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upgrade 10.0.4 ???
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[Jason Jenkins] “I’d probably have one on my desk right now if they offered a matte screen option.”
This is a strong key point.
Let’s say, for argument sake, Apple was dropping the MacPro and not replacing it. The iMac is a problem for many creative professionals (it’s not just with video post) with its one built in glossy monitor.
The rumors have been around an “anti glare” built in monitor for the iMac. It would stand to reason that, if that comes to pass, the stand alone Thunderbolt monitor would have an anti glare variant as well. It simply makes no business sense otherwise. If anything, the significant drop in market share between 2010 and 2012 is a strong indicator of that.
At the very least, even if Apple were to go with the higher end iMac as their “creative professional” system they’d have to have anti glare monitors. The MBP at least has an antiglare option but no option to attach it to an Apple made anti glare monitor at the moment. The MacPro has no Apple made anti glare monitor option as well.
I’m always one to throw in a “stretched tangent” into a discussion but I might add that when you consider a MacPro replacement with no monitor attached, that helps the sale of an anti glare Thunderbolt monitor.
If they replace the MacPro with some monitorless power box and you must use a Thunderbolt monitor, that’s another $2K as part of the peripheral sales if Apple can deliver on the monitor (which as per above can make MBP and iMac using creative professional happy as well).
Just to be clear, my stretched tangent is that the $3000 Power Box becomes a $5000 purchase given the two Thunderbolt monitors needed/desired. It’s part of my thinking in how Apple might make the Power Box into something a bit more viable for them as far as locking the creative pro into an Apple ecosystem.
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[Craig Seeman] “I guess it depends what portion are buying MBP and iMacs and why. What portion are “creative professionals” and what happens if they migrate to Windows. Keep in mind that an NLE is one part of an ecosystem which also involves to some extent or another people who use tools ranging from Photoshop to After Effects to any number of Audio software DAWs. And each one of those working professionals may be buying computers for home use, travel, family members. Apple certainly has had “halo” as part of it’s marketing strategy. “
I get it. I’m a good exemplar of both the halo effect and FCP as linchpin. FCP wasn’t even my primary app — AE and C4D are — but I was sticking to Macs for my studio because of FCP anyway.
At the moment, ProRes encode is the only linchpin left.
Here’s a question: what makes the creative professional space a meaningful market for Apple in 2012? Creative pros kept Apple alive in the 1990s, but how much strategic value does the creative pro market hold for Apple anymore?
[Craig Seeman] “I think the drop in sales in the Cinema Display (now Thunderbolt) is an indicator. It’s not a one to one relationship but it’s meaningful IMHO.”
I don’t think more budget-conscious Mac Mini purchasers are going to buy a Cinema Display. I would have guessed the big market for Cinema Displays would have been Mac Pro purchasers, but if Mac Pro sales are slumping because the machine is so outdated, wouldn’t that show up in display sales, too?
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] “Let’s say, for argument sake, Apple was dropping the MacPro and not replacing it. The iMac is a problem for many creative professionals (it’s not just with video post) with its one built in glossy monitor.”
I don’t know, Craig. There are certainly a few of us who prefer matte displays with good reason, but I’ve seen an awful lot of studios with designers working on un-calibrated glossy iMacs in truly horrendous lighting conditions.
Bill D. has rightly pointed out democratization in discussions like this. I think there’s a gulf opening up in between the ones who feel they need things like quality monitoring and the ones who feel they can get good enough results more cheaply without them. Which set will be rewarded by the market is an open question.
Which set will be targeted by Apple, and if Apple even believes in target markets, are also open questions.
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 -
[Walter Soyka] “I get it. I’m a good exemplar of both the halo effect and FCP as linchpin. FCP wasn’t even my primary app — AE and C4D are — but I was sticking to Macs for my studio because of FCP anyway.
At the moment, ProRes encode is the only linchpin left.
Here’s a question: what makes the creative professional space a meaningful market for Apple in 2012? Creative pros kept Apple alive in the 1990s, but how much strategic value does the creative pro market hold for Apple anymore?”
What portion of MBP and iMac sales are creative professionals? if it’s insignificant it means one thing. If it’s significant than it means something else. If Apple does care about Mac sales and creative pros are a significant portion then the halo effect is very important.
Why are MBPs a leader (at least as far as growth) in the laptop space?
Why are iMacs a leader in the all in one space?
Are they game machines of choice over Windows boxes? (certainly NOT IMHO).I just can’t help but believe the “creative pro” is still a driving force behind Mac sales more generally (remember I’m NOT talking about FCPX as the primary reason for the purchase).
