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Apple gives up another network client
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[Craig Seeman] “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.”
Funny, I don’t recall you saying this last year when the non-release of the all but certain “new” macpro never materialized. I seem to recall you as being one of the “anyone who thinks there won’t be an upgrade is a fool” crowd. Oh, but wait, now we’re supposed to believe in next year’s MacPro – which will probably be the iphone6.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
I think there’s a big analogy to be made with AE. While AE is capable on it’s own to do lots of work- it’s real strength in market is the verbose plug-in support which allows it to expand into areas that aren’t necessarily worthwhile for Adobe to build-in to the software.
If Apple can create a solid foundation in FCPX that 3rd parties can build on, then everyone’s needs are met without having the software bloat (and cost) of a features you don’t use in your specific workflow.
And while I know that using a 3rd party plug-in for importing FCP7 projects into X might seem a real user deficiency, just ask anyone who has had a problem with translating their projects using 7toX how fast Philip and Intelligent Assistance can react and get a new build out to the appStore. If this was built in functionality, then those same users would have been waiting on average 3 months for improvements to come with FCPX’s updates.
On the MacPro side. Someone can correct me if I’m mistaken, but after looking at Intel’s Xeon website- how was anyone expecting a new MacPro to integrate USB3 and TB; since those technologies aren’t embedded into the chip. Seemingly this is why it took until IvyBridge for the laptops to get USB3, since it was the first chipset with support built in. So if that’s the case, then it wont’ be until the next Xeon (Hasslebridge?) that we’ll see that, which should line up with a late ’13 launch of the MacPro replacement, AND the feasibility of producing 27″ Retina screens in volume. It seems to me they decided to take the short term hit and wait until they could make a big splash next year. Rather than providing a confusing no USB3/Thunderbolt update as an interim step toward the real relaunch of the product in whatever form it’s going to take next year.
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[Herb Sevush] “Funny, I don’t recall you saying this last year when the non-release of the all but certain “new” macpro never materialized.”
I did but I’m not about to search through the threads to prove it. I posted extensively on how I thought Apple was flushing old systems given that people tend to hold on to MacPros 3-6 years.
[Herb Sevush] “I seem to recall you as being one of the “anyone who thinks there won’t be an upgrade is a fool” crowd.”
That’s still true. There will be an upgrade and it will be a “beast.” I suspect it will have limited internal expansion.
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[Craig Seeman] “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.”
That’s actually where I’m at right now. I know there are a lot of folks, like me actually, who are generally interested in, or are using FCP X in broadcast/theatrical contexts. We like it, we know there are still some issues that need to be addressed, and we believe they will be. I mean, I like it enough to have written a little article here, and I waded into the forums to try to explain what I like about it. And I totally get that there are some workflows for which FCP X isn’t suited to yet. Hell, I’m still not convinced that it’s 100% ready for our workflow, but… I believe it will be.
After a while though, reading all the “Apple has abandoned us!” laments, and the “it’s not a pro app!”, “It’s dumbed down!”, “it has no tracks!”, “Another FCP user switched to Premier!” posts and comments gets old. Apple clearly screwed up on the release of X big time. And honestly the 1.0 version pretty much sucked. But that’s the past. The current version does not suck at all. In the present, I can cut stuff, get it approved, and send AAF audio (nicely split out and trimmed for me by software) and EDL’s out to finish. It works. Not perfectly, but it’s gets better every time there’s an Apple or 3rd party update, which is fairly often. There are a handful of things I miss from FCP 7. But despite it’s imperfections, there are way more things about X that I discover on a day to day basis which are, to me, way better than 7, or Pr, or MC. It makes my job, editing, easier.
So I’m just working, and I’ll stay out of the arguments for a while. Though, to swing this back on topic… Seems like the SNL folks would have switched even if X hadn’t come out. The whole back and forth to AE shuffle had nothing to with FCP X. If you’re gonna spend all that time in AE, why not switch? Makes perfect sense for them to do so.
