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The FCP X “tell”
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I’m always puzzled why everyone wants to compare Aperture to what may happen to FCP X instead of Logic X. If Apple kills Logic X, then you have to worry. Until that time, CTFD.
Professional photo management is a fairly limited market. Especially non-networked single-user photo management which is what Lightroom and Aperture are. It’s also not a very complex program, really just a database with mild editing features. And Apple doesn’t have an image editing program like Adobe does to tether it to. I think it may be just a business decision that doesn’t portend anything about FCP X or Logic X.
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[Bill Davis] “Seems to me we have a pretty on-point example of how Apple looks at software evolution these days. Remember their flagship Video Editing Program and how when they tore it down, suddenly everyone wailed that they “dummed it down for consumers” and abandoned all the pros?”
I think the cases are different. Photos is geared towards an iOS world. We’ll have to see if Apple choses to fill in the blanks. My point wasn’t whether Photos would improve or not, but rather, that if people are concerned about the future FCP X, they should keep an eye on whether it shows up as part of iCloud or not. So far that appears to have had the effect of dumbing down the software as it’s become “iOS-ified”. While X is currently getting better with each version and filling in the blanks for pros, I think it could also go in the opposite direction. This would be necessitated by iCloud and iOS compatibility. I’m not trying to say it will or won’t happen, but rather point out some clues to look for.
Realistically, though, Apple ran “legacy” for 12 years. We are on a more accelerated pace these days. Therefore I give FCP X 5-6 more years in its current form – or something along that same development trajectory. After that, be prepared for a revamp.
[Bill Davis] “Photos will likely be at the top echelons of the pro community and letting high end pro photogs save buckets of time.”
Well, maybe. Most pro photogs I know jumped ship from Aperture to Lightroom or other tools long ago. There’s nothing in Photos to bring them back. However, some will likely adopt dual workflows. Photos for things they shoot with their iPhone and something else for work shot as part of paid productions. I doubt Apple cares. That scenario would certainly qualify as a “wins” for Apple.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Dennis Radeke] “Avid went PC only for a time based in part on what Apple was doing (going from 6 to 3 slot Macs and I believe system 9 to the first OS X).”
I know that I’m fighting 15 or 18 years of collected false memories here, but, as it keeps coming up, I do feel the need to at least try to set the record straight again.
Avid never dropped Mac support.
Never happened.
Never.
Happened.
Did I mention that this never happened? Because it never happened.
I should mention that, as I always do when this comes up, I consulted again with People Who Were There, including standing next to the key player as the following events unfolded, and this is rock solid.
Here’s what ACTUALLY happened.
There was a time, many years ago, when Apple was on the ropes, and even Apple’s most enthusiastic devotees were worried that Apple would go out of business. Anybody who was around at the time knows that this concern was not entirely unfounded.
Remember the clonemakers Power Computing? Their whole advertising campaign was built around saving Apple.
(Note too that even though the return of Steve changed the general outlook, as late as 2004, 7 years after Steve’s return, Apple’s stock price was still in the single digits!)
At Apple’s nadir, Avid only had Mac-based products, so at one NAB, one Avid manager was asked, with reasonable concern, What will happen to Avid if Apple goes out of business?
That one guy, NOT speaking officially, said very simply, If Apple goes out of business, Avid won’t. We’ll support our customers by moving to PCs.
THAT IS ALL. No statement of Avid deciding to leave Mac in any form or fashion. No threat, no hint, and no actual leaving.
In fact, please note: this is the OPPOSITE of Avid talking about leaving the Mac. The question was, what happens if Apple leaves ITS customers, by going out of business?
And the answer is, even if Apple dies, Avid won’t.
But from there, the “telephone game” of misquotes got underway, and continues to this day.
(Also, how did this rumor pass anyone’s sniff test at the time? I was a Media 100 guy at the time, mocking Avid as loud and long as I’ve ever mocked anyone, for every issue you can imagine — but Avid’s core customer base was the then-almost entirely Mac Hollywood community. Avid was clueless on many counts at the time imo, but actively suicidal? Ridiculous.)
In any case, just to remove any lingering ambiguity or misunderstanding:
Avid never left Mac. Not for a second. Never said they would leave. Never threatened leaving.
It never happened. Never.
Windows data points:
— Along the way, there were indeed some cross-platform products like Symphony that came out on PC first. The Mac codebase was in it from the beginning, though. The release timing was just part of Avid’s resource management strategy of staggered platform releases back in the day. Not the case anymore of course. Symphony cozily settled on Mac for years, and both platforms now released in lock step.
— DS and XSI were developed by Softimage when it was owned by Microsoft. Indeed, Avid bought Softimage directly from MSFT. There was no way the Microsoftness was ever gonna get untangled from those products, and none of them were ever released on Mac, including, to this day, by current owners Autodesk.
