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FCP X Six Months Later – Blog Post
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Say what? The changes in the market are moot? Dude. You lost me here. “
The point I was trying to make is that looking at FCPX now and saying that it’s at the same developmental place as FCP 1 then, a statement I agree with, does not mean that it will grow as FCP1 did – the reasons being that both the entire NLE marketplace and Apple as a company are totally different then till now. Looking at the growth of FCP 1 and extrapolating to FCPX is a false analogy; it might happen in a similar fashion, but there are just as many reasons to believe that it won’t. The analogy was moot, not the market.
[Jeremy Garchow] “Would you have really, though? If PPro had a 85 camera multicam, would have really completely changed your setup?”
When I made the change from *edit PPro had just come out. My choice was going to be PPro or FCP. I tested them both, over a few months, with paying jobs. Overall, FCP was better, although there were many individual features that were better in PPro. Over the years I’ve kept watching to see how PPro was doing. If I had ever thought it would be better for my needs I would have switched, no problem. I never thought it was. There are still a lot of problem areas with it for my workflow, but if they improve multicam I will give it a shot.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Chris Harlan] “I read Herb’s point as being that when Apple primarily sold computers, there was strong incentive for them to continue to develop for the high end. Now that their primary income is based on phone sales, that incentive is no longer there.”
You said it better than me, and in English too.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Al Bergstein] “I stumbled on this thread in the Canon forum, why I don’t know”
It’s a function of the cow. Uncheck those boxes at the top of the Canon forum to hide posts that might contain canon keywords from other forums.
Apple has never courted many people. They did give NDA sneak peeks of fcpx to a select few. Apple never has focus groups, very rarely asks for outside advice. That’s the way they have always been, it shouldn’t be a shocker.
And I agree with you, Adobe is completely different. They are striving to be as open as possible.
Jeremy
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[Chris Harlan] “I read Herb’s point as being that when Apple primarily sold computers, there was strong incentive for them to continue to develop for the high end. Now that their primary income is based on phone sales, that incentive is no longer there.”
I understood Herb’s point, but consider Apple in the context of companies like Adobe or Avid. Adobe sells software solutions for creative professionals. Avid sells software and hardware solutions for editors and sound designers.
As Craig Seeman keeps reminding us, Apple has always had a broader mass-market focus than that.
Yes, back when Apple was Apple Computer, they could use FCP to sell high-end PowerMacs and Mac Pros — but if what they really wanted to do was move high-end computers, there was nothing tying them specifically to marketing software to creative professionals.
If Apple wanted to sell hardware through compelling software profitably in a niche, they could have dropped FCP and invested instead in developing software for advanced research or simulation. In fact, now that a consumer-class computer can easily handle HD editorial, focusing on something like climate simulation that would always need high-end computing power would have been the better move for a hardware company.
But Apple is not and never has been just a hardware company. They exist to make people’s lives better by making technology more accessible.
With FCPX, they took FCP and ultimately pushed it away from high-end hardware and demanding professional users toward consumer-class machines and casual users.
That has always been Apple’s — and Steve Job’s — modus operandi: take complicated technologies that only specialists use and package them for mass consumption. FCP was an aberration.
After Jobs bought Pixar, he thought that their 3D renderer would ultimately be useful for regular people. From David A. Price’s The Pixar Touch:
Jobs’s optimism for the new product [RenderMan] soared high… “He thought that RenderMan was going to help everyday people make photorealistic images on their computers,” Kerwin recalled. “He thought that RenderMan was going to be a 3-D version of PostScript and that these 3-D pictures would be flying out of people’s printers.”
In announcing the Intel version of the software [in 1989], the company asserted, “Photorealistic three-dimensional images will soon be an essential form of communicating information in product design and development, marketing, animation, consumer product selection, and business communications.”
The world, however, was not clamoring for photorealistic rendering. PhotoRealistic RenderMan was a brilliant technical success and was well received by the computer animation community and by special-effects operations such as ILM, but it remained a niche product.
This is another of my “compelling reasons not to.” I don’t understand Apple’s plans.
FCPX, even as it is today, still doesn’t really fit the Apple mold. Apple is pushing it toward the mass market, but they have still included features that the mass market will never need. Will FCPX ever become an everyday tool for everyday people? (For that matter, will it ever become and everyday tool for professional editors?)
What’s the end game for this product?
