Since Apple launched Final Cut Pro X last Tuesday, I’ve had more than 3,500 emails that range from “I’m enjoying FCP X and creating useful projects,” to “FCP X will destroy my ability to make a living.” (And, ah, far worse, I’m sad to say.)
When I first saw Final Cut X, I was excited by its potential, but warned Apple that this release would be intensely polarizing to the editing community. It does not give me pleasure to see that I was right.
Worse, Apple has alienated the very people who can make a very visible statement as to the inadequacy of the program. No clearer example can be found than the public ridicule of FCP X on the Conan O’Brien show.
Or, as David Pogue wrote in his New York Times blog: “…let me be clear on this point — I think Apple blew it.”
With the possible exception of the launch of MobileMe, I can’t think of an Apple product launch which has spun more wildly out of control than this one. Apple did not just blow this launch, they went out of their way to alienate their key customer base.
Which is a shame, because FCP X has such great potential — but now, Apple has to concentrate on damage control, rather than getting people excited about the new program.
After the launch, Apple compounded their problems with three extremely poorly timed moves:
1. Canceling Final Cut Studio (3) and pulling all existing product from the market. This is devastating to shops that can’t use Final Cut Pro X. The two applications can co-exist on the same system — killing FCP 7 will not boost sales of FCP X to those shops that can’t run it. All it does is set up a black market for FCP 7.
2. Not providing – then publicly stating (thru David Pogue’s New York Times blog) that they do not plan to provide – a conversion utility from FCP 7 to FCP X. Not only does this render a HUGE number of past projects inaccessible, it sets up the obvious conclusion that if Apple is willing to discontinue support for legacy applications with no warning, what’s to prevent them from doing so again in the future? Every time you watch a movie that is more than 6 months old, you are dealing with legacy assets. Not providing a conversion utility is completely inexcusable.
3. Leaving the support for interchange formats – XML, EDL, OMF and others – to third-parties; or not supporting them at all. Yes, the video and film industry needs to move into the current century. However, Hollywood is very reluctant to change what works. Meeting deadlines is far more important than adopting new technology. Apple’s walled garden approach is totally at odds with the nature of post-production, where the editing system is the hub around which a wide variety of other applications revolve. On any editing project I routinely run 5-10 other programs simultaneously — only three of which are from Apple. I am constantly moving data between programs. This, combined with a lack of support for network-based storage, highlight grave development decisions in determining what features to include in the program.
NOTE: Apple told Pogue that they are working on providing the specs for their XML API. This is essential for any third-party developer to access conversion “hooks” in the program. David didn’t report that they mentioned when this would be available, however.
When I was talking with Apple prior to the launch, they told me that they extensively researched the market to determine what needed to be in the new program. In retrospect, I wonder what people they were talking with.
As I was working with the program, developing my FCP X training series, I often felt that the program was developed for two different audiences. Some features, effects for instance, are clearly geared for the iMovie crowd, while others, like trimming or 4K support, are geared for pros. The program sometimes felt like it wasn’t sure what it wanted to be when it grew up.
In FCP X, Apple got some things amazingly right. But they also got key features amazingly wrong. And if they don’t change course, this software, which has significant potential, is going to spin further and further out of control. At which point, its feature set is irrelevant, its reputation will be set. We’ll be looking at another Mac Cube.
Apple does not normally ever comment on future products – though they did this year, prior to WWDC, because they needed to reset expectations. Because of the visibility of this product into an audience that can cause extensive PR damage to Apple, I suggest that Apple break its usual vow of silence and do three things:
1. Immediately return Final Cut Studio (3) to the market. If it is not compatible with Lion (and I don’t know whether it is or not) label it so. But put it back on store shelves so consumers have the ability to work with the existing version until FCP X is ready for prime time.
2. Fund the development of a conversion utility – either at Apple or thru a 3rd-party – and announce the development with a tentative release date.
3. Publicly announce a road-map for FCP X that just covers the next 3-4 months. Apple needs to be in damage control mode and the best way to defuse the situation is to communicate. Answering the question: “What features will Apple add to FCP X, and when?” will go a long way to calming people down.