This is a self-contained story that has nothing to do with “dropping” Mac. Instead, Avid “dropped” a PC-only product line in order to focus on the core strategy of cross-platform development.
— In the middle of the last decade, AFTER Apple released the free iDVD and included DVD Studio Pro with FC Studio, Avid wanted to provide free DVD authoring software for its customers on Windows, so naturally, the bundled DVD software from Sonic was on Windows. No “dropping” Mac.
Otherwise, Avid never SAID they’d leave Mac, never THREATENED to leave Mac, never LEFT Mac for one single second, with one single product.
Never.
Happened.
To summarize:
- Apple was widely understood to be at risk for going out of business
- One Avid manager was asked what would happen to Avid if Apple went out of business.
- Speaking on his own, NOT reflecting any official language or position, gave a reasonable UNoffical answer: if Apple goes out of business, Avid will not.
Never said they’d leave Mac. Never threatened they’d leave Mac. Avid never left Mac. Ever.
I can dream that people might someday get the story straight. All these years later, it still hasn’t happened, but I can’t help myself from trying.
But that’s the actual story. Avid never said they’d leave Mac. Never threatened to leave Mac. Never left Mac.
Pass it on.
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[Oliver Peters] “There’s nothing in Photos to bring them back.”
Well, not having your livelyhood bolted to monthly payments IS kinda something that would cause me to switch if Photos grows even a vaguely decent subset of what LR offers me today. Or if another vendor steps into the fray, perhaps. Any decent photo manager-simple refiner – and Pixelmator, and possibly Graphics Converter (both of which I OWN) would be plenty for me and I suspect a lot of other folks who need to use still images but don’t want the bank account subscription fishhook.
This all comes with the acknowledgement that my personal anti-subscription bias is both overt and well known. Something I freely admit.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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In fact, in the era I used Avid (1990s-2004), they were like the stern parent to Apple users … never authorizing CPUs or OS until a year or more after they came out. “But I want to use the new tower with Avid.” “You’ll use it, and the new OS, when they WORK, kids. Not before. Now go do your homework.”
🙂
Doug D
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[Oliver Peters] “Realistically, though, Apple ran “legacy” for 12 years. We are on a more accelerated pace these days. Therefore I give FCP X 5-6 more years in its current form – or something along that same development trajectory. After that, be prepared for a revamp.”
By then, Apple and Netflix will probably be releasing Apple NetFlix TV movies in Fan Fiction format. The movie is in the cloud, you use “FCPX Fan” to edit your own version of it, in the cloud, as you watch it. 🙂
Given all the mobile “Shoot-Edit-Social Media It” apps, the iTunes Compressor package is step one, and soon a MobileShare module in X seems likely.
Doug D
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[Bill Davis] “Well, not having your livelyhood bolted to monthly payments IS kinda something that would cause me to switch”
You can still purchase a perpetual license for Lightroom.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Douglas K. Dempsey] ” they were like the stern parent to Apple users … never authorizing CPUs or OS until a year or more after they came out”
Avid has certainly been slow to qualify systems, but there are several reasons for that. 1) They only officially qualify on systems they actually have. 2) They only qualify on released versions – not pre-release/advanced versions. The reason is because in the case of hardware, Apple has and does make engineering changes to their hardware between the advanced and released machines. In fact, I currently hear users discuss differences between 1st and 2nd gen Mac Pro “trash cans”, even though that officially doesn’t exist to my knowledge.
During the time Tim was talking about, the plastic G3s were released. Avid’s engineers found out about this only when one actually arrived in the shipping room. That’s in spite of being partners of sorts with Apple. When they called Apple to ask “what’s this”, they were told, “oh BTW, the old beige machines are gone and this is the new form factor.” With fewer slots, of course.
When the new MP launched, Avid had to initially work around the lack of an audio input on these machines. That’s because Media Composer needed to see an audio input to work. That was fixed in a later update, but at the time, the workaround solution was to install Soundflower or to plug in a headphone with a mic.
Fortunately for the last year or more, Avid has been a lot faster to qualify machines and OS versions.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
Well that system actually worked, because … especially if you had an expensive service contract … Avid would basically guarantee the setup would work. Same with fiber-channel drives … once everything was authorized, you kind of understood if something goes wrong it is mean-failure time in hours, or your edit suite is overheated and baking the drives. We had everything on A & B sets of LTO cassettes. Never lost any work. But then, the whole setup with CPU, breakout boxes, drive tower etc… was worth north of $80K!
Doug D
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[Douglas K. Dempsey] “Never lost any work. But then, the whole setup with CPU, breakout boxes, drive tower etc… was worth north of $80K!”
People can complain about Avid all they want, but I recently reloaded an old project and media into MC 8.3.1. I’d archived it using Automatic Duck Media Copy. It all loaded up and everything relinked, complete with all render files. There’s a lot to be said for that – stodgy UI and all. 😉
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com
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