Aindreas Gallagher
Forum Replies Created
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[Craig Seeman] “That’s not profitable. Apple is a hardware company. There would be no point to invest the R&D they have for that.”
this statement is, I feel, incorrect. this has been a profitable exercise. As other people have pointed out to you, software is about at the ipod level of business for apple, they are more than capable of producing a piece of software designed to monetise a consumer video user base. Particularly when they are basically re-jigging iMovie.
Apple’s motivation in FCPX was to pivot the newly discarded FCP studio name to monetise the expanded consumer enthusiast base, with a pied piper piece of software conceived directly out of iMovie.
Again I’ll ask – out of the half a million rough guess FCPX consumers picking it up out of the appstore – how many are graduating out of imovie? 70%? 80? I’m going to say 80% if only because this software is designed to be a direct come hither to them – that still leaves over one hundred thousand editors trying to pay bills with this software.
FCPX has carefully expanded capabilities, direct adherence to iMovie norms, and generally, a very low confusion level. No weird track selection, no source monitor etc. Apple saying they will grow the software is a very neat blank statement. Its who the software is intended for is the point. It was not conceived as broad scale editing software product – it was intended to monetise casual enthusiast video work within their growing consumer base. that base is, versus bill paying editors, at least by a factor of three or four to one, the current customer for this product.
Also – I’d take issue with this mythical Apollo 11 cost base for producing this software – ten thousand men did not work on this product.
Let me give an example – Larry Jordan I think, god love him, re-told a mythical whispered conversation at NAB, where two Apple software engineers up front, when watching the demo on audio peaking visual indicators, whispered “they don’t know how hard that was” But we all know that’s simply not true right? they just lifted iMovie there – that in timeline moron’s guide to peaking is standing today built and coded in iMovie – identical FCPX actions right down to the pixel are in iMovie. they just shunted it in. This software is a bodge job of consumer parts.
that is why the fake R&D argument gets my goat Craig – does this thing look at all drenched in R&D? How’s the project file size mutation looking?
Great, great software this is.
that this effort to milk a consumer audience demanded great resources from Apple, such that the simple returns from selling it like hotcakes on the appstore could never provide a good return is a false argument. It has made a good return.
http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics -
Still january. New rig = learn Avid time.
Wasn’t talking about iMovie imports – was talking about the event paradigm itself. I don’t understand how people cannot see that events were intended as , and designed as, chronological buckets arcing back in time for casual consumer use in iMovie and iPhoto. that is what they were made to do – that is their function. No consumer wants to turn off events. But we have to – because we don’t match the behaviour for the intended customer for what is clearly a souped up, (and amazingly buggy) iMovie+.
we turn off chronological ordering, and we begin monkeying around with events in the finder to get a workable professional schema out of a consumer orientated product.
It’s a consumer enthusiast product filled to the brim with consumer simplifications. Apple could not care less if it enters into broad professional paid usage. That’s not what they designed it for – they designed it to expand and monetise the deep consumer base familiar with, and regularly using, iMovie.
That the odd professional here and there perseveres with it is sort of here nor there – sure as jeremy said – its the editor not the tools, whatever works, but apple simply don’t care, we are not in any way who this product was designed for.
http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics -
six figures of advanced billings booked for next year already? Well that’s impressive..
You don’t find FCPX problematic then? You don’t have issues with stability, reliability, the canned effects from motion with limited parameters, inability to manage large projects, how do you work with music based edits? Are you flooding the primary with the audio? That’s the only thing I can do, and that just feels incredibly stupid. Don’t you find the fact that we’re being asked to use iMovie and iPhoto events in the least annoying? Isn’t that a bit of a stupid paradigm for professional use? Anyway.. Either end, if it works for you, it works for you, and good luck with it.
The people who acknowledge the bugs and instabilities in this software while defending it, will always call it beta software- but when you look at the basic architectural flaws like the project file mutating in size to a point where the software grinds to a belt, based on basic edits, compound clips and markers *MARKERS* – that too me just doesn’t look like particularly good software. I don’t think this is very good software. What is so special about it? Seriously – what is so amazing that I couldn’t have picked up in iMovie? This feels like a very, very, very buggy expansion of iMovie.
http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics -
[Craig Seeman] ” I do think their intent is to gain PC switchers.”
wait – hang on – what was that?
Apple’s intent with FCPX, was to gain PC users?
they built a souped up iMovie to attract PC users?