IMO, the part of the article that reads: “The turning point, says Epstein, came when Apple released Final Cut Pro X… this just isn’t going to work…” is kind of a red herring don’t you think? FCP X would have worked just like 7… at least as far as AE is concerned. The article could just as easily have read “The turning point, says Epstein, came when CS5.5 came along with Dynamic Linking” Would have been a little more accurate that way 😉
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~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
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[Charlie Austin] “The whole back and forth to AE shuffle had nothing to with FCP X. If you’re gonna spend all that time in AE, why not switch? “
Inertia, training costs, PPro still lacking in a number of area’s compared to legacy – it is quite obvious that had Apple continued development of FCP 7 they would NOT have switched; the switch came around because Apple decided to knock the ground out beneath them, and once they realized they would have to make a total change in their editing environment not matter which way they went then PPro / AE with dynamic link made the most sense.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Herb Sevush] ” and once they realized they would have to make a total change in their editing environment not matter which way they went then PPro / AE with dynamic link made the most sense.”
Fair enough, though in my opinion using FCP X is not a total change in the editing environment. I realize there is some disagreement on this point… 😉
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~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
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[Sorry for the long post, even by my standards. But hey, it’s a Saturday. Drink an adult beverage. Enjoy.]
[Herb Sevush] “…once they realized they would have to make a total change in their editing environment not matter which way they went then PPro / AE with dynamic link made the most sense.”
I don’t agree at all. FCPX merely provided an opportunity for them to see that FCP 7 had not been the best choice for them for a while now, and in some ways, NEVER was.
SNL’s original impetus in choosing FCP was that it supported HD on a Mac before Avid did. Dan Dome was the architect of this, and wrote an article for us about it. If Avid had HD on Mac when SNL was ready to HD, they would very likely have stuck with Avid.
It turns out that Dan took his experience and skills to the Tonight Show with Conan, and then to Conan’s new show, where they famously made the move to Premiere before SNL did, and for exactly the same reason SNL did: After Effects integration. Premiere would probably have been a better choice when SNL first chose FCP, and DEFINITELY since CS 5.5.
It’s simple math. Especially for high-speed turnaround short form, there’s a direct correlation between the importance of After Effects and the likelihood that you NEED to be using Premiere Pro. It was insanity that they weren’t already doing this.
All Apple did was provide the opportunity for them to see it.
I think that’s the big revelation of the past 18 months for a lot of people, that FCP may NEVER have been their best choice, EVER.
Or if it ever was, the fork in the road (using the example above, CS 5.5) may have come a while ago. This is nothing more than course correction, even if getting on course carries difficult workflow and emotional transitions between here and there, and never overcomes the feeling of loss.
With no downside for Apple. Apple got paid when the SNL guys (and you and you and you) downloaded FCPX, and the SNL guys (like you and you and you) remain adamant that they’ll only consider options on Macs. Which means that Apple got paid $295 and didn’t lose a customer. They won.
Look, Apple has made torching its customer base a foundation of its business model: we’re willing to lose every single current customer to get all the future ones. It started with Macintosh, and it works. You love Apple’s ruthless commitment to its vision for every other product you own. It just might not be working for you this time.
But for millions of others, it just might be. To Charlie and Craig’s points a few posts earlier, outside this forum, the “Apple doesn’t care about pros” meme is largely played out. The second most popular forum at the COW is the FCPX TECHNIQUES forum, and while not 100% Kumbaya, is mostly focused on getting actual work done — not sk8rboi videos, but the same kind of professional work that the COW was founded on.
Even in this forum, the positive perspectives (whether “it’s working” or “it’s not there yet, but there are things about it that look interesting”) now outweigh the negatives by quite a long shot.
The thing is, I guarantee that a bunch of razor-sharp children making more than you or me ever will have a bunch of spreadsheets. They carefully, and I’ll bet accurately, predicted the outcomes of launching FCP “in this state,” including:
–Nothing. Some people have been led to believe that there’s nothing for them in FCPX “in this state.” (There’s another spreadsheet that predicts what features will make them go ahead and download when FCPX reaches “that” state.)
–People download and love it.
–People download it and hate it enough to choose another Mac NLE.
–People download it and hate it enough to leave Mac altogether….but they’re not going to give up their iPhones or iPads, so we’ll keep getting their app money until the sun goes nova.There’s a theoretical slice that indicates people who hate FCPX enough to throw away their iphones, but seriously man….
This NEXT one is what I guarantee was the largest slice of the Keynote pie chart:
–Hating it for now, or at least not liking it…and publicly freaking out about it because that’s what people do…but waiting to make an actual move to another NLE to see what Apple brings in the next version or two, because Apple fans do. They would rather stay with Apple no matter what, and have confidence that Apple will figure this out.
