Apple and Adobe Software: Together

[Dennis Radeke]

Hi Robin,

You’re passionate about FCP X and that’s great.

The go to market models of Adobe and Apple are very different – Adobe with a subscription and Apple with the hardware dongle. Both have their merits, undoubtedly both have their detractors too.

[Robin S. Kurz] “Yes, well, if Apple were to pad their lists with such things as “Back button added”, “Preference to display the end of sequence indicator”, “Search Bins”, every little OpenCL optimization etc. etc.”

Well, the back button added to the Media Browser is an added functionality to a key feature differentiator to most NLE’s. Preference to display the end of sequence indicator is a customer requested feature and Search Bins is a major organization feature, so all have merit there. OpenCL optimizations are germane to the product and most importantly often add support for new and more powerful chipsets, so definitely important.

Are some features more important than others on the Premiere Pro list? Absolutely. However, how you stack rank the list is absolutely different than everyone else though, right? Eye of the beholder and all that?…

[Robin S. Kurz] “Yes, well, if Apple were to pad their lists with such things as “Back button added”, “Preference to display the end of sequence indicator”, “Search Bins”, every little OpenCL optimization etc. etc., I’m fairly sure their lists would be considerably longer also, yes.”

Again, eye of the beholder, but I think some would say that some “features” in almost everyone’s list are less impressive than others. For example, on the most current two releases you referred to, I see:
– Improves performance when loading text styles
– Motion Title templates with published text layout parameters now export correctly
– Addresses issues with timing on certain animated effects
– Fixes render errors that could occur when using reflective materials with 3D text
– Restores support for Panasonic AVCCAM video at 25p and 30p
– Fixes an issue that may cause Final Cut Pro to quit on launch

In fact, about half of the above are defined as bugs and not features, whereas the imperfect, non-Adobe wikipedia list truly lists features as far as I can tell.

My point is that I would very respectfully contend that for most professional folks in the community Premiere Pro has probably had more feature and workflow innovation over the last few years. Does that make it a better product in your eyes or anyone else’s? Absolutely not. Are we going to agree to disagree? Probably. There is a very competitive NLE marketplace and a number of very caring and passionate people to defend all points of view and products.

[Robin S. Kurz] “Of course they are. Whereby we’ll just ignore that those are all features that were added within the first six months of its development cycle.”

Yes, they were added back within the first six months. There’s an unsaid point here though.

[Robin S. Kurz] “Since, as we all know, X has absolutely nothing unique to show for in terms of features in comparison.”

You will never see or hear me say anything to that effect. I personally admire the organizational keywording features of FCPX and its background transcoding workflow is interesting.

I’ve maintained the idea (publicly) for about 20 years that every NLE has something unique and positive to offer.

As always with the threads, I will give you the last word and wish you continued success with your chosen tools.

Dennis – Adobe guy

[Andrew Kimery]

[John Rofrano] “So…

Cost to own FCP X for 4 years = $300.

Cost to own Adobe CC for 4 years = $2,400.

Savings of $2,100 … Priceless! :-D”

[Bill Davis] “And it’s kinda hard to see how choosing what is in the subscription package would have earned me one extra dime toward the difference in the same period. YMMV.”

To riff on this, return on investment is probably a better barometer to go by that just price. For example, there is currently little-to-no FCP X work in my corner of the world, but there is a growing amount of PPro work, so even though Adobe CC is more expensive than X it’s also significantly more lucrative for my situation.

So even though

[Robin S. kurz]

[Dennis Radeke] “and Apple with the hardware dongle”

Well, Dennis, tell me: exactly which software doesn’t have one of your “hardware dongles”, meaning nothing other than needing a computer? Or are you saying PPro runs on Linux now? No? Then, by that logic, it has one, too. It’s just a stitch more flexible?

And we’ll just conveniently forget that Premiere itself existed exclusively on the Mac for a very long time (along with every other Adobe product), then didn’t exist on the Mac AT ALL for another extended period of time.

So… is someone duplicitously calling the kettle black? Well, if you ask me…

[Dennis Radeke] “is a customer requested feature “

Right. Because, as your explicit double emphasis is clearly meant to suggest, there have never been any new features or functions added to X just because users asked for them, only to PPro? Nor have Apple ever worked directly with users to improve X by request, only Adobe? The built-in menu point in almost every Apple app leading directly to a feedback page is of course also just ruse, too. They, unlike Adobe and everyone else, are the evil overlord dictators working in a vacuum? :-)))

[Dennis Radeke] “Again, eye of the beholder…”

Okay. In which case, again, do explain which of the “200 items” you were able to “casually add up”, did your “not includ[ing] all of the small features”-eye behold “just counting from CC”, if not those I listed? Of course 187 minus anything makes for even less than 200 either way.

[Dennis Radeke] “There’s an unsaid point here though.”

Oh? That being?

[Dennis Radeke] “[Robin S. Kurz] “Since, as we all know, X has absolutely nothing unique to show for in terms of features in comparison.”

You will never see or hear me say anything to that effect.”

Oh, okay. Then I guess I completely misinterpreted what…
“the ‘features’ (in quotes of course… how could I have misunderstood what that suggests?? Weird.) that some folks talk about […] were things being added back that were in the previous iteration”
… was meant to imply. Not the “nothin’ special to see here, just the same ol’ same ol’ as 7” that I thought. My bad. Clearly.

Oh, and I’m just curious by the way: how much actual editing do you do or have you done, Dennis? And how much of that was or is ever done with X? Just so I know what we’re talking about here and don’t accidentally make any further false accusations or silly assumptions.

– RK

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