[Walter Soyka] “I don’t think more budget-conscious Mac Mini purchasers are going to buy a Cinema Display. I would have guessed the big market for Cinema Displays would have been Mac Pro purchasers, but if Mac Pro sales are slumping because the machine is so outdated, wouldn’t that show up in display sales, too?”
Certainly regarding the MacPros. That’s part of my point. But the monitor situation is also a problem for iMacs if that’s Apple MacPro alternative. It’s a built in glossy monitor.
As to the MacMini, what you have is either a Thunderbolt monitor or an HDMI monitor. The latter are certainly plentiful and inexpensive.
Interesting though is some of the “take” I hear on Thunderbolt monitors and their value to the “baby” Macs. A Thunderbolt monitor adds a whole bunch of connectivity to the MacBook Air.
Leave it to Apple to find a way to get people to spend a lot for a monitor when they buy the lease powerful, least expensive computers in their product line.
I just can’t help but think Apple’s working on putting the pieces together. We’ll have to see about where they go with monitors and MacPro replacement (that and the Mini are their only two monitorless computers).
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[Walter Soyka] ” I think there’s a gulf opening up in between the ones who feel they need things like quality monitoring and the ones who feel they can get good enough results more cheaply without them. Which set will be rewarded by the market is an open question.
Which set will be targeted by Apple, and if Apple even believes in target markets, are also open questions.”
Walter,
I’m going to push back a bit on the start of this.
Everyone feels they need “quality monitoring.” Everyone. Even those who don’t know precisely what that is or how to implement/use it.
The problem is that quality monitoring is not trivial. And the target market for “accuracy” (the professional approach) has to co-exist with the broader market that values “looks satisfyingly beautiful to my eyes” – which is a much, much, much bigger market.
But underneath that reality is another one. If you can make the pretty monitor – it’s not so near as difficult to make the accurate one. You’re just “incrementing” your corporate research – not duplicating it.
I think Apple’s approach is to constantly assess what technology can provide. And target that technology to provide the solutions that satisfy their customers, since that’s the only rational approach to any business.
The real question here is how large fundamental gap might be between what separates the amateur and the pro – whether that gap is narrowing – and whether or not evolving technology can provide solutions that work in a satisfying fashion for both customers.
Most in this forum are elite users. They want solutions for their very specialized needs that have evolved to represent the top tier of professional use. But that’s rarely where Apple has ever initially focused.
They’ve always focused on a “bottom up” strategy – solving (and sometimes inventing) for the needs of the many first – then refining those needs over time. Often, and Legacy is a great example here – those solutions prove such an outstanding value and have so many of the capabilities that fit with professional needs, that they take over whole market segments.
And they continue to evolve until they not only work for the masses – but they also work for the specialists.
While Apple solutions seldom do that “out of the box” they very often develop into that over time.
Apple’s distinctive view is, I think, centered largely upon personal empowerment through technology. My emphasis on personal. Not group empowerment, nor specialist empowerment, nor corporate empowerment, but individual and very personal empowerment.
That drives their thinking.
And it drives X’s design. It’s a superb tool for the individual video maker right now. With lots of capabilities at an astonishingly affordable price.
And the good news, is that each and every one of those individual users wants a display that is as good as it can be.
When the entire market is consumers, that means bright, shiny pictures that pop. But Apple has shown that over and over again they’re not satisfied at stopping there. I think the way they see it, if they can make a few changes and offer a matte screen – or one with more accurate colorometry – that a make a particular device significantly more attractive to another half million fashion designers, or video pros, or food stylists – without at all screwing up their one million base of less demanding “consumer” users, they will probably do so.
Not purely for sales, but because they fundamentally understand that research and invention are the foundations of continued sales success. And if nothing else, their aggressive stance in the patented technology space shows that they’re as concerned with building their patent portfolio as they are with building iMac sales.
Apple fundamentally understand that one drives the other. And having the engineering in place to make a more “video friendly” unit of any device is just smart basic business in a world where every larger legions of humans what to make video as well as consume it.
My thinking anyway.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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[Walter Soyka] “Rebuilt into what?”
I’ve been using the new Apple TV (I’ve had the old ones for some time) and it REALLY works. Over the weekend, I made iPhone videos of Easter egg hunts and related adventures, and played them back instantly on the living room big screen to the shock, joy and amazement of all relatives present. All of the TV shows I’ve ever bought are now instantly available for streamed playback on any of the many devices we have laying around. I mean, I could just go on and on about how well this stuff all works. The whole thin client thing that Apple is bringing together sparkles. [I mean, I have my qualms and fears about a world of lives integrated around centralized servers, and I’m not sure it is a good thing as much as it is an inevitable thing. But lets set that aside, and focus on the warm and fuzzy.] This is what Apple is now. I just don’t believe the old four-box model applies to them anymore. I think they are just beyond it. They don’t NEED to be in content creation anymore. So, my guess is, that increasingly they will not be.
