Final Cut Pro in Ads – Everything Changed

[Craig Seeman]

[Chris Harlan] “Do you really think they will ever sell computers the way they are currently selling phones and iPads? And, I’m genuinely asking.”

I wish Apple published breakdowns by computer but I hear MacBookAirs are doing very well. I can start digging up links to reports but Apple computer sales are growing much better than the rest of the market.
Apple does not have to sell the same number of computers as iPhones. It’s the profitability, the margins that also factor in to the value a computer is to Apple.

MacBook Air supplies almost one-third of Apple notebook sales
https://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/11/macbook-air-nearly-one-third-of-apple-notebooks-sales-and-rising.ars

While Apple still struggles with single digit marketshare globally among all PC vendors, sales of Macs have steadily increased over the last few years. Mac sales have outgrown the overall PC market for 32 consecutive quarters, and grown to 4.89 million units—a 26 percent year-over-year increase—in the most recent September quarter.

MacBook Air sales were hovering at about 8 percent of Apple’s notebook sales in June and July, but shot up to 25 percent following the Sandy Bridge update in July

and key
That currently makes the MacBook Air responsible for about 5 percent of Apple’s overall revenue—not too bad considering the Airs are also Apple’s cheapest notebooks.

Remember how expensive the Air was when it came out? It also seemed more of a design novelty than a useful computer. They learned how to commoditize it (sorry if I’m sounding like a broken record . . .err . . scratched CD . . . err . . . corrupted AAC file).

While this article is over a year old it is interesting.
Apple iMacs Driving WorldWide Desktop Sales Growth
https://otakugadgets.com/desktop-computers/apple-imacs-driving-worldwide-desktop-sales-growth/
The iMacs have been selling in higher volumes ever since the 21 and the 27inch models came out late laster year in October. In November of the same year, Apple had an increase of 21% in Mac sales which was mostly due to an amazing 74% growth rate for Desktop Macs. During the closing of the last quarter, Apple reported a 57% rise in the desktop sales, which resulted in a 70% year-over-year growth. Now those are impressive figures.

And this recently
https://www.macworld.com/article/163101/2011/10/record_mac_ipad_sales_help_apple_turn_in_record_quarter.html

Still, desktop Macs weren’t totally ignored during the quarter. The 1.278 million desktops Apple sold during the fourth quarter represent a company record, Oppenheimer said. Credit for that goes to the iMac, which Apple updated in May.

[Chris Harlan] “It seems to me possible that the desktop will be pushed out.”

Just as the original MacBookAir was commoditized to sell, I think we’ll see a radical change with the MacPro. An update isn’t going to do all that much in the market (IMHO) but a radical change might (or might not). I think Apple has nothing to lose if they gamble on something different. The Cube died the the Mini is apparently viable even if it’s not a “leader.” I think the MacPro replacement will be just such an experiment.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Chris Harlan] “It seems to me possible that the desktop will be pushed out.”

Maybe. Certainly someday as miniaturization becomes more powerful, but we aren’t there quite yet.

Apple relies on a huge swath of developers to contribute to the AppStores. You can’t develop/compile applications on iOS devices. Depending on how complex your application, faster computers mean faster builds.

We are certainly in a transition period, but there’s still a market for bigger/fast computers, even outside the video business. Although, it’s constantly shrinking.

[Walter Soyka]

[Andrew Richards] “Not so. iMovie is 32-bit and built around QuickTime. FCPX is 64-bit and built around AVFoundation. They likely share very little code in common. They share very high level UI concepts in common, but in the nuts and bolts where the coding happens they share next to nothing in common. The work that went into iMovie was not there to build upon in FCPX (simply owing to how they respectively draw upon the APIs in OS X), despite outward appearances.”

I think it’s reasonable to assume that two NLEs from the same developer with the same very unique timeline mechanics share some code. Why rewrite the code that deals with the timeline interface or data model if you don’t have to?

Of course you are correct on the 32-bit/64-bit and QT/AVF differences between iMovie and FCPX, but it would certainly be possible (and economical) to share some of the higher-level UI and timeline data mdoel code even though the lower-level media- and resource-handling code is completely separate.

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

[Christian Schumacher]

[Jeremy Garchow] ” Maybe. Certainly someday as miniaturization becomes more powerful, but we aren’t there quite yet.”

Judging from Apple’s website, maybe this day is not very far away.
Perhaps the Macbook Air could be their only “big computer”?

