated to post… but I’ve certainly seen and been asked to work on low to no budget projects shot on Red. I know one or two Red operators who will come out for less than $1,000.00 a day (it was twice that a few years ago). I know it’s not exactly a DSLR rate, but it’s not like hiring an Alexa operator either. Maybe some markets are just tighter right now?
Shawn
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