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Apple gives up another network client
SNL picks Adobe Premiere to replace FCP
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172 Replies
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AND, this is a fantastic read. What a crazy schedule…only thing the guy left out is how much he makes for that insane schedule.
Hopefully more than a credit.
Got me thinking more about Premier however…but I need (ok want) Apple hardware to run it on…6 systems GigE Ethernet all connected, all sharing all happy. Like I have now.
Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media Inc.
Video Production, Post, Studio Sound Stage
Founder/President/Editor/Designer/Animator
https://www.tiltmedia.com -
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I think the subject title is backwards. Should be: “Another Network Give Up On Apple” – I don’t believe it bothers Apple one bit that these shorts are now being edited on something other than Final Cut. One quick look in the iTunes store has a lot of SNL content for sale to the masses for a 30% equity stake. And while these stories may influence others to move from Final Cut – if I was offered either 30% of the content on iTunes being offered regardless of NLE system being used, or all the revenue from Final Cut Pro sales, I would go for the former.
I have always felt that once Apple got into distribution, its interested in FCP started to wane. And now it allows them to go for volume sales with FCPx on their own time and schedule, and are still making more revenue than ever with that compared to FCP7 with a lot less of the service and support expected by the higher end pro markets.
There are various blogs on number of app sales to make the top 10 lists on iTunes – most of them have at or more than 10,000 per day. And while actual total number of FCP customers over a 10 year span is hotly debated, assuming ~2.5M renewing customers, brings sales to ~685 per day average.
Now my numbers and perhaps math may all be wrong, but even if they are someone right – Apple did the right thing for the business they want to be in (making a lot of money).
Michael
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The point wasn’t about Apple’s massive profits selling othe people’s stuff on iTunes. It was about taking a decade of customer good will and loyalty and tossing it in the trash and creating a product that can no longer meet the needs of a large part of an industry
Andy Field
FieldVision Productions
N. Bethesda, Maryland 20852 -
[Andy Field] “The point wasn’t about Apple’s massive profits selling othe people’s stuff on iTunes. It was about taking a decade of customer good will and loyalty and tossing it in the trash and creating a product that can no longer meet the needs of a large part of an industry”
But there’s the problem. To many people – one year one – won’t look at FCP X because they are still pissed at Apple for not making FCP 8. What your really saying is “Thanks Apple for not giving us a low cost edit option” which is basically what FCP did otherwise we’d still be dealing with Avid costs ££££’s
As I was trying to explain to someone the other day. Whilst everyone might not like FCP X lets at least give them kudos for saying “what if”.
Michael Sanders
London Based DP/Editor -
I am not arguing that point either – there are plenty of public companies that end of life products that are near and dear to some targeted group of any market. Apple is not alone – Avid has done it on many products, Autodesk as well as others, and many went out of business – they have either been eliminated, morphed or integrated into other solutions for whatever “fiscal” reasons determined by the company. And while “the industry” may seem large to those in “the industry” it pales in comparison to the size of any consumer market proving to pay a premium for a brand. The NLE portion of the “the industry” is even smaller. A lot of the market sizing I have seen has most of its growth in storage and asset management.
So while I understand your point, I am just saying that regardless of what anyone thinks about their product planning, Apple can afford not to care.
They still have an NLE, and they can continue development on that product in any direction they choose – most likely the most profitable based on ROI. But if they ever felt compelled to be in higher end post/broadcast space again, $100B will either buy a solution (as they did with FCP) or scale development on what they own quickly enough.
Professional NLE owners are fickle and demanding. The upgrade to later versions is not as high as most people think – Now due to support, development and related issues, a new OS (by the same company) would prompt up an upgrade as an older version was no longer supported. Now one can choose not to upgrade the OS, but there were enough other compelling features in the OS to move up. There was an interesting article on how the iOS 6 Maps and iPhone 5 connector did not affect sales of either one overall. I am sure the upgrade revenue numbers are far higher on those two products than all of the FCP numbers including the Apple hardware they were used on.
And I feel for all those that based their workflow, infrastructure, etc. on such a product. It was/is a great versatile tool that made its way into more productions than one can imagine. But I often wondered how well it would have done had it been its own company responsible for its own P&L based on the price of the product itself without the additional halo effect revenue it generated in hardware, OS, monitor sales, etc. But that halo effect is applied to FCPx with much larger total addressable market.