I have written in my earlier blog (read it here) that FCP X has a lot of potential, and, for some, it meets their needs very nicely. I still believe that.
I was also pleased to provide training on FCP X so that new and existing users can get up to speed on it quickly.
I don’t mind helping a product develop into its full potential. I enjoy providing feedback and helping people to learn new software. I don’t even mind that FCP X is missing some features; this is to be expected in any new software.
But I mind a great deal being forced to adopt a product because other options are removed, forced to lose access to my legacy projects, and forced to work in the dark concerning when critically needed features will be forthcoming.
This launch has been compared to Coca-Cola launching New Coke – resulting in a humiliating loss of market share.
With Final Cut Pro X, however, the situation is worse — with New Coke, only our ability to sip soda was affected. With Final Cut Pro X, we are talking losing livelihoods.
Let me know what you think,
Larry
253 Responses to Apple's Challenges
← Older Comments Newer Comments →-
Don B says:
June 27, 2011 at 5:51 pm
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Serena Herr says:
June 27, 2011 at 6:31 pm
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Vidano says:
June 27, 2011 at 6:43 pm
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Chaba Gryphon says:
June 27, 2011 at 6:46 pm
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Terry S. says:
June 27, 2011 at 6:58 pm
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Terry S. says:
June 27, 2011 at 7:04 pm
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Alex says:
June 27, 2011 at 7:10 pm
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Vidano says:
June 27, 2011 at 7:50 pm
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Lee Faulkner says:
June 27, 2011 at 8:10 pm
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Lachlan says:
June 27, 2011 at 8:21 pm
← Older Comments Newer Comments →Editing Truths:
The next time your video software ‘partner’ says, “the next release will be AWESOME,” head for the hills …
Good job, Larry! I gotta admit, I was turned off by your initial glowing sneak-peeks, but thanks for rectifying the situation. This is a spot-on critique, very fair. The most interesting part of this whole debacle is Apple’s uncharacteristic tone-deafness. They are usually so good at knowing their market and managing spin. But they stumbled right into this, and as you say, it was entirely avoidable.
The truth is, FCP X is an impressive single-station prosumer app that shows great promise for the professional setting. In about 18 months, if they rebuild the bridges they had to blow up and thereby reconnect the new app to a pro workflow, it’ll be great. Why on earth didn’t they just call it iMovie Pro, and spend the next 18 months getting great press for it while the pros jealously looked over the fence and begged, please, can you add some of those great features to FCP? Instead, they called it a pro app out the gate, yanked the real pro app off the shelves, insulted the intelligence of the market thought-leaders, and are now defensively dismissing what are bonafide, legitimate criticisms.
Case in point: the utter arrogance of the product manager’s public response to the complaint that you can’t open existing FCP projects in FCPX. He responded by lecturing FCP users that they shouldn’t be switching tools in the middle of a project anyway, thereby COMPLETELY missing the point. Assuming he has even a nodding acquaintance with commercial workflows, he must know that commercial and corporate clients routinely ask editors to tweak projects for re-airing or re-distribution that are months and even years old. And no, they don’t want to pay to have the video or commercial entirely recut, thanks very much. So unless Apple can guarantee that legacy projects can be reworked with FCPX, they are making it impossible to do routine, bread-and-butter work.
The simple fact is, the new app, in current form, lacks the toolset to cut features or long-form TV, and is not capable of being integrated into a post-production facility, a commercial corporate video environment, or a broadcast setting.
Apple isn’t even claiming it can be–you’d have to cobble together some awful mess of expensive plug-ins and as-yet-unreleased AJA cards. An application that can’t open existing projects, can’t handle multicam, doesn’t allow you to check colorspace or interlacing on an external display, has no professional output capabilities (no EDLs/OMF/XML means you can’t hand off audio tracks to a mixing facility or picture to a color or DI facility), and doesn’t allow you to mix audio at all (hello??), is quite patently NOT a professional tool. That’s just the truth.
