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Apple drops ProApps from corporate definition
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[David Mathis] “Curious to know why Motion has not been developed further. This program has a great potential but other than change in the color scheme of the interface with a slightly different location of tools, there has been a few things that could add to the value of the software, just not implemented as of yet.”
I think Ron Brinkman’s thoughts vis-a-vis Apple and Shake are relevant here:
https://digitalcomposting.wordpress.com/2011/06/28/x-vs-pro/
Particularly this idea:
“Apple isn’t about a few people in Hollywood having done something cool on a Mac (and then maybe allowing Apple to talk about it). No, Apple is about thousands and thousands of people having done something cool on their own Mac and then wanting to tell everyone about it themselves.”
Why would Apple develop Motion all that much further? It already does what thousands and thousands of people need to do something cool on their own Macs.
Why spend more effort the extra effort to develop for the needs of only a few?
(By the way, this is why you should be concerned about the disruption of developers of high-end software by mass-market vendors.)
[David Mathis] “It would be nice to have expressions for the power user base.”
Behaviors are deceptively powerful, especially when combined. Is there something specific you’re looking to do that you feel cannot be done? I’ll volunteer Simon to help you out!
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
“That’s the one thing they got right: easily the most successfully marketed software launch in company history.”
If you go by the saying that all publicity is good publicity you would be right but that idiom just isn’t true. Yes it was being talked about but the context was almost entirely negative and the software is tarnished by its terrible launch (and marketing of the launch) to this day.
I don’t see how you can all that successful. “Newsworthy” maybe. But that does not equate to successful marketing.
It would have been much better to have been totally transparent about its state of development from a marketing point of view. The result of failing to do so was to disenfranchise very loyal customers.
The only honest thing was Larry Jordan letting it slip that “the software is not ready for professional use” at the seminar. Nothing in the marketing material of equal honesty if I recall correctlyI wonder how many Premiere users switched in the year to two years since FCPX launched? Or to Avid. To many it was a knee jerk reaction. The professional community started thinking Apple had turned its back on them. Clearer more effective transparent marketing could have prevented that.
Then Adobe stepped in and offered half price to anybody moving over from FCP7. Now I think that WAS good marketing.
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[James Ewart] “I think the marketing was a total disaster.”
No, you think the product life cycle management of FCP 7 was a disaster. Things like withdrawing the previous version had nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing to do with marketing.
Let me say it again: marketing creates demand. There was a figurative line around the block for the launch of the FCPX. There is absolutely no standard on earth by which this is not marketing success.
The use of the word “success” has nothing to do with notoriety or controversy. It has to do with the word “marketing.” The goal was to get people to download the software. People did.
[James Ewart] “It would have been much better to have been totally transparent about its state of development from a marketing point of view.”
At the risk of raising old ghosts, Apple has never included transparency about anything as part of its marketing programs….
….but WAS transparent about is future exactly ONCE, in its first presentation of FCPX.
I’ll say it again: pre-release marketing creates demand. The end. Nothing more. That’s ALL it does. Did Apple have to beat the drum to get people to download the software once it was available? NO.
The nature of the software, and other Apple policies related to the release, as well as people’s response to it, have nothing whatsoever to do with marketing.
This isn’t a trivial distinction. This basic misunderstanding of the nature of marketing, and the fundamental nature of Apple re: transparency from the day it was founded, created entirely unnecessary friction in the early days of trying to make sense of all of this. People like Larry muddied the water so thoroughly that I wondered (and still do) if they did it on purpose. Otherwise, I’d be left with the conclusion that he, and they, simply don’t understand the basics of what words mean and how Apple has always worked. Or that they don’t care.
I may well have the lowest opinion of Apple of anyone anywhere in the COW, and it pains me to say anything nice about them — but they absolutely stuck the landing with the marketing of FCPX, the role of which was to drive downloads, and which it did in fact accomplish.
Did people download it? Yes. Did LOTS of people download it? Yes.
Success.
And for that matter, the marketing very specifically said that FCPX represented Apple’s future. Did FCPX in fact represent Apple’s future? Yes, absolutely and unequivocally.
