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Has Apple abandoned the Pro Editor? Should I still invest in the ecosystem?
Hello to you all,
I have been using Final Cut 7 for a while now, but on a hackint0sh system as my old macbook doesn’t have a hope of running it. I recently have moved to London and was planning on investing in a new MBP to edit with. The reason for choosing a MBP was imply that the industry uses Final Cut, especially in the indie section which as I expand my skills as an amateur in the industry is pretty much 100% where I will be working. But it seems that Apple has taken a massive step back with Final Cut in order to make it more accessible.
I should mention that I really despise Apple as a company, I think they stifle competition in any area that competes with them. They operate a horribly closed system that limits creativity but despite this they have excellent vision of the consumer industry which gives them incredible presence.
Now here is my dilemma, should I invest an incredibly expensive laptop simply because of its ability to run Final Cut, or should I get a better machine for less money and focus my skills on Avid which will likely be my tool of choice in later life? Up until FCPX came out it was a simple choice for me, because I could see myself using FCP more and more over the coming years, and eventually hand in hand with Avid (and PS, and AE etc) when the time came. But if this is a signal of Apple giving up on the professional industry, and the best I’m ever going to get out of them is FCP7, to be left behind by the likes of Avid and even Premiere then my choice is less clear cut.
So I would love the opinions of the minds on this forum, both fresh and experienced industry professionals. Is it still worth giving Apple my money, or is FCPX a sign to quit before I get stuck with em’?
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6 Replies
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Just had a read of: https://library.creativecow.net/adcock_gary/FCPX/1
-and it seems to suggest that perhaps there is a light at the end of the tunnel, that this release is simply waiting on the “professional” update. But why release a half-baked product? Apple may know its not for the pros yet, but if they know this why release it, its called Final Cut ‘Pro’ after all. I know apple can make great products, however much I may dislike the way they go about it, but do I invest now in the blind hope that they will actually make their ‘pro’ product actually work for ‘pros’ at some unknown point in the future?
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I would still get an MBP — it will remain the most flexible solution because you can run Avid, Adobe, and Apple software on it. It’s also my favorite laptop of all time, well worth the money. I was a hardcore Windows guy for 20 years, nothing but disdain for Macs (due to some pre-OSX grief). I got my MBP simply to try Final Cut, but have come to love the machine as much as the software.
I don’t think Apple has abandoned the pro market, they just have a different idea of what the pro market needs or wants. Some of the pro market will walk away, but more than anything, Apple has tarnished its rep as the all-knowing Pied Piper of the Post Future. New announcements will be greeted suspiciously, scrutinized, dissected, and beaten to death (even more than usual). The storm around FCP X has just begun, and I think the next few weeks of posts and tutorials will reveal more amazing features and stupefying omissions. In the end, FCP X will be perfect for some, unusable for others, and interesting for the rest of us.
I still think the Mac OS is the most flexible platform for the future, whether or not I’m running a version of FC.
Chris Walsh
http://www.musicfog.com
Silver Spring, MD
Final Cut & AVID MC5
Former Windows User and edit* lover -
[Dylan Evans] “. But why release a half-baked product? Apple may know its not for the pros yet, but if they know this why release it, its called Final Cut ‘Pro’ after all.”
Because there are a lot of people it’s useful to today. A friend of mine who’s been holding off on buying or seriously learning FCP (he knows a bit) called me up yesterday to ask if he should buy the new release. He’s got a DSLR and is interested in editing the video from that. He doesn’t produce HDCAM deliverables. He doesn’t need to output to a broadcast monitor. He’s not using an offline/online workflow with FCP and Resolve or whatever. I was about to launch into the whole “Well, it looks promising, but here’s the big stuff that’s missing in the 1.0 release… when I realized none of that stuff mattered a damn to his use case. FCP X, today, is much better for him than any previous version of FCP. And there are more of him than there are of us.
Apple will add more of the workflow features that we need; we have indications of this from folks who are more in the loop with Apple, and from technical examination of FCP X itself. But there’s significant value in not allowing those things to delay the entire product.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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[Chris Walsh] “Apple has tarnished its rep as the all-knowing Pied Piper of the Post Future. New announcements will be greeted suspiciously, scrutinized, dissected, and beaten to death”
Well-put, Chris. Unless Apple acts fast, this will leave a pre-dark-mark on releases for the next five years at least.
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Chris K –
What you are describing is kinda my point, your friend would not be described as a “pro”, “semi-pro” perhaps. But in aspiring to be a professional in the industry myself I am beginning to wonder if I will receive the same love from Apple as your friend. I don’t doubt Apples business sense for one second.Chris W –
I’m going to be really intrigued to see the reviews that come up in the next few weeks, and also Apples response to the pro market. This seems like it should have been released as a separate product for a separate market, there is so much missing that is essential to the pro editor that I wonder how long it will take Apple to accommodate them. As an aspiring editor I want to be able to diversify my skills across any new platforms that may be useful for the future, but with its limited workflow it seems like I will be stuck in FCP7 for some time yet.– Dylan
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[Dylan Evans] “What you are describing is kinda my point, your friend would not be described as a “pro”, “semi-pro” perhaps. But in aspiring to be a professional in the industry myself I am beginning to wonder if I will receive the same love from Apple as your friend. I don’t doubt Apples business sense for one second.”
Well, my point here was simply to answer they “Why didn’t they implement XML, video I/O, etc. before shipping?” question. The answer is, because they might as well sell a bunch of copies to people who don’t need those things while waiting for them to be finished.
This doesn’t, as some people seem to be arguing, actually imply in any way that Apple has no intention of implementing more advanced features.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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