Notice also, that Apple is heavily investing in its own processor A5.
Isn’t that what is gonna be inside the Macbook Air?

https://9to5mac.com/2011/05/27/rumor-apple-has-an-a5-powered-macbook-air-with-thunderbolt-io-in-its-labs/

[Walter Soyka]

[Craig Seeman] “Remember how expensive the Air was when it came out? It also seemed more of a design novelty than a useful computer. They learned how to commoditize it (sorry if I’m sounding like a broken record . . .err . . scratched CD . . . err . . . corrupted AAC file).”

I don’t think Apple learned how to commoditize the Air — I think that its component costs dropped as more manufacturers began buying them. Didn’t the MacBook Air originally ship with a brand new, custom Intel chipset?

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

[Andrew Richards]

[Walter Soyka] “Why rewrite the code that deals with the timeline interface or data model if you don’t have to? “

The data model is significantly different, iMovie vs FCPX. Conceptually, FCPX has several significantly more complex structures like clips connections, compound clips, subframe editing, secondary story lines, and auditions. iMovie is just a single string of video blobs with transitions and limited graphics. Structurally, FCPX uses CoreData to write to a different project container than the binary iMovie uses. So you have totally different media handling APIs that have to interact with a totally different data handling API. That means new code.

There is clearly a familial resemblance and a certain amount of commonality in terms of the high-level concepts (Events vs Projects, trackless timeline) and UI layout, but the inner workings have so little in common they may indeed have had to rewrite everything just to be 64-bit on all the new APIs.

[Walter Soyka] “…it would certainly be possible (and economical) to share some of the higher-level UI and timeline data mdoel code even though the lower-level media- and resource-handling code is completely separate.”

The iMovie UI and timeline data model are much, much less complex than FCPX’s. Sure, it is possible they were a starting point (definitely a raw conceptual starting point), but there are so many complex structures unique to FCPX along with the requisite different underpinnings for 64-bit that the code probably shares very little in common, if anything.

If there is one place there might be some commonality in the code it would be at the UI level, but linking UI elements to the underlying guts of an app isn’t the bulk of the development work. Far more of it is the lower-level data/media/resource-handling.

I’m just disputing the idea that FCPX was a trivial project that was just a riff on iMovie. That just doesn’t wash for me. To my mind the trivial thing would be the amount of code the two might share, not the development effort necessary to produce FCPX.

Best,
Andy

[Craig Seeman]

MacBook Air 2008
https://support.apple.com/kb/SP8

MacBook Air Mid 2011
https://support.apple.com/kb/SP631

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBook_Air

Original 2008 price for 13″ MBA $1799 and criticized for its feature compromises including connectivity
Current 13″ MBA $1299 or $1599 with the base 11″ model down to $999 all include Thunderbolt

[Andrew Richards]

[Aindreas Gallagher] “I don’t think pulling 32 bit iMovie code into 64 bit FCPX code is a corporate moon shot.”

It isn’t a moon shot, but the amount of code the two share is likely very little. So it isn’t a thin veneer either.

[Aindreas Gallagher] “Seriously – try the timeline audio-peaking. its literally identical. the idea that apple had to go to software jupiter and back to produce a paid for kludge of iMovie is hard to believe – doesn’t this at all feel like an unstable, monetised expansion of iMovie? Isn’t that what this is?”

That bit of UI is one of the few things they could reasonably share in terms of code. The UI bindings and behaviors of any app are a pretty small fraction of their sum development. The data structures and underpinnings are a much bigger job, and those are likely new and unique in FCPX given what we know about the APIs being used and the difference in structural complexity between an iMovie timeline and an FCPX timeline.

Best,
Andy

[Aindreas Gallagher]

Reeaallly?

Is that the only bit? What about the my little pony yellow selection boxes, the skimmable clip lozenges, the very actual identical buttons for going into iPhoto and iTunes, because that’s where we keep royalty free music and the Getty images.. Amirite??

Then there’s the crop tool, the ken burns effect.. Everything up there, the actual operation of audio handling and visualisation of audio and peaking – All these things aren’t like iMovie – they are identical to iMovie

This thing is made out of iMovie spare parts with a bunch of buggy new stuff soldered on. Its essential goal is to appeal to, and monetise, the consumer video enthusiast base.

http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Aindreas Gallagher] “they are more than capable of producing a piece of software designed to monetise a consumer video user base. “

Isn’t iMovie already monetized? It looks like it costs $15 when I browse the Store:

Jeremy