Apple not only gambled that this was the biggest slice of the pie, but they made unprecedented moves to ensure it, including direct outreach to customers, and crisp statements explicitly acknowledging what you were expecting and wasn’t going to be there, and indicating when those things would be added.
None of this ever happened before. By itself it indicates that Apple DOES care about this market — but as always with Apple, they care about this market as Apple WANTS the market to be, not what it is right now. Apple plays a long game.
But do you see the pattern here? EVERYBODY PAYS APPLE EVENTUALLY. A LOT. Even if they leave Mac.
So what happens if you download FCPX again in 2 years because you’re hearing good things? That would be about the right timeframe — FCP didn’t really get traction until version 3, which was 3 years into the game, and it’s not inconceivable that they might be past the stage of free upgrades for X when you’re tempted to give it another try.
Apple already has another spreadsheet underway for this, with the exact same fields as before. They’ll just update it along the way.
The spreadsheet has already told them that they grew their NLE business by an order of magnitude or more in that time, so here’s Apple’s worst possible outcome for that increasingly tinier slice of legacy customers:
–They download FCPX and NOW hate it enough to make their move.
Bottom line: Apple gets paid TWICE by the people who hate FCPX the most.
Even if they NOW leave the Mac platform, the slice of people who will hate FCPX enough to leave iOS is as theoretical as the Higgs boson, which for the record is still not PROVEN to exist.
Apple wins, no matter what the outcome.
My antipathy for Apple is well known, but I’ve never said that they aren’t geniuses. They are. I admire the shit out of almost everything they do, even if I choose to use other people’s stuff. And I’m telling you that in 100 years, people will still be studying FCPX as the best roll-out the world had ever seen to date.
And for the record, the marketing and roll-out for X were beyond flawless. They had that Apple elegance that every company dreams of, even as they admit to themselves that they have neither the vision to even imagine it, nor the balls to pull it off.
Even though they CALL it marketing (which drives me insane) the issue some people have is ACTUALLY with the product life-cycle management aspects of it, and fewer and fewer people are finding that an insurmountable obstacle by the minute.
See, Apple doesn’t care if you’ve been complaining about THIS thing. Look at iPhone 4. They care if you still love them enough to PAY THEM for the NEXT thing. And for the thing they love most, their iOS business, you DO love them that much.
And all the love you shower on them won’t make Apple hesitate for a minute longer to burn you to the ground when they feel that’s what it takes for for them to achieve their vision.
Tim Wilson
Vice President, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COWTim Wilson
Vice President, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW -
I alternately thought you were insane and dead-on in this. Bravo.
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Speaking of burning the users to the ground, it can happen in their mass produced devices as well.
Consider the new dock connector in the iPhone 5. For the biggest fans, who bought a small fortune in peripherals, they’re faced with replacing them all or having to buy a fairly expensive adaptor. So how have iPhone 5 sales been compared to 4S? I’m sure you know the answer.What I seem to see in the “professional” market place is that, as Tim alludes too, they’re selling a large number of FCPXs. In any given facility there’s probably one seat, probably sitting on a computer that already has CS or MC (or even those still going one last round with 7). At some point one “brave” editor who may have been honing their chops on X with their copy at home, steps forward and says, “I think I can deliver with this,” and some facility manager/producer begrudgingly allows them to give it a go.
Maybe in a lot cases it’s still an awkward fail but some number show it as viable. With each major update to FCPX, one more brave soul says maybe this can work now, having developed the chops at home. With each round a few more bite into the Apple and say it finally tastes good enough.
These facilities aren’t about to jump wholesale into FCPX but each of the above occurrences lands one more beachhead for Apple. At some point, maybe within the next year or so, some places will reach a tipping point if they really see improved productivity coming out of the FCPX room. As a very few facilities hit that tipping point, a few others will start to look. And so it goes.
As long as Apple lands a few beachheads, just a seat or so in a facility, they have opportunity.
I don’t doubt what we’re seeing in the Techniques Forum are the signs of the beachheads forming. Like any battle to establish beachheads, there are heavy casualties for a time. We’re also seeing that for sure. Don’t discount those beachheads though.
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