Apple attending NAB. Hardware/Software & FCS 4.

[Chris Kenny]

I think competing against Photoshop might have been a little out of their league (for now) adobe has and owns that market, 20+ years of photoshop development.

I don't know. Adobe has been essentially deliberately crippling itself over the last decade by refusing to support Mac-specific OS features, and increasingly wandering off in its own (usually bad) directions with respect to user interface... despite the fact that most of their Creative Suite customers are still Mac-based. The Photoshop architecture in many ways is also starting to show its age, as revealed by, for instance, the way Smart Layers work -- they're clearly trying to graft non-destuctive editing features onto an architecture that wasn't designed with that in mind.

I don't think Apple is especially interested in taking on Photoshop at the moment, but a vendor with access to serious OS X development talent, writing a Mac-only Photoshop competitor, would have a pretty good shot at producing a Photoshop-killer.

i honestly think FCP and Color were their most successful apps, and were really the things that sold the most mac pros. If it means it's gonna sell more hardware, they will develop more software. It's guaranteed. But as long as I-phone, touch, pad, and what not generate the most money from the masses, spotlight is gonna be on those items for now. Their pro-application/hardware stuff usually sleeper hits... I didn't even know FCS 3 was out until weeks after it released, it just kind of snuck itself in...

Again, it seems quite unlikely that there's much direct resource poaching between, say, the Final Cut Pro team and the iPad team. There's not going to be a huge amount of critical skill set overlap. And as far as dollars, Apple's continuously growing cash horde demonstrates the company very literally has more money than it knows what to do with. There's really no reason to think that the success of the iPhone or whatever has hurt Final Cut Pro in the slightest.

For the people wondering where this major update is... essentially rewriting an app like Final Cut Pro -- while simultaneously rewriting most of QuickTime (which Apple also has to do, in a world where Carbon is deprecated) is easily a three or four year project. Probably counting from FCS2, since FCS3 -- if we can call it that -- didn't look like the full team was working on it. That means we're just now entering the period when it might be possible to think they could consider shipping something. If we still know nothing this time next year, then it might be time to start worrying a bit.

 

[Kaku Ito]

my sales director looked around in the hotel that was supposed to be holding the hotel, but could not find the event. I guess it was planned but canceled.

 

[Jean Déraps]

But is Apple at NAB this year?

 

[Kaku Ito]

There was a post at Macsoda that looked like apple was holding a conference in a hotel but it could have been cancelled.

 

[Santiago Marti]

It is not that easy for apple to make another photoshop. In fact, most of apple's pro apps were bought to other companies. FCP was from macromedia, made by randy ubillos, the same guy that did premiere for adobe. Apple and adobe are no t enemies, despite the flash-html5 battle, Ppro-FCP and aperture-lightroom. They do really different things, one makes hardware, cellphones, media players and software (including an OS) and the other only makes software (adobe owns the two most downloaded plugins, pdf and flash).

NLEs grew a lot, still they can improve, but that means performance and format support, the tools you can find in any NLE already work for most projects out of the box. Of course they can add more. CS5 is a mature suite right now, performance is impressive, been betatesting premiere and ae, they blew me away. Premiere gained performance and stability, a lot, and ae too, with the rotobrush tool, impressive tool indeed, really. The update is worth for that alone.

I am using Ppro CS5 on commercial projects with my quadro 4800+dreamcolor setup. Native workflow in realtime in 64bit. You can add 3 way color correction and lots of effects, dissolves, the ultra keyer and you never render! It is indeed great. I am sure apple is going the same route but they are too quite about it. They also have to rewrite quicktime. They need to release the new quicktime, 64bit support, and serious support for quadro or ati fire cards, that is gonna take time. Also, they need to upgrade the mac pros, put the newer chips, embrace blu ray, USB3, real quadro support. FCP won't go away, but it sure is using less resources than the ipad or iphone, and that means more time between cycles.

 

[Emmanuel Cambier]

I am soooooo disapointed

 

[Ben Winslow]

Adobe verses Apple.

Adobe verses Apple.

True, Adobe and Apple aren't really competitors. For one thing, just consider the value of the companies: 5.821 billon for Adobe... 47.5 billion for Apple. Apple isn't really playing the same game. Secondly, Apple uses Final Cut to sell computers. Final Cut is important to their mac marketing strategy.

 

[Jim Hoffman]

Apple sure seems like a mobile devices company and NOT a pro apps company lately dont they.

 

[Kaku Ito]

Jobs said it clearly at the iPad keynote, that Apple is the largest mobile company in the world.

 

[Stephen Gentle]

Jobs said it clearly at the iPad keynote, that Apple is the largest mobile company in the world.