The largest outrcy was, and is, the timing for which FCPX represented Apple’s exclusive present.
That’s not a marketing issue. CONCEIVABLY it’s a PR issue…
…but to approach this from the other direction, could any amount of marketing fix the issues that people had with the release? NO. The only changes would have been, a) a different product upon its arrival, b) the previous version not immediately departing.
Neither of which are marketing issues.
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[Walter Soyka] “(By the way, this is why you should be concerned about the disruption of developers of high-end software by mass-market vendors.)”
Very well said.
[Walter Soyka] “Behaviors are deceptively powerful, especially when combined. Is there something specific you’re looking to do that you feel cannot be done? I’ll volunteer Simon to help you out!”
Haha!
Of course, I’m always delighted to wade in on anything to do with Behaviors – they really are crazy powerful and can fill quite a few of the more obvious requirements of anyone using Expressions in other apps. In fact, they can sometimes make the equivalent expression-based solutions looked excessively convoluted.
But not always!
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com -
[Tim Wilson] “Bad, bad idea.”
Bad idea? Not really. What Millennial does not want free music?
It was simply, perhaps, the wrong demographic.
Beyoncé is a good one, but she has (old) Samsung ties, as does Mr Magna Carta, who also had his music voluntarily injected to Samsung phones to quite the privacy controversy.
https://www.theverge.com/2013/7/12/4517506/was-jay-zs-and-samsungs-magna-carta-a-sleazy-data-grab
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Your definition of success is fatally flawed in my opinion.
Getting people to ‘download software’ not fit for purpose is not successful marketing. One should not measure the success of a marketing campaign in such short term timescales.
If Ford launched a car and the marketing material resulted in loads and loads of sales but none of the cars were actually road legal would you call that successful because the marketing led to lots of short terms sales?
I wouldn’t.
Apple’s level of commitment to FCPX and the professional market is still pretty uncertain. That’s all down to poor communications and marketing.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Bad idea? Not really. What Millennial does not want free music?”
I don’t think the free part was the bad part. The bad part was how it was added to everyone’s account and then pushed to people’s devices (assuming the devices were setup for auto-download). It’s a glaring reminder that we, the users, do not control the devices that have become central to our first world lives and that’s the underlying cause of the uproar. Apple, Amazon, Google, etc., can add/remove content at will and even brick our devices but there’s an unwritten agreement, some sort of technological don’t ask/don’t tell, that was violated here. Don’t overtly control my device and I’ll pretended not to know that you can overtly control my device.
Give all iTunes users a link (or code) to get the album for free and everything would’ve gone swimmingly. By pushing unrequested content onto users’ Apple poke a hornets nest that is still buzzing over device and cloud security concerns. Just a really tone deaf move, IMO.
Would I be happy if Domino’s sent me a coupon for a free pizza? Yes. Would I be happy if the Domino’s guy snuck into my house without my knowledge and left a free pizza I didn’t ask for on my kitchen table? No.
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[Tim Wilson] “I may well have the lowest opinion of Apple of anyone anywhere in the COW, and it pains me to say anything nice about them”
I’ve worked in corporate marketing groups for a long time, so I completely agree with you Tim, the launch of FCPX was a success from a marketing standpoint. I’m curious to know though, what is it about Apple that you personally dislike? Totally understand if you don’t want to get into it here. 🙂
Shawn
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Bad idea? Not really. What Millennial does not want free music?”
Ha ha, I know a few. 🙂
Shawn
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[James Ewart] “If Ford launched a car and the marketing material resulted in loads and loads of sales but none of the cars were actually road legal would you call that successful because the marketing led to lots of short terms sales?”
Yes, absolutely! The resultant lawsuits are for ‘legal’ to sort out. If you can prove (as a marketing organization) that your campaign led to hitting a financial target, you will be lauded for your effort, and most likely rewarded for meeting or exceeding expectations for that quarter. Seriously, it doesn’t matter if the product is faulty or flawed in way, your task is to make sure that people; a. know about it, and b. buy it. Quality of product and design are not your concern.
Shawn
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