To add insult to injury, they removed essential, use-it-everyday features and did not replace them with anything (e.g. Attributes and Photoshop layer support). And where the heck is Shared Project, which we’ve been promised for years, and which this ground-up rebuild was supposed to provide? Unity, here we come.
By idiotically claiming that FCPX is ready for primetime now, instead of honestly and proudly announcing a ground-breaking consumer app with features they might add to the Pro space down the road, Apple has polluted the good parts of FCPX and unnecessarily shot itself in the foot. It’s unlike Apple to be so tone-deaf.
Lachlan, I couldn’t agree more. That’s the point. And it’s not personal (from Apple’s point of view).
@Vidano – By now we all know what the issues are. But what’s so frustrating is this. Supposedly this piece of crap XFCP was designed to bring together Pros and “pull up” (if you will) amateur hobbyists to the prosumer level. Those that used iMovie and the Final Cut Express crowd. A monkey could see that that never works.
With iMovie and FCE Apple was already catering to the Prosumer crowd and we had the REAL FCP for ourselves. So why the hell couldn’t they just use this crappy XFCP piece of software and replace FCE with it and call it anything but Final Cut Pro. The amateurs would have been happy with their shiny new toy and we would have been content. Not happy, but content. And in addition they could have told us in some way that they will not gonna support FCP much longer so we should look elsewhere.
No, that would bee too easy, right? Puhleeez…
I previously posted this comment on Larry’s prior blog, but after reading a lot of the comments here, I believe it needs to be posted on this blog as well.
“Define Professional”
The many editors, videographers, cinematographers, motionographers (motion graphics designers and artists), and visual effects artists who work in the entertainment industry are not the only professionals in the world. That group only makes up a small percentage of the Media Professionals in our world. So many more who use Final Cut Pro, Premiere, and AVID in the commercial, educational, and local broadcast sectors on a daily basis for their livelihood, are also PROFESSIONALS.
I have been discussing this with Philip Hodgetts over the past few weeks leading up to Apple’s release of Final Cut Pro X, and I have to agree with his point.
Quote: “It largely comes down to what is a professional editor. If you limit it to that niche that are doing movies and broadcast/cable TV then those people are probably not the target for Apple. However the other million plus professional editors working in lesser TV/cable, education, corporate and event videography will be well served by FCP X.”
That was most of us in the room that night at Bally’s for the FCPUG Supermeet Sneak Peek of FCP X. That was where most of the cheers and screams of excitement were coming from. All of that was what Apple’s Final Cut Pro development team members heard aloud, confirming what they created in Final Cut Pro X was going to help the majority of the world’s Video Professionals – NOT HOLLYWOOD, NOT STUDIO CITY, NOT BURBANK (and any other entertainment sector of Southern California that I missed – lol). Apple made it very clear at the Supermeet that the foremost important client from the film sector was the Independent Film Maker, and most IFMs do not work in Hollywood. I have plenty of colleagues and friends (like you Larry) that do work in Hollywood and these comments are not in anyway to put them down, but to address that Apple will not cater to their needs, nor should they believe that they are the only professionals out there.
Check out this blog posting of Philip Hodgetts, it just gets right to it, plain and simple.
“What the heck is a “pro” anyway?”
http://www.philiphodgetts.com/2011/05/what-the-heck-is-a-pro-anyway/
I really do feel your pain and frustration Larry as well as many of the others posting here, but Apple never, EVER, created Final Cut Pro for the entertainment industry profession, it created it for all video professionals, especially the freelance videographer who has to cut his own video. The creative professionals in the entertainment community chose Apple products for what they always do best, making our lives easier, no hassles to create something.
What I have observed with many of the third party developers, when they create software for the Mac, they tend to complicate things. Even Adobe, God bless them, their programs are quite more complicated than Apple’s, but they do their best to make their applications easy as possible to use and their product is a household name even with the average consumer. This is most evident with post-production software, most of which was originally created for Windows, Linux, and Unix interfaces. 3D apps are notorious for this – so many windows, pop-ups, mouse commands, etc. Final Cut Pro was on the same path in recent releases, and it was due to adding more and more features requested by entertainment industry editors trying to make it more and more comparable to AVID.
