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Apple’s Annoucements
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I guess I am trying to determine what “threatened” means. Threatened to a hugely inflated stock price, sure, but what does that mean if Apple is still making giant profit?
[Chris Harlan] “All I was trying to do is say why it makes sense to me that Apple would give away iWorks, but not give away FCP X.”
I have a friend who just bought an iPad mini, and a MacBookPro.
He received $150 in iTunes giftcards (100 for the computer, 50 for the iPad mini).
MacMall currently has some wicked deals on the Retina MBP 15″.
I could see resellers having deals that essentially subsidize an AppStore purchase (rather than iTunes).
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I just can’t see the “gift with purchase” thing.
The reason is that the class of “pro video editors” is such a small subset of the overall class of those who would be interested in the new MacPros.
Unless it’s $10k plus (please, NO!) there’s a MASSIVE group of users who will buy the R2DX, From well-heeled dentists who want to run their dental practices off a cute little box and figure out they can tie it to their office plasma screens to display custom crap (something they will be excited about for a few months, then probably turn those screens right back to daytime TV!) right through legitimate business professionals in all manner of fields who just want to string a bunch of 4k monitors in a row to impress their clients! (wow, Bob, those live updating spreadsheets look AMAZING!)
As everyone here knows, actual video editing beyond the “cut the crap out of my kids little league game” is difficult and arduous work. Operating X, heck, even LEARNING how to use X competently takes a good bit of time and effort. Sure it’s quick and easy to teach someone to keyword and do basic cutting for selects reels like the team in Sam Mestman’s article, but to edit whole programs with grace is NOT so easy.
So for Apple to put a tool designed for high level precision videomaking in every box just doesn’t make sense to me.
X on a R2DX is like buying a piano. Nobody thinks that everyone needs a Steinway. And giving people one with a big purchase like maybe a house is silly. The percentage of people who have a clue what to actually do with it is extremely small.
And just like the piano thing, there are different kinds of players who play for different reasons. Some people just enjoying playing for friends and family. Others play for their local school choir. Some play in local nightclubs. Some play as accompanists for soloists. And yep, some are bona fide concert performers.
So there are LOTS of categories where people will buy and use FCP-X on the new MacPro.
But don’t think for a second that just because most of us who hang here “play for a living” – that means that the R2DX is JUST a concert players tool.
It’s not.
FWIW.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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[Craig Seeman] “I think the market conditions given the initial very bad PR (rightfully in many respects), make this case a bit different.”
I think if someone is still so pissed about the release that they won’t even look at X then getting a free copy isn’t going to change their mind. For those that are curious about X there is the 30-day trial and for those really curious about X $299 isn’t that much (especially if the same person is going to pick up a new Mac Pro).
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[Andrew Kimery] “I think if someone is still so pissed about the release that they won’t even look at X then getting a free copy isn’t going to change their mind.”
No but they don’t need a NEW problem.
[Andrew Kimery] “For those that are curious about X there is the 30-day trial”
There are those who bought it to do some serious work and were disappointed. They liked it enough to buy it or were willing to spend well beyond 30 days to give it some real testing. They waited for some holes to be filled… and they may be angry that they have to pay for that now. It’ll be an additional class of people who bought it and found they had to wait for things only to find the wait means another purchase. I suspect there’s a very large number of people in this category.
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[Craig Seeman] “No but they don’t need a NEW problem.”
I don’t follow, what new problem would Apple be creating?
[Craig Seeman] “There are those who bought it to do some serious work and were disappointed. They liked it enough to buy it or were willing to spend well beyond 30 days to give it some real testing. They waited for some holes to be filled… and they may be angry that they have to pay for that now. It’ll be an additional class of people who bought it and found they had to wait for things only to find the wait means another purchase. I suspect there’s a very large number of people in this category.”
Aren’t people used to new versions of products coming out and those new products costing money? Not to mention Apple was offering refunds to unhappy customers. Maybe a free version of 10.1 to existing users (which would cover the “I bought it but I don’t like it yet” users you mention) but I still don’t see a compelling reason for Apple to do something unprecedented for them like offering a free version of FCPX w/any new Mac Pro purchase.
Going back to my Blackmagic reference, Blackmagic doesn’t have the die-hard following that Apple has and they face stiff competition as new entrants into the sub-$10K so bundling Resolve w/their cameras makes sense. Conversely people have been begging Apple for a new Mac Pro for years and I feel like X is getting better every release and doing fine on it’s own.
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[Andrew Kimery] “Maybe a free version of 10.1 to existing users (which would cover the “I bought it but I don’t like it yet” users you mention) but I still don’t see a compelling reason for Apple to do something unprecedented for them like offering a free version of FCPX w/any new Mac Pro purchase.”
Simply giving a free version to existing users… which would really be the current free upgrade path, doesn’t make Apple any money.
Side note, if my understanding is correct, iWorks doesn’t come pre-installed on new iOS devices. It still has to be downloaded. It least that’s how I understand it from the new iPhone introduction. I think Apple still has motive to note proactive installations… unless I’m overlooking a legal or business aspect (remember IE browser on Windows) or I’m misunderstanding this entirely. In any case this is a further shift in how Apple is doing things and I think that shift may come to FCPX.
