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Apple and the three letters PRO
This topic has been discussed before on various platforms, however I have a slightly different angle and hope to hear wise opinions from people here.
I am an Apple fan since I moved from windows in ’02, was happy ever after and never regretted migrating. The machines are more expensive but Total Cost Of Ownership turned out to be much in favor of the Apple Hardware it being much more long lived and less service intensive. For the last eight years OSX became a modern and very professional OS and a great many of professionals around me moved on the Mac platform because all mayor software manufacturers in video- audio and 3D ported their products on OSX, everything one can possible need was available on the 3rd party hardware-side, and everyone was happy: OSX was thriving and there was no need whatsoever to just spend a single thought on going back to the “Dark Side”.
Then Apple started to make some really strange decisions. It all started with removing FireWire from the unibody MacBook. Not too bad, one might think it’s not a PRO notebook and for the price it’s still great. Bad only for owners of DV camcorders or people with FW audio hardware. In the next generation the put FW800 in and everyone was happy again.
Then disaster struck: Apple removed the PC express slot from their PRO notebooks. Nobody I spoke with could come up with a logical reason for Apple doing so. Of course the 17” still has the Express-Slot, but that is not a notebook, but rather a portable desktop.
Without a xpress slot there is NO WAY to get professional video or audio into- and out of the system, which makes me ask, why these now very mediocre notebooks are still called “PRO”?! They are more or less useless for PRO Audio and Video.
Well – I though – maybe we’re in a transition state and USB 3.0 is coming, but then Apple does not put it in their newest release of notebooks! WHY? Every reasonable usable PC Notebook does have PCI express AND USB 3.0.
So Apple blew it with their current notebook line, but what about desktops? No USB 3.0 nor PCI express slots in the iMacs, just that useless SD Card Slot in every model. Honestly: who is using SD cards? Not one professional DSLR or videocamera uses SD cards. If you have a xpress slot, you can put in a reader for ANY card format you want and are not limited to SD cards.
Now the only option is to copy an 32GB XDCamEX SxS card or a 32GB CF card via USB, which takes about 6 times longer than with the Xpress Slot!
Ok, no more PRO in Apple Notebooks and Desktops, but what about TOWERS?
There are 6 and 8 core CPUS available from both INTEL and AMD, but where is the 12 or 16 core MacPro?!We don’t need 16 cores, because FCP does not support 16 cores, nor is it 64bit yet, you might say.
True, but why is that so? Even ADOBE managed make all the Apps in CS5 64 bit, and AVIDs MC 5.0 is 64 bit. One would expect FCP to be the FIRST software package to utilize Snow Leopard’s full power not the LAST.
The last FCP upgrade was more of an excuse than a real upgrade. Apples absence from all professional tradeshows like NAB and so forth does speak a clear language:
Apple – so it seems – has lost interest in it’s professional user-base and prefers to put all it’s energy into consumer-devices like the iphone and iPad
A hardware-vendor I know for a long time, has recently told me that Apple wants to trash FCP completely. He is not an Apple-insider, but in his position is able to turn away LOTS of potential FCP customers with remarks like that. Regardless if he’s right or not.
Apple’s secrecy with new product announcements might be in order for consumer-level devices, but not for professionals! We want roadmaps of where our PRO software is heading and if we can trust it to be here in a few years, too.
I have to invest in a new editing machine very soon, because of a big job I got and I am faced with the decision wether to stick with Apple and Final Cut, or go back to PC and upgrade my hibernating AVID license.
I cannot spend €6000+ on a new machine only to find out that Apple is discontinuing it’s editing software in a year’s time.
Sure, I could stick to Apple workstations and edit on AVID, but I am not even sure how long OSX will prevail.
On this years WWDC the DO NOT have an design-award for OSX software, so maybe they want to move away from all the OSX business as a whole ant put everything into iPhone OS.
There are even rumors of a iPhoneOS SDK for windows, which would only make sense for Apple to release, if they want to close down OSX and their computer branch and focus on OSX tough devices.
My heart would bleed, If I had to go back to Windows, but the PRO future of Apple looks dire.
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20 Replies
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That how rumors get started. No software company would abandon its users and they know they have millions. Apple may sell FCS to someone else but then again, that’s a rumor. Use the Provide Final Cut Pro Feedback feature in FCP.
Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Vice President
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group -
Same argument we hear again and again. Every point you make is one we have all heard before.
And it is bunk.