As opposed to the goal of monetising the iMovie users they have?
how exactly does that work?
One gigantic group of consumer enthusiasts is sitting there looking at the appstore – they like iMovie, they feel a little constricted, so they pop out the credit card and hey presto. Apple sold an ipod with no parts and shipping.
The other group has to ditch the PC, the software, go out and buy a Mac set it up, and then buy a piece of software explicitly based on software they don’t know – iMovie.
FCPX was designed and coded for people familiar with iMovie. It is a monetisation of that casual enthusiast iMovie user market – this explanation has the virtue of being the simplest. Old Occam and all that stuff..
http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics -
[Craig Seeman] “There’s no way I can prove this theory but I think one (of several) factors in Apple’s switch from FCS to FCPX is that they may have felt FCS might only maintain and not expand Mac sales. “
or they constructed FCPX explicitly to monetise their iMovie users, three hundred dollars at a time, there’s no way I can prove that theory, but the fact that FCPX screams that it is an extension of iMovie that only opens iMovie projects might form some sort of circumstantial evidence.
http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics -
ah would you come on please.
Ok – so the “editing country club set” “privileged sons and daughters” was meant in some earnestness then?
I’ll tell you what I know – editing is not versailles Bill, it is not the n’obless oblige sons of privilege wafting into positions of editing power –
editing is one of the most blanket competitive things I know. When I walk into a new shop I am extremely nervy and minded to perform well, because Bill, editing is, in essence, in its performance, not who you know, or a glad handshake, or drinks at the bar – it can be all those things, but what it is Bill is a raw expression of skill, performance under pressure and communication skills. You could be the son of the king of france, but if you cannot perform on the day – you are toast.
Was Thelma Schoonmaker the daughter of editing royalty? or anyone? She couldn’t get union accreditation for years. A mate of mine assisted her in Dublin prepping for a talk she was giving – she was lovely Bill. She was just devoted to her craft. This notion that professionally functional software and the people using it to the best of their extent being a cabal is .. laughable.
its just laughable, and insulting to the basic notion of advancement in what is an utterly meritocratic craft. If you edit like no one else on earth, you will bloody well advance.
this stuff is no good Bill, particularly when allied to a false argument that a buggy expansion of iMovie is an answer to all the world’s ills.
Because it is a few hundred dollars cheaper than FCP studio – that with half the software to answer professional scenarios gone?
Apart from anything else, besides the above – this is not particularly good software full stop, its undercooked, buggy, and frankly, to my eye, it is directly designed out of a consumer product with deliberation for the monetisation of that market.
http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics -
[Craig Seeman] ”
i think one of the problems, as I see it, in the language used in the forum, is whether “Pros” are “important” but I think the better question is whether “Pros” (broadcast and feature film) represent a profitable margin and what Apple might do, in anything, to make it profitable (increase margins).
“lets posit another definition of professional and apply it to FCPX.
Say I am a professional editor (very much maybe), which is simply to say that it is the declared manner in which I earn my living, it doesn’t mean I’m cutting Jim Cameron, it simply means I put food on the table by providing editing services. – I may meet multiple unknown scenarios, involving online, broadcast, corporate, or otherwise.
I may be required to operate solely, or in conjunction with others, the software may be in my hands or provided to me freelance by the production company.
The software needs to be, as professional software, applicable to these multiple scenarios right? It needs to be a shared container for their needs and mine. It needs to encompass multiple use scenarios. This engenders complexity, because it has to be open. As in a blanket which, when you throw it down, covers an acceptable portion of the total editing market – otherwise why term it an editing solution?
With regard to Apple’s actions and motivations here in developing FCPX – as they looked at that whole existing universe of editing in practise, and potential client demand, is there any serious argument that they chose instead to construct an approachable enhancement to iMovie? They share methodology, concepts, events, the playdo draggable selections, the near identical basic GUI – the lot.
Apple’s goal with this software – which I’ve already said oodles of times before – was specifically, and with direct intent – to monetise the iMovie user market. They had no broad complex ten year intentions with this software. I find that stuff really funny. they had a very simple motivation: to monetise iMovie users. They produced software directly born out of, and adhering strictly to, iMovie conventions and logic. Gone is the source window, gone is three way colour correction, hello to iMovie and iPhoto events, goodbye to all industry standard norms such as tracks and selectable edit targets.
these were not actions taken to boldly drive editing forward, these were actions taken to produce a piece of software attractive and recognisable to the casual iMovie user.
now you can argue that Apple is somehow fostering the middle future or whatever, but in simple terms, they are monetising the imovie market. they are (if at all) seeing future editors in terms of their own casual current imovie users. And, frankly, they may not really care, as long as they get three hundred dollars out of them right now. that’s an ipod every time. with no parts or shipping. Let them learn Avid later.