And, really, that probably is a good thing for the various smaller, struggling companies that do need/want to be in content creation. Apple burned a lot of them, last decade, so that they could sell G5s and Mac Pros. Final Cut Pro may have been a huge, infection-inducing thorn in Avid’s otherwise thick skin, but it was just a plain killer to companies like InSync whose NLEs offered Avid true peer-to-peer competition.
Lastly, I think I’ll drop the few bucks on iMovie for my iPhone and iPad. The egg hunts could use a few quick trims before I semi-instantly play them back.
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Okay, well let see what real Marketing agent would see or say when you give him that example…
What of that market gets saturated and drops? Oh yeah we lost that other market.
It’s good to have big profit share but it is better to have all of them. Right? -
[Bill Davis] “I’m going to push back a bit on the start of this.”
That’s good — I think we’ve accidentally agreed a couple times over the last few weeks.
[Bill Davis] “Everyone feels they need “quality monitoring.” Everyone. Even those who don’t know precisely what that is or how to implement/use it. “
There were a lot of folks here talking about how FCPX, pre-10.0.3, made broadcast monitoring obsolete. They didn’t bother to learn about ColorSync and color management — they simply thought they already had quality monitoring because it had an Apple logo.
I think that the idea of democratization goes hand-in-hand with the idea of good-enough. In the better-faster-cheaper triangle, democratization picks faster and cheaper, every time. The growing masses don’t care for great but slow, or great but expensive. (Nor should they.)
[Bill Davis] “But underneath that reality is another one. If you can make the pretty monitor – it’s not so near as difficult to make the accurate one.”
Making a pretty monitor and making an accurate monitor are worlds apart, and a pretty monitor has no use to anyone in a color-critical environment.
[Bill Davis] “The real question here is how large fundamental gap might be between what separates the amateur and the pro – whether that gap is narrowing – and whether or not evolving technology can provide solutions that work in a satisfying fashion for both customers.”
I think there are huge gaps separating the different classes of pro, too, and I think that those gaps are increasing rapidly. The middle is getting squeezed out towards the ends.
[Bill Davis] “They’ve always focused on a “bottom up” strategy – solving (and sometimes inventing) for the needs of the many first – then refining those needs over time. Often, and Legacy is a great example here – those solutions prove such an outstanding value and have so many of the capabilities that fit with professional needs, that they take over whole market segments. “
Agreed — and from a pure product point of view, that might be fine in a few years.
As an issue of trust, though, it’s more complicated. As has been stated many times, Apple abandoned the professional post market segment that they fought so hard to win. There were people who used to feel like Apple was there for them who have been ignored in the FCPX reboot.
If you are correct, this abandonment is temporary — but FCPX will have to become undeniably better than the alternatives across the board to offset the broken trust for many.
[Bill Davis] “Apple’s distinctive view is, I think, centered largely upon personal empowerment through technology. My emphasis on personal. Not group empowerment, nor specialist empowerment, nor corporate empowerment, but individual and very personal empowerment. “
I agree. That’s why I’m worried about high-end post vanishing on the Mac platform.
I used to feel pretty limitless with Apple. I felt like the platform was growing with me.
Now, if Apple is returning to their core values, I’m concerned that there’s a glass ceiling.
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 -
[Thomas Frank] “Okay, well let see what real Marketing agent would see or say when you give him that example…
What of that market gets saturated and drops? Oh yeah we lost that other market.
It’s good to have big profit share but it is better to have all of them. Right?
“I fear I don’t follow what you are saying. Companies re-prioritize all the time. They sometimes let whole, healthy divisions or product lines go because it suits their focus to do so. Apple is doing plenty of things about future market saturation, including becoming a leading content distributor. And the further they move toward the center of their thin client businesses, the farther they are moving from their workstation business. Remember, Apple used to be in the printer business, too. Though I suppose that could change back again:
https://www.theonion.com/articles/new-apple-ceo-tim-cook-im-thinking-printers,21207/
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Yes some do this but how successfully are they? Look at the company’s especially in the Automobile market that wrote black numbers during the recent industry depression or drop… VW, Audi, BMW they did not only focus on there strong saling product but on all fronts.
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