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Randy Ubillos retires from Apple
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Randy has certainly done his time in this industry, and left a legacy that will endure maybe longer than any other single designer/developer.
Any one of his accomplishments would be enough to put him in the running, especially Premiere, which is ground zero for desktop video imo, but even if we’re just talking about Radius, crucial pioneering work that made a whole lot of the rest of this possible, he’s a frontrunner, for sure.
I don’t remember what he did at Apple. Maybe one of you cats can remind me. LOL
What he did NOT do is have anything to do with the plans for pulling 7 on release of X. That had everything to do with Steven’s vision for burning his previous victories to the ground as often as necessary, ie, every time, to immediately implement his vision of the future.
Whatever else he was, Jobs was an astute observer. Maintaining Apple II and Mac simultaneously cost Apple years of development momentum, and cost it personal computing marketshare that Apple has still not recovered. You can’t maintain any kind of support for the past and keep moving forward, and Steve watched Apple learn this the hard way.
Sacrificing market leadership and high customer loyalty was a trivial cost to pay, and Apple suffered because they didn’t have the guts to commit to what it KNEW the future was going to be.
Not a mistake he was going to make again.
His compromise with the OS X transition via Rosetta wasn’t as bad, but still cost Apple tremendous momentum, both by squandering its own resources, and by distracting third-party developers and customers from the true goal, which was to get them into the future, NOW.
That was never going to happen again, and indeed, it hasn’t. Not with any part of Apple.
The Creative COW archives are replete with reports of iTunes updates breaking compatibility with FCP. Happened every time, for years. It’s not that Steve didn’t know. It’s impossible that he didn’t. It’s that he didn’t care. Moving you forward was more important than keeping you comfortable where you were.
I honestly don’t think it had anything at all to do with selling you new computers or software updates. I think it has everything to do with a laser focus on the future. There is absolutely no universe in which 7 was going to last a minute day longer than the arrival of the future.
You know who’s damn near perfect at backwards compatibility? Microsoft. Windows 8 notwithstanding, they’re also historically very good about gentle transitions forward. Even a moron like me can go to their website and see the roadmap for the next 15 years, including the dates for when compatibility guarantees and product support for every piece of software will end.
Indeed, the problems with Vista were virtually all because MSFT promised people SOME Vista compatibility with previous hardware, and people were furious that they couldn’t get ALL of Vista’s features on their old hardware.
The RIGHT solution is Apple’s: simply tell people on a very, very regular basis, you want the new OS? You need a new computer. End of story.
Want the new iOS? Pretty soon, you need a new device. Need to redownload old iOS software to reset your old phone? Tough.
For that matter, another lesson Jobs learned from Microsoft is that you can’t properly support software on other people’s hardware. (A mistake Google is making with Android in Apple’s vision, too.) It’s why killing the clone business that had kept Mac viable, especially in this market, was practically the first thing Steve did upon his return.
Make no mistake about Apple’s intent, now or in the future. Continuity is a problem, not a goal, and Apple isn’t about to be their own obstacle. They’ll burn their own marketshare and associated customer goodwill to the ground as often as it takes to focus all of Apple’s resources on bringing you their idea of the best possible future, as quickly as possible.
It’s the heart of the Apple experience.
It’s also why I’m still a little surprised that anyone is surprised by this. I’m definitely unclear why if it WASN’T Appple’s core ethos, how anybody thinks that the FCPX team could possibly have pulled it off.
Which is why I doubt that it factored into Randy’s retirement plans one way or the other. If he had a problem with it, he could have bailed at any point in the past four years. Whatever time he takes off, he’s more than earned. Whatever new venture he undertakes, it’ll be cool.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s not outside this industry, though. How much is left to accomplish here than what he’s already done? And done three or four times over at that?
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[Bill Marcellus] “Are bars & tone available in Generators yet?”
Nope. If you need ’em it takes about 30 seconds to find and DL any test signals you’d like.
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~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~ -
[Tim Wilson] “You know who’s damn near perfect at backwards compatibility? Microsoft. Windows 8 notwithstanding, they’re also historically very good about gentle transitions forward. Even a moron like me can go to their website and see the roadmap for the next 15 years, including the dates for when compatibility guarantees and product support for every piece of software will end.”
Which is why I only use Macs for tool specific tasks. All of my personal and office computers are PCs. Apple products are non upgradeable and not past-compatible, which works fine for a consumer trinket, but doesn’t work for me as a business investment. Plus this way I don’t have to pay extra to be cool, which, less face it, isn’t gonna happen no matter which ear plugs I use.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
If any of what you say is true than how come that I’m happily editing on a 7 year old Mac Pro (early 2008) updated to Yosemite and FCPX 10.2 without any problems??
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[Carsten Orlt] “If any of what you say is true than how come that I’m happily editing on a 7 year old Mac Pro (early 2008) updated to Yosemite and FCPX 10.2 without any problems??”
Me too, I have emails on my system that date back to my Bondi Blue iMac too. I’ve had no issues with Apple’s steamroller approach to pushing forward.
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Excellent commentary and points as always.
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X is technically flawed! (Just trying to be of service.)
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So, so easy. Yet in four years they haven’t figured out a way to add them to Generators?
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[Bill Marcellus] “So, so easy. Yet in four years they haven’t figured out a way to add them to Generators?”
Yet so much broadcast work is being done in FCPX without them. Perhaps they’re not mission critical. I guess one might want them if going out to tape or some other analog workflow. Perhaps they feel its solve by third parties. They don’t include an adjustment layer either yet that’s easily solved by making your own in Motion or through various third parties.
I’d prefer Apple focus on things not easily solved by third parties such as improvements in Roles, two up keyboard trimming, Replace using playhead, ganging, Viewers that can compare two points on the timeline.
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[Craig Seeman] “Yet so much broadcast work is being done in FCPX without them. Perhaps they’re not mission critical. I guess one might want them if going out to tape or some other analog workflow.
I can’t remember the last time I saw a broadcast delivery spec that wanted me to include bars and tone.
All they seem to want today is a ProRes or H264 digital file where first to last frame is right at :30 wall to wall – and that the file name matches the ISCI code.
That’s pretty much it.
YMMV.
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