Why everyone is so painfully wrong about FCPX

[Patrick Grossien]

http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/faq/

Basically Apple is saying what the (calm, patient) users have been saying as well - it's not there YET. I doubt this page alone will stop the iRiots, but hey, they're trying. ;)

ah man, you beat me to it! just wanted to post :)

result of [cmd]+[v] = http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/faq/

hehehe

[Robert Jackson]

http://digitalcomposting.wordpress.c...6/28/x-vs-pro/

[Jeff Coatney]

I think all the FCPX criticism is very curious (i.e. obnoxious). What people fail to realize is this is an entirely new product written from a blank sheet in XCode. Roughly 2 years ago someone at Apple did the following:

1. Launched Xcode
2. File > New Project
3. Stared at a blank white screen

Naturally, you cannot recreate 15 years of development in 2 years and your version 1 app is going to be missing features. What apple has done with FCPX is actually really incredible. It is the most feature rich and professional V1 editorial application the world has ever seen. Does it address the needs of the working professional that deals with online/offline workflows, digital cinema, and large collaborative workflows? No. But that's also the SMALLEST group of FCP users. The VAST majority of FCP users cut by themselves, have no idea what an EDL/XML is, and could care less about tape I/O. Apple knew that V1 of the new FCP would be missing features and they decided to leave out features that would affect the smallest group of users which also happens to be their highest end users. Was this a mistake? Arguable but I don't think it was. I think Apples biggest mistake is failing to communicate to their most passionate and vocal users. They needed to communicate that they know FCP doesn't address all our needs today but that it is in our best interest to hang on and give them more time to flesh out the higher end feature set. So many of Apples products have followed a similar history. When they switched from OS9 to OSX they made a big leap forward while leaving out beloved features that so many OS9 users needed everyday. Some of those features made it back into OSX over time and some of them did not but no one is complaining they want OS9 back.

FCP 7 was the OS9 of editorial apps. It was built on a painfully old architecture and required too much work to salvage. Apple HAD to take this leap if they wanted to continue to stay relevant in the editorial market. FCP was looking like a joke compared to MC and Premiere. It's foundation was old and they needed to start over. The new FCP is based on AV Foundation which is shared with, gasp, iMovie and iOS. Guess what? The old iMovie was based on Quicktime just like FCP but I didn't hear anyone making that comparison then. AV Foundation is Apples next generation framework for doing advanced audio/video Applications. Ask any developer out there which framework they prefer working with, Quicktime or AV Foundation.

In short, Apple has made a mistake by not communicating with it's users and unfortunately, I do not see that changing anytime soon. The good news is, for all of us Pro users, we still have FCP 7, Premiere Pro, and Media Composer. Premiere Pro is essentially free as it comes with the Creative Suite, and MC is more affordable than ever. We all get to continue to use these great products while we sit back and watch how FCPX develops over the next 2 years. Hell, we can even try running the odd project or two through FCPX to take advantage of all the new great editorial features. Ya know, the features that actually help you tell a story (i.e. editing).

Nailed it. Well said. Maybe someday the Pro world will get the idea that to be "Pro" in the future requires one to be nimble and flexible. Rome wasn't built in a day. And in this case, they bulldozed the Palatine hills and hired a new Architect. Good for them.

[Brandon J.F.]

http://digitalcomposting.wordpress.c...6/28/x-vs-pro/

Great article.

[christopher witzke]

I'm hoping this is like when.... on my birthday my wife gives me a card that says happy birthday while she's wearing sweatpants and an 80's sweater and no makeup.... I walk around bummed all day.... then later that evening I walk into the bedroom and there's a mirror disco ball dazzling the room and she's on her knees on the bed dressed in a kinky nighty and purring like a kitten..... and then all is well.

I'm hoping..... that's what apple is up to. Just a marketing tease? Bad new travels faster than good news kind of thing?

[Jeff Kilgroe]

In addition to the short FAQ posted by Apple, there's more developer info starting to trickle out now. There is now confirmation that more APIs (SDK) coming. But it doesn't seem as if Apple is all that interested in expanding the functionality of FCPX themselves. It looks more like they're going to leave it up to third-party developers to extend functionality to fit their own offerings. This is a double-edged sword, IMO... While it could ultimately end up being very powerful, we could very well end up in a situation where extension packs from one vendor may not play nice with those from another. Time will tell. One thing is clear, Apple misplaced that memo about the importance of first impressions.