Apple is committed to the Pro Applications One doesn’t need to go to a trade show to prove this. The loss of the Express34 slot seems odd…and I agree they shouldn’t have done it. But something like 6% of the people who own laptops would even USE that slot, or know what it is. The other 94% don’t use it. SO they are catering to the to majority. And they have the slot for pro video people in the 17″ laptop…that is still a laptop. Sucks, but whatchagonnado?
And Avid MC5 isn’t going to be 64 bit.
Tired argument…If you don’t want to use FCP anymore, switch. NO one is stopping you.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Florian, has it ever occurred to you that not everyone who buys a Macbook Pro or Mac Pro tower runs Final Cut? There are probably a lot more people using these computers than there are FCP users, and for them FW ports & Express slots aren’t important.
Personally, I wonder why anyone would ever want to cut video on a 15″ laptop, I can’t even bear doing it on a 17″ laptop. Give me my twin 26″ monitors, please!
And there are many apps that run on Macs & use all 8 cores that aren’t FCP, and many people who run them.
IOW, there are people out there besides you & me who buy Macs, & Apple is making business decisions based on both FCP users & non FCP users.
Arnie
Post production is not an afterthought!
https://www.arniepix.com/ -
[Shane Ross] “Tired argument…If you don’t want to use FCP anymore, switch. NO one is stopping you.”
Somebody give this man an Amen. AMEN!
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” featuring Sigourney Weaver coming soon.
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[Arnie Schlissel] “There are probably a lot more people using these computers than there are FCP users, and for them FW ports & Express slots aren’t important.”
Not “probably,” it’s definitely. Apple claims 5.58 million computer sales in 2009 alone. My very unscientific guess is that less than 100,000 of those were to Final Cut Pro users. The rest to regular consumers and professionals and scientists who do things other than edit video.
Even if the number was 250,000 machines, that’s still a very small percentage of the overall sales.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” featuring Sigourney Weaver coming soon.
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and even if you do buy into FCP and Apple, and a year down the road Apple stops developing FCP..so what? Your copy will still run, it will still edit video as well as i does today.
Its probably close to a year since FCP had its last upgrade but that doesnt worry me, its working well and i have no doubt whatsoever that if i continue with it in its current state it will still be working perfectly well in another year.
Just because something is not the latest model it does not mean its broken!
adam
Adam Taylor
Video Editor/Audio Mixer/ Compositor/Motion GFX/Barista
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UKhttp://www.sculptedbliss.co.uk
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[adam taylor] “and even if you do buy into FCP and Apple, and a year down the road Apple stops developing FCP..so what?”
Right. It’s not a religion, it’s a tool. If Apple were to stop supporting FCP, there’s other editing platforms to move to. I just hope that they run on Mac OS!
Personally, I’m more worried about Mac Pro towers not having enough PCIe slots than 15″ MB Pros not having FW or an express card slot. That cuts across application boundaries.
Arnie
Post production is not an afterthought!
https://www.arniepix.com/ -
Something that I have noticed when watching television. In almost all of the shows that feature someone working a notebook, there is an Apple logo on it; and I know they are not sitting there editing.
Funny thing is, I would have thought at least one Dell logo….
SC
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With so many third party companies making hardware for FCP (AJA, Black-Magic Design, Matrox, Motu)…and they don’t seem to be showing signs of stopping supporting that platform, I highly doubt that Apple will FCP. It is going strong.
It is typical for software to leapfrog past each other. FCP surpassed Avid and Adobe not long ago, and now they surge ahead. FCP might came back with more amazing things, or it might not. It might not surge ahead with the next release, but it might. You never know. But STOP? Hardly. Apple makes a LOT of money selling computers for people to edit with FCP. IF they stopped FCP, then their hardware sales might decline. Especially with each version making older models “obsolete.” FCP 7 not working on G5s…etc.
I swear, it’s as if Adobe or Avid are planting these posts themselves, trying to make people think these rumors are true. The talking points are always the same.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
[Florian Gintenreiter] “Honestly: who is using SD cards? Not one professional DSLR or videocamera uses SD cards. “
Lots of people using adaptors for their ex1 and ex3’s. So many in fact that Sony is actually making their own adaptor for SD cards. The Sony NXCAM line of cameras. The JVC line of camera’s utilizing the EX codec use SD cards. The panasonic HMC-150 uses SD cards. The new Canon T2i DSLR uses SD cards and is quite a bit cheaper than the 7d for the same video quality.
I’m sure that’s not an exhaustive list and you can argue those aren’t pro cameras is if you feel like it. But that would just be trying to tell a multitude of people that they aren’t pros because of the equipment they use.
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