That’s where I agree with Jeremy — like with FCPv1, it’s too early to call.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
[Chris Harlan] “Now that their primary income is based on phone sales, that incentive is no longer there.”
There was a time when Avid primarily sold turnkey expensive Media Composer systems. Now that they’ve become a company that primarily sells hardware such as Unity and Isis systems, etc, would one say they no longer have incentive to sell Media Composer software?
Apple is a hardware company. Maybe you feel they have little interesting in selling computers but the “incentive” behind FCPX is to sell such computers. If they stopped selling computers they wouldn’t have any incentive with FCPX but that’s not the case. Might it be that Apple wants to remain diverse rather than “dependent” on phone sales?
Do you think Adobe’s primary income is from Premier Pro?
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[Craig Seeman] “[Chris Harlan] “Now that their primary income is based on phone sales, that incentive is no longer there.”
There was a time when Avid primarily sold turnkey expensive Media Composer systems. Now that they’ve become a company that primarily sells hardware such as Unity and Isis systems, etc, would one say they no longer have incentive to sell Media Composer software?
Apple is a hardware company. Maybe you feel they have little interesting in selling computers but the “incentive” behind FCPX is to sell such computers. If they stopped selling computers they wouldn’t have any incentive with FCPX but that’s not the case. Might it be that Apple wants to remain diverse rather than “dependent” on phone sales?
Do you think Adobe’s primary income is from Premier Pro?”
Good God, Craig. The regularity with which you take things out of context and than get heated about them is stunning.
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It’s in context as far as I’m concerned. None of the “A” companies are primarily NLE companies, including Avid. Each has a reason for staying in the NLE business though.
The question is whether the NLE serves the company’s business model. Whether or not FCPX succeeds in selling hardware is certainly open to debate but that would seem to be their aim.
Adobe is a content creation company whether Flash, Desktop publishing, Video, so Premiere Pro is a key component even though it might not be its main component.
I’m honestly not sure where Media Composer fits with Avid anymore. It doesn’t seem to compel hardware sales and, unlike Apple, I’m not sure where or how it fits in their business model.
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[Craig Seeman] “There was a time when Avid primarily sold turnkey expensive Media Composer systems. Now that they’ve become a company that primarily sells hardware such as Unity and Isis systems, etc, would one say they no longer have incentive to sell Media Composer software?”
Avid is a company that sells editorial solutions to the broadcast and entertainment industry. Hardware, software, anyware. Their target audience defines them; that’s never changed. The same cannot be said for the hanging fruit.
[Craig Seeman] “Apple is a hardware company. Maybe you feel they have little interesting in selling computers but the “incentive” behind FCPX is to sell such computers.”
That’s your analysis, it might be so, it might be that Job’s wanted a better Ap to cut his home movies with.
The computers Apple wants to sell have changed however, and maybe Apple was looking for a product that could help sell their new computers as they get out of the workstation market. Yes they are still a computer company, but those computers are increasingly aimed at the broad consumer market and away from complex business needs.
[Craig Seeman] “Do you think Adobe’s primary income is from Premier Pro?”
I bet it’s not with cell phones or electronics.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Craig Seeman] “None of the “A” companies are primarily NLE companies, including Avid. “
But 2 of the companies make their living from the media content world and are responsive to that market. Let’s guess which one isn’t.
[Craig Seeman] “I’m honestly not sure where Media Composer fits with Avid anymore. It doesn’t seem to compel hardware sales and, unlike Apple, I’m not sure where or how it fits in their business model.”
I think you have it backward. The question for Avid is where does Unity and Isis fit into their business model going forward.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Walter Soyka] “Yes, back when Apple was Apple Computer, they could use FCP to sell high-end PowerMacs and Mac Pros — but if what they really wanted to do was move high-end computers, there was nothing tying them specifically to marketing software to creative professionals. “
The buzz from being in the media world is essential to Apple’s identity. In every Hollywood movie the laptop on the executive’s desk is a Mac, that doesn’t happen by chance. You don’t get that kind of marketing presence selling weather simulators. Now that they have that iconic presence they no longer need to serve that market.
[Walter Soyka] “Jobs’s optimism for the new product [RenderMan] soared high… “He thought that RenderMan was going to help everyday people make photorealistic images on their computers …
The world, however, was not clamoring for photorealistic rendering.”FCPX is the new RenderMan, the revolutionary answer to a problem most people weren’t having, for a market that might not exist.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf
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