They're a big company - they can focus on more than one thing at once, you know. That comment was only to illustrate how large Apple had become in that particular market over the last few years - not in any way that they were only going to sell products in that market.

Turns out that the event was only from Integrated Media Technologies, who aren't affiliated with Apple in any way:

Mac Soda has been told by the company responsible for the event, Integrated Media Technologies, to immediately pull the story because it has no affiliation with Apple and there will not be any announcements by Apple. Maybe it’s just me, but if I didn’t want people to think it was an Apple event, I wouldn’t write “Please join Apple for an update on their latest hardware and software products.” on the invitation

 

[Santiago Marti]

True, Adobe and Apple aren't really competitors. For one thing, just consider the value of the companies: 5.821 billon for Adobe... 47.5 billion for Apple. Apple isn't really playing the same game. Secondly, Apple uses Final Cut to sell computers. Final Cut is important to their mac marketing strategy.

The value of the companies doesn't tell me much. I wouldn't use windows movie maker to edit just because microsoft's company value is billions of dollars. For me that means more stock holders, more need for profit, etc. Adobe makes most of their money selling creative software. That alone doesn't mean their software is good, but i am sure they will keep doing that.
I wasn't attacking apple either, it was just an opinion.
I own a RED ONE, but i am sure sony makes more money than RED.:closedeyes:


http://www.9to5mac.com/ipad-sales-cannibalization-494596

Notice that in the chart it says "mac", that includes macbooks, imacs, minis and macpros.

http://www.itwriting.com/blog/1785-adobe-financials-little-change.html

 

[Ben Winslow]

The value of the companies doesn't tell me much. I wouldn't use windows movie maker to edit just because microsoft's company value is billions of dollars. For me that means more stock holders, more need for profit, etc. Adobe makes most of their money selling creative software. That alone doesn't mean their software is good, but i am sure they will keep doing that.
I wasn't attacking apple either, it was just an opinion.
I own a RED ONE, but i am sure sony makes more money than RED.:closedeyes:


http://www.9to5mac.com/ipad-sales-cannibalization-494596

Notice that in the chart it says "mac", that includes macbooks, imacs, minis and macpros.

http://www.itwriting.com/blog/1785-adobe-financials-little-change.html

I was merely pointing out the size of the companies through sheer value to represent the different scopes of what they are/could be doing (ie Apple has many divisions). As your links show, Apple may not make much profit off software itself BUT Apple's propriety software and creative allure does help prop up the sales of their propriety hardware.

 

[Chris Kenny]

Apple sure seems like a mobile devices company and NOT a pro apps company lately dont they.

Again, this is like saying Sony is a game console company, not a pro cinema camera company, so we can expect them to neglect CineAlta.

Except for some reason people only say these kinds of things about Apple....

Fortune 500 companies can do more than one thing at a time. The idea that there is some zero-sum competition between the FCP and iPad teams within Apple doesn't make any sense. Exactly what iPad features is Apple going to pull FCP engineers to implement?

Complex software takes a lot of time to develop. We know FCP has to be in the middle of the largest transition in its lifecycle. There are literally no public actions on Apple's part that can be meaningfully read as "Apple is ignoring FCP". Shipping only a moderate update in the form of FCP 7 is not such an indication if it occurred because of resources being diverted to a larger overhaul. What this basically comes down to is people freaking out because it has taken Apple three years and counting from the release of FCS 2 to replace half of Final Cut Studio and totally overhaul QuickTime. This is not something to freak out over; it is completely normal for a project of that size to take that long.

 

[Snow R. Shai]

Apple Core

Apple Core

Hi Guys,
I understand all the current worries and where they come from.
But, there are a few of you, who are pretty pessimistic.
Naturally, many rumors are floating around, as always...
From what i know/hear/think/know:
1. Many [many] of Apple core users are professionals.
2. Apple is not abandoning their pro users, in any way [other than that express/34 15" slot].
3. Apple is working hard on FCS 64 bit and refining all the applications.
4. I believe there will be a few surprises.
5. One surprise will be if it hits before 2011.
6. The NLE competition is great for us users and creates better software.

Be optimistic. Make movies.

 

[Imran Farouk]

Wasn't there that supposed email from Jobs saying all ok with the FCS?

I doubt Apple will abandon if at all the FCS series as they have given the 64bit Logic so why not do the FCS? Not to mention, Jobs is involved with Pixar and Disney, though that has nothing really to do with FCS it's still the fact his involved in some aspect of the film industry, so its a rather close project in a way.

Other point is that they pointed to the projects that used FCS on the site after the awards event and I'm sure they'd like to continue doing so...