[David Lawrence]

LOL, awesome!

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[David Lawrence]

[Andrew Richards] “My inner Occam’s Razor tells me it is the software equivalent of a drywaller’s coffee cup sealed in the wall and forgotten about. That is why I came to the conclusion it is part of an evolution, that they didn’t start over with a new codebase, they carried forward an existing one with different UI concepts sketched out.”

I think of it as FCPX’s vestigial tail so maybe you’re right about it being part of an evolution. But holy cow, that was one hell of a mutation!!! 😉

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[David Lawrence]

[Andrew Richards] “That fork was at WWDC 2007 when Apple suddenly nixed the 64-bit Carbon API plan. This is likely why FCP7 was so underwhelming compared to FCP6 and FCP5- FCP7 was going to be 64-bit, but the FCP team had the same rug pulled out from under them as Adobe and any other developers of apps that dated back to the OS 9 era. Mid-2007, Pro Apps all of a sudden had to punt on their plans for FCP7 and simultaneously start a ground-up re-write of FCP.”

Agreed. There’s no question the switch away from Carbon was totally disruptive and caused a reboot. But as Avid and Adobe clearly demonstrate, there’s no reason a 64-bit rebuild requires a radical UI redesign.

The AppleInsider article was spot on about target market changes in FCPX. Given how rushed and incomplete the initial release was, I think they got the corresponding management changes and timing right as well. Totally believable that Ubillos came back in sometime in 2010 with an order to simplify and build on his iMovie work. To me, this scenario makes the most sense and explains the baffling nature of the release. This implies the fork was sometime in 2010.

[Andrew Richards] “It could also be proof they had an evolving idea of how they would implement their goal of eliminating clip collisions and maintaining audio sync for video+audio clips versus just audio. Looking at that image, I see an attempt to do it with something resembling tracks, but with zones for different kinds of media. I don’t think that was necessarily a fully baked idea that got abandoned. I find it more likely that it is a step on the path that got us here, especially given its continued presence in the .app bundle.”

I see it a bit differently. First, the name – Sequence.icns. That says a lot right there. Seems obvious this is a sequence icon. With tracks. Clearly they’re thinking about better organization schemes. Stereo(?) audio is grouped into single clips. This is something Logic Pro and Soundtrack Pro have done for years so it’s not surprising. Audio is below video with variably sized tracks and dividers. Synced clips are shown in the darkened region.

I don’t see anything that indicates clip collision avoidance is even on the radar. I think that and the magnetic timeline came when Ubillos was brought back in.

Also, the Cocoa-flavored graphics suggest a very different direction for FCPX building on Cocoa.

Curious, what’s your take on why this mysterious icon is still in the package after two updates?

[Andrew Richards] “There was another very significant development disruption confounding FCP development following the death of 64-bit Carbon, and that was the false start of 64-bit QuickTime with QTKit and the development of QuickTime’s ultimate successor in AVFoundation and CoreMedia. As that shift took place from 2008-2010, the burden of handling much of the pro video codecs and processing was being shifted from the Pro Apps team to the CoreOS team. That doesn’t explain away the 40 layoffs, but it is reasonable based on what we now know about the APIs that FCPX calls to imagine a redundancy arising between the dev team on FCP and the dev team on OS X and iOS that was taking over responsibility for dealing with that significant component of what FCP does.

You could be right, I could be wrong, but I think my scenario is at least as plausible as yours.”

Absolutely, we’re both reading tea-leaves and speculating on hieroglyphics. It’s a fun sport. 😉

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[David Lawrence]

[Chris Harlan] “I’m just guessing that the internal power shift was so dynamic that it totally re-arranged who got to say what about FCP, mid-development. That would explain the buried artifacts and the rather bizarre inconsistencies in FCP X’s power and limitations.”

I think you nailed it. There clearly was a major fork in development at some point mid-stream. Sequence.icns (still in 10.0.3) is proof. I’m also convinced the timing corresponds to AppleInsider’s article a year before release about the layoffs in Pro Apps. I know Apple PR claims these were all “support” people but the evidence of the release suggests otherwise.

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[David Lawrence]

LOL, that seems like ages ago! Totally forgot about that, all I remember was some crazy rambling! 😉

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[David Lawrence]

[Aindreas Gallagher] “Apple’s reaction to this fact will be dictated by what we don’t know: what they actually intended this software to do for them.”

Agreed. Spot on analysis, Aindreas.

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[David Lawrence]

[Oliver Peters] “This is a fundamental design issue that absolutely has to be in the design from day one. It isn’t, which gives me great concern that it was even contemplated as needing to be part of the way FCP X can be used.”

Agreed. Frankly, I really wonder if Pro Apps ever tested on any project besides that Audi commercial during development. It sure doesn’t seem like it!

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[David Lawrence]

[Oliver Peters] “For example, the track-based picture icon that’s been floating around and is still in the Package Contents is a real conundrum.”

I still wonder about this as well. The fact that it’s still in there is strange. I figure it’s one of two things:

a) a forgotten relic from an abandoned development path. FCPX’s vestigial tail.

b) a hint of things to come.

My money’s on a)

Another great article, Oliver. Looking forward to your next ones.

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[David Lawrence]

[Bill Davis] “No telling if X will ever again develop in the “big movie” direction – since that’s such a niche part of the overall industry of editing visuals today.”

Maybe it’s a niche but it’s a niche comprised of the best of the best in the industry. Oscars make for excellent ad copy last I checked. Guess Apple plans to make up for the loss of prestige users with volume.

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[David Lawrence]

I should add, one additional thing I’d love to see is some kind of Fairlight-like layering for tracks as Michael G. often describes.

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