Jack James
Forum Replies Created
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Don’t get me wrong: I’m all for innovation. But when you’re talking about people’s expertise and livelihood, it should be an additive process, not a rebellious one.
There’s a line in the book “Almost Perfect” (which documents the rise and fall of Wordperfect Inc.) about how they realised what a mistake it was to remove functionality from software.
I think that’s what hurt the FCPX debacle a lot. The magnetic timeline, the keywording, the publish to ireport, all of that could have been _added_ to FCP, along with the ability to disable (or ignore) those features. I don’t think there would have been the uproar. What happened though was they got added, and a whole lot of stuff got removed. My understanding is that some of them have slowly been introduced, but I think there’s a lack of confidence now. What if in FCP11 Apple remove the ability to export to file? Or decide that trimming is too 1980s and remove it?
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Synaesthesia 1.0 production data tracking and Red footage logging for Mac now available
https://synaesthesia.surrealroad.com -
I think you hit the nail with the larger problem here. Ultimately this is about Apple telling their users how to work instead of the other way round.
Prior to X, every iteration of Final Cut Pro was about helping editors to improve their workflow in some way. No-one knew in advance what the next version would be like, because that’s Apple’s way. But it didn’t really matter, because the improvements where usually for the best.
Then with X, you can imagine the meeting at Apple HQ: “We need to make editing more sexy, more ipod-like”. And in usual Apple fashion, they went about making a lot of changes behind closed doors, and then being horrified when their users tried to point out that maybe editors know a bit more about what makes good editing software than Apple. This isn’t the same as iPhoto, where it’s kind of OK for Apple to tell me what’s best in terms of managing my photos. But for Apple to decree that “tape is dead in the editing world”? Good grief, I can only imagine the severe thrashing they’d get if they tried to “revolutionise” another industry like the medical industry.I found the entire thing very distasteful and haven’t given X a look-in since it launched. For the most part, I like the care and detail that goes into Apple’s products, but FCPX is born of arrogance, not consideration.
Synaesthesia 1.0 production data tracking and Red footage logging for Mac now available
https://synaesthesia.surrealroad.com -
Can anyone comment as to whether the recent updates have made much of an improvement?
I tried FCPX at launch and shortly thereafter got a refund on it. I am still using FCP7, but I’m certain that won’t last for much longer. So it means either I’ll have to suck it up and go with FCPX or invest some serious time with Premiere.Synaesthesia 1.0 production data tracking and Red footage logging for Mac now available
https://synaesthesia.surrealroad.com -
I wonder what will happen to the credibility of all the people who have been reassuring us for the last few months that FCPX would be The Way Forward™