Pro apps, FCPx and Apple priorities. Now You get it?

[Thomas Frank]

[Craig Seeman] “Thunderbolt is for consumers?”

Defiantly! As in the Mac being a consumor product 5 years ago.
Thunderbolt would be awesome to move them iTunes Movies from one Mac to another iThroughAway device.

As for the Apple not supporting the Pro market. Yes I really dig the Apple Pro apps, in fact I received my last Certification last year.

But lets look at some facts:
Xserve (Killed)
Xraid (Killed)
Xsan (lol)
Shake (Killed)
Color (Killed)
DVD Studio Pro (killed) they even removed the dvd burner from the mac mini oh that right your supposed to buy everything from iTunes and the App Store
Mac Pro updates (slow & unspectacular) I would not be surprised if they drop it
Logic (getting slow)

Don’t get me wrong I really have enjoyed Apple Products but they are doing the most human thing, go where the money is.
That is iTunes, App Store, iTunes, iDevices, iTunes… maybe the iCloud is the first step of killing the Computer all together and there will be only iPhone, iPod and iPads who knows?

I even have a feeling the future will look like a locked in device thanks to Apples iOS.
Hey the bright side is forcing the user to goto iOS, iTunes and App Store will prevent them nasty illegal downloads!

P.S. wasn’t there a rumor that Apple has this gentlemen agreement with AutoDesk that they will not interfere with there Software in the High-End-Professional market? (that will explain killing the Apps)

[Thomas Frank]

[Craig Seeman] “There was no Apple front page splash screen when it was released. There was no media event targeted prosumer media. “
Isn’t this the same with all Software? Except for Lion?

[John-michael Seng-wheeler]

One day, but not yet.

And all that about “Since there are two wire pairs, and the system is bidirectional, a single cable can have up to 40Gbps coursing through it at its maximum theoretical capacity (20Gbps upstream and 20Gbps downstream).” is total marketing baloney. Adding the upstream and downstream rates together is totally meaningless, and only ever done by marketing. So the actual answer is that it currently runs at 10Gb, with a second 10Gb stream, but apple’s never going to let you use the second one for anything other then displays. So, it affectively runs at 10Gbs now. Later, when they finally make it optical, it might actually be useful to me.

[Craig Seeman]

And apparently one of the considerations is that while fiber will allow for higher speeds and longer runs, it won’t carry power. I understand Apple was influential in Intel’s role out of copper over fiber first.

I don’t feel Thunderbolt is consumer at all at the moment. All the first products announced are all professional in application. I can’t think of one “consumer” Thunderbolt product announced. Of course it may eventually happen but that’s not what the third party developers are targeting. It’s video i/o, high speed storage throughput, PCIe expansion.

[Craig Seeman]

[Chris Harlan] “What I have come to believe is that they don’t care about is the high-end professional market. I think it is just so 20th century to them, and that they’ll gladly cede it to niche companies like Avid and Adobe. “

Apple’s primary traget is not higher end pros but it is a secondary target. Apple’s approach has been to develop mass appeal and then creep up the food chain. It’s actually what the original FCP did. It was the “poor persons’s” Avid for various reasons. You see this with every Apple product just as iPhones and iPads have entered the professional enterprise and the apps now included many professionally targeted utilities.

The “mass appeal” approach is designed to attract third party support. In fact Adobe Premiere on the Mac is itself the result of that. They came back because the Mac market share in post grew under FCP.

FCPX will be a Pro app. There’s too much in there that goes well beyond the needs of anything but higher end Pros.

[Craig Seeman]

[Robert Brown] “he whole thing just wreaks greed.”

Which would only be realized if the software sold well and drove hardware sales. Which certainly is what Apple wants. Assuming Apple figures out how to fix the botched marketing, I think FCPX will be both popular and eventually a professional tool surpassing FCP legacy. All of Apple’s targeting in recent years has been to hit the wide middle market and move up the chain.

[Craig Seeman]

There’s ZERO use of Thunderbolt for the consumer. All the third party support is geared for professional use.

All the software killed were developed on out of house code. They’re starting from a new code base. Motion and Compressor are entirely in house and now FCPX is as well.

I think you’ll see some surprising things from them regarding the “X” market. Look at Lion and Lion Server for example. FCPX’s underpinnings are designed to be a server seat handling shared media. It’s not implemented but that’s where it’s headed.

[Walter Soyka]

[Craig Seeman] “All of Apple’s targeting in recent years has been to hit the wide middle market and move up the chain.”

Agreed — but I think there’s a point that you are talking past each other on. Apple had already hit the wide middle and moved up the chain with FCP1-7.

FCPX is not just a new product — it’s a reboot of the FCP franchise. The top of the chain didn’t trust FCP in the beginning, but had been won over by subsequent releases releases. Now they’re trying to figure out Apple’s intentions toward them, and wondering if maybe they were right after all in initially mistrusting Apple 10 years ago.

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

[Craig Seeman]

[Andree Franks] “Isn’t this the same with all Software? Except for Lion?”
No. FCP used to have big roll outs. Services like iCloud get featured big time as too many of their “consumer” apps such as iMovie and GarageBand when they do media events. If FCPX were part of that circle it would have gotten the same attention. Watch any of the recent “SteveNotes” and there’s always a tie in to key programs.

[Thomas Frank]

Yeah used to like:
ahhh good old days Shake and DVD Studio Pro.
But I don’t recall seeing any for the last Apple Apps… I could be missing out.