Given the alleged number of FCPX purchases (supposedly greater than FCP7) there may be a large pool of people who bought it but didn’t make it their primary editor. Keep in mind that those who bought FCPX were those serious enough to move beyond the trial period and really wanted to work with it. These are likely serious editors who decided, due to some feature or workflow deficiency, that either PPro or Avid would be (or continue to be) their main axe. These are “prime marketing targets” to get them to reconsider FCPX with its new and improved feature set. The ultimate objective is to keep them tied to the Mac platform (Avid and PPRo give them a Windows exist strategy). So moving them to FCPX (or at least consider the New FCPX) with a MacPro (not out of the question for serious Avid or PPro users) can keep them on the Mac. All this also forestalls the potential outcry from the “I bought it and tried it and it wasn’t ready so now you fixed it and want to charge me again” crowd. Given the number of FCPX purchases, I suspect that’s a very large number who may make a very loud and abhorrent noise on the interwebs… something Apple should want to avoid.
IMHO Apple’s recent moves are all about exit and migration strategies. Whether it’s to make it easier for non Mac users to adopt iWorks (which is now free on Windows via iCloud) and move to Mac or to move the strongest editorial customer base, those who paid for FCPX but may have moved to Avid or PPro to stay with Mac.
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This isn’t an argument one way or another but merely some extra data points….
When FCP X EOL’ed “legacy” that also included FC Express. This had been the middle grown for advanvced amateurs and students between iMovie and FCP. FCP 7 wasn’t a big seller, as many users stayed on FCP 6 for a variety of reasons. The bottom line is that FCP X probably quite easily has outsold FCP 7 numbers. The numbers to beat were low and the new potential market had expanded.
According to what I’ve read, based on Cisco research on server data traffic, the number one productivity package in enterprise use in iWorks – ahead of Google Docs, Neo Office, MS Office, etc. This is largely due to the penetration of the iPhone into the enterprise marketplace.
Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
Interesting to see where this conversation has gone! But I don’t think that Apple cares about revenue from the software apps as they position themselves as the Apple experience when buying an Apple iOS device (with new system only). There could be many reasons why they chose to do that, and one of them may be that sales of new devices in a crowded market needed more than just a device to differentiate. Currently, there are ~600 million iOS devices in the world (best estimate found). Buying the 5 apps today is a total of $40. That’s a $24B total addressable market. Other guesstimates and polls say that ~40% of existing users will upgrade. So if it was about revenue from software, they are leaving a potential $9.6B on the table. Even a 10% penetration into that is close to $1B revenue.
So I am only having fun at trying to second guess Apple which we all know is almost impossible. But based on precedence of having done it for a market that is hundreds of times bigger than niche pro video markets, why would the revenue of software apps matter there?
On the other hand, they could very well take the position of “if they can afford a new MacPro, then they can afford half a grand for the “pro” apps. But let’s play with some numbers here too – let’s say there are 1M pro editors in the world and they spend $500 for all the pro apps. That’s $500M revenue – compared to the estimated $9.6B that is nothing. Even the 10% penetration is 2x revenue. But the marketing and goodness around getting a new MacPro and “that’s all you’ll ever need” message for video (even up to 4K!) and audio creation might be a tempting thing to do. They did it with the 80% off add a few years ago and are doing a subtle version of that with the new iPhone camera showing the camera bad, lenses, light meter, Macbeth chart, etc.
These conversations are really better served with a few rounds of beer. I also reserve the right to have all my numbers and calculations wrong, but something has to be put down on the table in order for a discussion to happen. 🙂
Michael
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[Oliver Peters] “When FCP X EOL’ed “legacy” that also included FC Express. This had been the middle grown for advanvced amateurs and students between iMovie and FCP. FCP 7 wasn’t a big seller, as many users stayed on FCP 6 for a variety of reasons. The bottom line is that FCP X probably quite easily has outsold FCP 7 numbers. The numbers to beat were low and the new potential market had expanded.”
I agree- A lot of people didn’t upgrade, or at the very least it took them a long time. I jumped right in- the iChat Theatre feature was the most valuable feature I could imagine. As a satellite freelancer, the ability to “share” my program monitor across iChat became an important part of my workflow for a while. I would love to see it back.
The point I wanted to make though is that while FCP7 may not have been the biggest seller, I believe that data point came from Philip Hodgetts in his sit-down at NAB2012. That would have been around 10 months after launch. We’re now 28 months from the initial release, and if I take a quick look at the Mac appStore, FCPX is 15th on the top paid apps chart- so I think that while those numbers might be able to be downplayed on their own- they’re well out of date and have likely been doubled, tripled (even quadrupled?) by this point. I’d love to hear some new numbers from Apple when 10.1 is released.
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At this point I’ll just be happy when 10.1 is out.
Not just for whatever features and improvements it might bring, but so that these “will they, won’t they” paid upgrade debates can be done with. It’s a replay of the MacPro discussions all over again. The were sort of fun in the abstract- but it’s been a conversation that’s been going on for around a year and a half!
Thankfully I think we’re getting close to this all being decided. 5-8 weeks on the outside is my guess.
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