So I guess I'm looking forward to FCP X, version 2, maybe?

At least Apple is issuing refunds, no questions asked. Not sure what else they could do here. And the FAQ and other trickle of info seems like there's a lot of back-peddling.

[Paul Nordin]

I'm hoping this is like when.... on my birthday my wife gives me a card that says happy birthday while she's wearing sweatpants and an 80's sweater and no makeup.... I walk around bummed all day.... then later that evening I walk into the bedroom and there's a mirror disco ball dazzling the room and she's on her knees on the bed dressed in a kinky nighty and purring like a kitten..... and then all is well.

I'm hoping..... that's what apple is up to. Just a marketing tease? Bad new travels faster than good news kind of thing?

Does your wife have a sister?

[Michael Lofquist]

Well said Emery

[Terry VerHaar]

I promised myself I wasn't going to comment anymore on this topic, but perhaps one more thought...

Maybe the reason Apple is going so much toward third party integration, seeing FCPX as a platform rather than an app, is to compete with (or overshadow) Lightworks when it comes to the Mac. Being open source, it may have the potential to be a fabulous abd robust editor and could grow and expand rapidly if enough developers get on board. And, chances are the paradigm under which it works will be much like FCP7/Premiere/Avid, etc since that is the commonly accepted NLE approach at this time.

So, how do you compete with "free" and, quite possibly, competent and leading edge, in that environment? Seems to me there are at least a couple of ways to differentiate yourself; emulate open source and change the paradigm. Big gamble, perhaps, but maybe the only way to survive and, IMO, no one should doubt Steve Jobs' ability to see and change the future. As imperfect as his vision might be, it succeeds an awful lot.

So, if the first thing is to recruit a lot of people to play in your sandbox, you create the platform and give many, many third parties all the support they need to succeed on your platform. It sure seems to have succeeded with apps on the iPhone and iPad. Apple couldn't possibly put enough developers on the project to compete with the output of hundreds of third party developers who are financially motivated to produce good apps and/or plug-ins. And one of the potential advantages of Apple over Lightworks is the "curated" aspect which means that with Apple's tight integration between OS and hardware, and it's legendary tight-fisted control over third party apps, everything just might work a little smoother for mission critical situations.

Now, if it isn't quite enough to develop an entire ecosystem to support the success of your "platform" product, certainly "updating" the user paradigm adds another place where others might be slow to compete. I, personally don't believe Apple changed the paradigm just to be different but, rather, Randy Ubillos convinced Steve Jobs that it could be done better. Others will certainly disagree but Apple has rarely been afraid of following their own intuition when it come to taking a market in a new direction.

So, as painful as this "migration" has become for Apple, perhaps the long game is worth the risk for them.

Just a thought.

[Paul Nordin]

I promised myself I wasn't going to comment anymore on this topic, but perhaps one more thought...

Couldn't help yourself?!

Terry, Lightworks as a competitor is not even on Apple's powerpoint slide!

Bottom line is nobody outside of a very small group in Apple really know what's the strategy, if there really is a master plan for Professional Tools there. I doubt that 3rd party vendors (and I've spoken to a few now) are psyched about the direction FCPX has taken. Apple can be quite vicious when it comes to strategy shifts, API/SDK redesigns, and all with very little communication to 3rd party vendors. Apple is actually much better towards its iDevice developer community as opposed to the ProTools Community. We all know why. And for 3rd party developers if you are on the wrong side of a shift, you're screwed. NVidea for example is struggling with Apple because they and CUDA are out of favor. Now every update, even minor, results in broken systems that rely on key NVidea tech. Does Apple care that that impacts every Adobe Premiere CS5.x and DaVinci Resolve for Mac user? Um, no. Which means they don't really care that much about me either.

The best advice I've seen from very knowledgeable resources through all this is: If your software tools are critical to your business, you should be using tools from a vendor who views you a critical to their business.

For, me I don't see