Apple consciously used the defunct and recognisable FCP marque as a come hither to provide a monetisable software draw to the imovie customer base within their consumer ecosystem. That is why the software was created. To be sold in the appstore, to enthusiast consumers.
So then say that is how Apple view the professional editing market – if its not growing slowly out of iMovie, they could not care less about it. the market will not re-configure to this software, indeed it is being rejected en masse, and apple has no intention of re-configuring a product specifically designed for imovie graduates into the kind of software required for broad professional market use. Some of us may delve in – fine they’re fine with that – we are not their bread. their bread is the monetisable consumer. They see editing as something else in their terms – and the complexity required of a professional product does not match their market.
there will be sops – sure – they’ll code in bits and pieces to allow for a plausible paradigm, god knows what multi-cam will look like (an audition carousel?) but – this will never be other than what it is: a strong revenue generator in the appstore. Nice, direct download, import your imovie projects. Just as it was intended.
If they care about professionals it is only to the extent that they might foster them directly from their direct to consumer enthusiast software.
FCPX is (come on please) never going anywhere in the editing market as we understand it and apple is completely fine with that. They’ll be vaguely nice about it, drop the odd sop to the pro every half year or so, but this software is an explicit monetisation of the imovie user market – that is a large succulent market. that is the market for this software.
Apple could care less about the current requirements of editing, and that is not changing anytime soon.
that half a million on the appstore is… 85% imovie graduates?
ok, sure lets argue about the 85% figure then – but do you think Apple had any other number in mind?
do you think Apple feel desperate now? as they read this forum?
do they now feel market driven to provide multi-cam (they’ll throw out something), licensed OMF or designatable tracks?
what would be their impetus?
http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics -
oh I’m one of the “editing country club set” too Bill alright – our nose is easily tweaked!
we’re out there Bill, drinking Daiquiris… and guiding our “privileged sons and daughters” into those plum editing positions…
Keep feeding dat hay Bill!
tee hee.
http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics -
I’m a broken record here Craig – but london is a ghost town for FCPX Craig – no one from the high to the low is touching it with a barge pole.
why would they? apart from anything else its crappy, buggy software that is barely fit for purpose on any professional level.
Its been met with undisguised scorn in nearly all quarters over here, and vague horror from post houses based on an FCP studio paradigm.
Worse it has resulted in FCP and the mac as a whole being thrown out by the BBC, CNN and a few other large incumbents over here. Actions like that have ramifications don’t they? How can we keep saying things like “well its not ready for broadcast.” We’re saying the successor to FCP studio is unfit for broadcast. Six months after introduction. But then are we genuinely surprised? the thing is built and modelled on iMovie, in ways great and small.
FCPX was expressely designed to monetise iMovie users. That is its reason for being.
that is what Apple chose to do with FCP – monetise their iMovie users.lest we forget “Apple don’t care about the pro market now” the guy who said that had worked on FCP for a half a decade. He’s CEO of postereous or something now.
Bottom line – we’re six months in, its buggy and unstable as hell, and it is hard to call it anything other than a market failure from any rational professional perspective. An appstore success? absolutely Craig. thats the money in their pocket apple was looking for. They are now in a position to monetise iMovie going forward. That was their goal, and they have achieved it handsomely.
It is not an application built for, or intended for, anything we could vaguely describe as the professional market (say where your Job depends on its capabilities and reliability): it is intended to take three hundred dollars out of the pocket of the casual enthusiast, one who is feeling a little constrained by iMovie, and will feel nicely empowered, but never confused, by the big shiny buttons and near identical methodology, philosophy and GUI of FCPX.
Or… it is somehow not at all exactly what it looks like, and it will calmly over 24 months glide back into professional usage after a massive re-fitting from Apple, one that will require the re-introduction of necessary complexity and flexibility in order to make it usable, thereby completely endangering the target iMovie audience currently lapping it up. You know – the audience it was patently designed for.
mmm.
http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics -
ah bill now… don’t pay attention – don’t you mind those nasty.. what did you call them again.. oh yes; “editing country club set” talking down to you.. you keep feeding seabiscuit that hay there…
tee hee hee.
http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics