Was FCPX launched 2 years too early?

[Craig Seeman]

I also don’t think it was released too early… so much as the release strategy was grossly mishandled by Apple.

The obvious problem was that in it’s initial release state it was nothing even close to an alternative to FCP7. It was the combination of new techniques and missing features along with the initial inability to purchase FCS3 which was a major misfire. Sorry to bring that up again but the context is, IMHO even more important than FCPX design and paucity of features.

Apple provided no transition and that was entirely against all previous major changes whether it was OS9 to OSX, PPC to Intel, QT frameworks to AVFoundation. Even .Mac to MobileMe to iCloud all had transition periods.

[David Mathis]

I agree that the initial launch could have handled better. Apple is not alone in this. Take a look at what Adobe has done and seems to be continuing the process.

Apple took the fork in the road, one that none of us have expected them to take. Then again, when Shake was put on the chopping block that might have been an indication of where Apple was headed. I am just guessing here and only stating an opinion.

Despite a poor launch things have improved. The current release is proof of that and the next update should make things even better. At least that is how I see it.

[Bret Williams]

I know it’s morbid, but in that year a lot of knee jerk reactionary things happened at Apple. I still think a good portion of it was due to Jobs and his health. He was trying to set things on particular paths before he was either too ill or passed. Perhaps he felt like if they didn’t cut the cord then with legacy, that his successors would be too soft. But he was wrong. Tim has released lots of stuff before it was ready! No problem. 🙂

[Bill Davis]

[Bret Williams] “Perhaps he felt like if they didn’t cut the cord then with legacy, that his successors would be too soft. But he was wrong. Tim has released lots of stuff before it was ready! No problem. :)”

Ii think this is revisionist thinking.

I remembre around the year 2000 an NAB chat I had with the late, much missed Ralph Fairweather (who was key among the original FCP evangilists back when 1.0 was released) – and him telling me that the FCP team was literally desperately quashing bugs in the code of v1.0 the NIGHT before it’s debut at NAB 99!

V1.0 by the way was amazingly stable – but listening to him, the dev team was nowhere NEAR assured of thateven six HOURS before it’s big public debut.

The point is that for all of history in software development, the best you can do is to try to make any complex program’s code as clean as possible and then hope for the best when it’s released into the wild.

There were a LOT of rapid (for the era) updates, feature adds and re-thinking between Legacy 1.0 and 3.0 as well – adding such fundamental missing items as JKL transport control to the software as it settled in.

Just how the game works, IMO.

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.

[Herb Sevush]

[Craig Seeman] ” It was the combination of new techniques and missing features along with the initial inability to purchase FCS3 which was a major misfire.”

To put it another way, while FCPX wan’t released too early, FCP7 was eol’d too early. That combination was, how should I phrase this … un-wise?

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Chris Conlee]

I agree, no. It didn’t affect me in the least as I continued to happily use Avid Media Composer on every project, just as I had before its release. 😉