This evening, I was speaking – remotely – with the Arizona Final Cut Pro Users Group. And I was asked, as happens often, “Does Apple still care about professionals?”
This is a hard question, because the answer is changing. But here’s what I told the user group, and I wanted to share it with you.
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Unlike any other company on the planet, Apple doesn’t share its future plans. Except in rare instances, as they did with the initial showings of FCP X, the on-the-record meetings with analysts at NAB this spring – an ON-THE-RECORD private meeting, which hasn’t happened in a long, LONG time – and recently with Tim Cook’s email on the status of the MacPro update next year.
All of these are very uncharacteristic of Apple. In fact, Tim Cook’s response was an answer to the clamor from a Facebook page!
What’s going on?
I think Apple got its head handed to them with the launch of FCP X in the professional market. They were expecting controversy, they didn’t expect a revolt. The market opportunities Apple provided its competition was totally unexpected. The industry confusion was extreme. And the uncertainty continues. Hollywood HATES change, but it hates insecurity far more. The financial turmoil and disruption was enormous. Even today, a year later, I’m getting constant requests from editors on what they should do to plan their career.
Creative professionals have been Mac fans for a long, long time. We build businesses, meet payroll, and create killer products using Mac gear. Over the last few years, Apple has forgotten that you can’t treat creative professionals the same way you treat consumers.
But I’m starting to see moves from Apple that it has recognized this. The recent NAB meetings are one, Tim Cook’s memo is another. Apple is starting to telegraph – albeit gingerly – where it is going. It will never be the dialog we would like – but I’m seeing a break from the silence.
Up until the iPhone, Apple has never created products because it saw that it could dominate a market. It created products that were the ultimate marriage of hardware and software into products that spoke to the creator in all of us. If you think about it, Apple has always been a software company – with a Mac as a dongle.
The professional market – however that’s defined – will never equal the consumer market. With $98 billion dollars in the bank, Apple doesn’t need the professional market – except, everything in Apple’s DNA speaks to the creative, the communicator, the designer, the elegant esthete in all of us.
We all want to keep using Macs and Mac software. We want to continue believing in the company. All Apple needs to do – every so often – is talk to us and give us some clues about the future. And, from time to time, they need to listen as well.
It’s a two-way street.
As always, let me know what you think.
Larry
18 Responses to Larry's Thoughts: Apple and Professionals
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Dave Heinzel says:
June 21, 2012 at 9:49 am
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Ste says:
June 21, 2012 at 9:59 am
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Caesar Darias says:
June 21, 2012 at 11:15 am
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bradbell.tv says:
June 21, 2012 at 4:56 pm
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Al says:
June 25, 2012 at 8:31 am
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Keoni Tyler says:
June 25, 2012 at 10:00 am
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Larry says:
June 25, 2012 at 10:14 am
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Rod Allen says:
June 25, 2012 at 10:20 am
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Keoni Tyler says:
June 25, 2012 at 10:28 am
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Doug says:
June 25, 2012 at 11:39 am
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Ken Ackerman says:
June 25, 2012 at 3:23 pm
Newer Comments →Well said, Larry. It’s nice to have your voice of clarity and reason with all that has happened over the past few years. Although it has been troubling for Apple to treat us with such indifference, your blog has balanced it out somewhat and has kept me grounded. I’ve come to enjoy FCPX for the most part, but I don’t think I would have stuck with it without your encouragement.
You hit the nail on the head with the “Apple’s DNA” point. It would be a monumental change in their core values, from my perspective, to abandon professionals. And I’d like to think there would be an internal revolt if the developers inside Apple suddenly found themselves without a powerful workstation like the Mac Pro.
It might be a bit simplistic, but it seems that Apple was swept up in iOS and its mobile products over the past several years, to the point where all other product lines began to suffer. iMac, laptops, Mac Pros, Mac Mini, OSX – these all seemed to take a back seat while Apple was courting the pretty new girl on the block. I don’t blame them at all. She was beautiful. And smelled great. And… that smile.