Apple did the best thing they could with the program and gave it a new and fresh look, functionality, etc. I think the team at Apple did an amazing job taking their most complicated program and making it even more practical and easier to use for any creative professional out there.
I think Hollywood should just park their workflow with what works for them right now, and if there is a better tool for the future (here’s your chance Adobe Premiere! – uugghh. . . shudders at the thought. lol), then they probably should move to that one. Hey, I know there is many professionals still using FCP 6, 5, even 4, or Adobe CS2, CS3, CS4. If it still works and allows you to make money then don’t fix it, or in this case, don’t upgrade it.
Take Care. Always a pleasure to read and hear your thoughts Larry.
I must apologize for my use of only the word “his” in a statement above. I should have used the word “their.” My apologies to anyone I may have offended. I certainly never intended any offense.
Here is the corrected paragraph:
I really do feel your pain and frustration Larry as well as many of the others posting here, but Apple never, EVER, created Final Cut Pro for the entertainment industry profession, it created it for all video professionals, especially the freelance videographer who has to cut their own video. The creative professionals in the entertainment community chose Apple products for what they always do best, making our lives easier, no hassles to create something.
Take care to all.
David Stacy,
IT’s a good find. Would you have the link by any chance. Again, I think this is pure Apple propaganda: It is not a V.1, it would be if FCP Studio was still available.
Yes, FCPX is bold and powerful, but it doesn’t do a lot of what we need it to do. And that’s one of the reason people don’t want to waist time learning it. Not because it’s different, but because it’s useless to us.
And all the issues he talks are none of the ones pros have brought up (although he did talk about the viewer that is absolutely needed.) To me that shows how in denial those engineers are, and how disconnected they are from the concerns from their base. For that alone, we cannot trust Apple anymore.
And he is admitting that it will take a very long time to get it to were FCP7 was. I’ve been working on FCP for 10 years and waited patiently to be where we are today. I am not waiting another 10 years. As I said before Apple has an 18 months to a 2 years widow to make it work fully. Not ok, not close, but on the same level as V.7. In the meantime, we need to focus on software makers who are not going to turn the table on us 10 years from now.
And finally, in the final paragraph he’s admitting that FCPX is not for pros who work in professional environment. And then he says that it’s good enough for pros, close enough to what they expect anyway. 1) It’s not. 2) Since when Apple makes things are “good enough”? I though “good enough” was Windows’s turf only. What’s next? A good enough Iphone? You know, it can only call other Iphones of the same generations, but hey, you can watch 3D video on it! What? You paid $400 2 years ago for the previous Iphone generation? Too bad buddy!
Apple is shameless. Even if they can fix FCPX, they do not deserve our trust anymore. For any of their products.
@Chaba Gryphon – LOL!
“And in addition they could have told us…”
EXACTLY!
One thing not mentioned much is that companies with Volume licenses and valid update/support contracts with Apple, can’t get FCPX at all! There’s no way to even try the software out without purchasing a completely new license …. like the “company” has an iTunes account to buy one anyway!
We have 25 seats and over 400 users (students), and rely heavily on External drives and networking.
FCP 7 works great. “So stay with it” you say. But users need to work on their own machines not just classroom stations, and now they can’t get FCP 7 at all! All they can do it get FCP X.
Will it work in our environment? I don’t know… I can’t hold of the app. Apple won’t comment, even though we’ve already paid them for 25 copies.
Not good.
@ Vidano
The lack of communication has been a calculated strategy.
I think Apple was disingenuous in the way they put this forward for a reason. They neglected to point out the features that were dropped so as not to undermine sales.
They used the pro crowd at NAB to generate buzz for the product which they knew would translate into lots of sales amongst the iMovie/ Final Cut Express crowd, excited at getting a “Pro” editor for $299.
I’ll be checking out Avid and Adobe’s offerings shortly.
Best Wishes.
P.S.
Hey Larry, maybe you can do a Media Composer or a Premiere Blog as well?