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I’m a big FCPX supporter, and have been using the software primarily now since March.
That said, I don’t begrudge any company for moving to another platform. The simple fact is that FCPX is not yet ready for every workflow. Companies have to produce work, and you can’t wait for the software/hardware to be ready. You have to go with the option that fits your needs.
We’re going to keep seeing these articles for a little while longer, but I don’t think this will last. I personally don’t believe that Apple has any intention of abandoning the upper tier broadcast/film market long-term. Every update to FCPX brings back more of the features that are necessary for those markets.
What we have here is a unfortunate alignment of transitions in 2 product cycles. On the hardware side, we’re waiting for whatever the MacPro replacement is going to be in 2013. On the software side, Apple decided to completely re-write FCP and ruffled a lot of feathers. It really too bad they’re both happening a the same time because the backlash from one is just adding fuel to the fire about complaints on the other.
FCPX continues to reintegrate (and IMHO improve) legacy features. New Pro hardware next year. If AFTER Apple’s cards are on the table anyone wants to make claims about who their products are meant for, then be my guest.
Finally, and I can’t say it enough, FCPX was an unmitigated marketing disaster. A one year open beta program, with a clear timeline for transition, would have made FCPX more of an exciting future prospect, rather than the scary/disappointing/incomplete product is was at launch. Apple is STILL not brining it’s A game to this problem, and they need to. Otherwise, the perception of FCPX’s failings are going to linger long after it addresses them technically.
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Some people can’t see beyond the present.
While I too may not be able to predict the future reliably, FCPX is only about 16 months old and it’s developing fairly quickly and the feature sets announced for the nearing update aren’t all “consumer.”
It’s creeping into more broadcast work. In a few cases large scale in many more instances a case by case bases. You don’t hear about them because the backlash has been so negative that they feel they’re rather stay out of it. -
[Andy Field] “It was about taking a decade of customer good will and loyalty and tossing it in the trash and creating a product that can no longer meet the needs of a large part of an industry”
Is it incapable of meeting the needs or do some just not like HOW it goes about getting
from A to B?Is it style or substance?
In the article he talked about how much of his work was with After Effects.
“The turning point, says Epstein, came when Apple released Final Cut Pro X. “We thought, ‘Well, this just isn’t going to work at all.’ So much of what I do is After Effects-specific, so when CS5.5 came along with Dynamic Linking”
That tie in would have been there weather Apple made X or not?
Someone will post an article about moving to PPr6
Then an article like Craig’s X in action.back and forth back and forth.
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Well said Marcus.
Personally I can’t emphasize enough how generally unprofitable the “TV Broadcast/Feature Film” niche is for the NLE market. The number of $2500 or $1500 sales probably can’t even sustain the R&D if the developers were primarily dependent on that niche. Avid is primarily a hardware company. Adobe changed its business model to subscription which gives them a sustained cash flow.
When you consider how many keep old version alive rather than upgrade, the revenue model in grown and upgrades may extend the lack of sustainability. Adobe addressed that with subscriptions which means the upgrades are now paid for across the board and if you cancel the subscription you lose use of the software altogether.
Apple is building a new post eco system with FCPX and it will take a bit longer before the feature set is there for some professional niches. Ironically there are many who fault the reliance on third party apps but, as Apple has learned through its other mass products, the eco system is key. Have a product that many developers see revenue stream opportunities is going to expand that. Admittedly Apple still has a lot of improvements to make with API and related for plugin development as well as with XML but I can’t help but think these are under the hood focuses.
Basically it’ll be very attractive to develop for FCPX given the high sales numbers. Over time both the FCPX feature set and third party support will make it competitive. Just as many professional After Effects users had Premiere sitting on the their systems, there’s likely a large number of facilities with dormant copies of FCPX that will be revisited as updates and third party support add professional tool sets. The key to Apple’s profit though, will be the push to newer hardware to run it on.
Personally I think there was no interim MacPro update of note because Apple wants to flush out old systems with the newly designed MacPro replacements next year. It would almost be that FCPX as it currently is, is just the prelude to where FCPX and the MacPro replacement will be when the time comes.
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