Where was I? Oh yes. Anyway, it has been nice to see them regain their focus on their entire product line. The updates to OSX and the refreshed laptop line give me a good feeling. I have a MacBook Pro retina on order and cannot wait to use FCPX on it. A new Mac Pro next year would be great, too.
Dear Lary,
thank you for another great article on your blog. I totally agree with you. But I’m not entirely sure about Apple’s promises of a complete Mac Pro revamp. Apple will probably always be Apple, so let’s keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best in 2013!
Thank you,
Stef
I think it was Ralph Kramden who said, “Be nice to the people you meet on the way up, because you’re going to meet the same people on the way down.”
Here’s something I’ve noticed, which leads to the following outcome: the categories of consumer and professional are obsolete – but it’s probably a good thing.
Here’s how:
It seems Apple has learned via selling digital products (iTunes, App Store) that you make more money if you price cheap, sell by the millions, and make it super convenient (backup, install everywhere, no dongles, no serial nos., no piracy). I believe this is the proper digital model for selling all digital products.
I’m not a professional, I just make a living doing this. And I love the new approach to selling software. In fact, I’m not sure I want to go back to the world of software as delivered by Adobe for example. Pro software. Expensive software. I am not a postproduction house. And I don’t want the hassles and inconvenience of it.
What I’m saying: FCPX for example, is pro software with the App Store model applied to it. It is pro software anyone can afford. The drop in price democratises it and makes the distinction between professional and consumer meaningless. After all, it’s just bits. You might as well price it to sell millions, the transaction cost is almost zero.
But the problem for professionals is there’s no barrier to entry. The people formerly called consumers are able to use it. And individual neo-professionals too. It seems the number of video and film professionals has grown tenfold in the last decade. But it doesn’t seem to threaten professionals as there are so many more films to make. However, it may mean Apple won’t be catering strictly to a small industrial sub-category of professionals formerly called, “professionals.”
(Despite being professional, I buy a new iMac every 2 years – not a tower – because an iMac costs half as much and a new iMac will always be faster than a 2 year old tower.)
It’s great that Apple has started listening to it’s business customers again (it did do that for a while in the 80s and 90s). But just having Tim Cook talk about this is only a start a year after the crisis hit. To properly do what he claims he wants to do requires discussion *in advance* about plans for the professional market. Other software vendors dedicated to business do this routinely. They have specialized marketing professionals for those markets, not $12 an hour folks in a retail store that sells everything they make. They reveal, under non disclosure agreements, what is ahead so that both their vendors that rely on them, and their customers, aren’t surprised by things like the launch of FCPX. Apple has the money to do this, they are insanely profitable, and hoard their cash for some future need. As an Apple shareholder, a customer and a professional using their products ( I still have a Mac Pro and an aging FCP Studio) I think that it’s not too much to ask.
As someone who has edited since the ripe age of 11, and professionally for HBO since age 15, when there was only film, 2-inch Quad videotape, 1/2-inch reel-to-reel EIAJ video recorders and finally 3/4-inch cassettes (there was no Betamax or VHS in the home yet), I worked my way up to post supervising The Academy Awards (R) and The Primetime Emmy (R) Awards, and ask to please allow me humble input on this subject in my first-ever “LARRY JORDAN The General” post/reply.
1. Not all editing is the same. When you see things like ‘Oscar (R)(TM)-winner ‘The Social Network’ edited on Apple Final Cut Pro, you may not realize that most motion picture off-line (creative) editing is done as simple CUTS and maybe a few dissolves. The “finishing” happens in the “on-line” edit, with Digital Intermediate or negative cutting. An effects heavy film like Spider-Man will have just the main cuts done while all the effects shots are composited elsewhere and brought-in as completed clips to give the editor, director and producers an idea of what will happen later.
A timeline for a t.v. show or t.v. promo, and in some movie trailers — with flying motion graphics, interstitials, effects, is a much more complex editing timeline, and that’s where Final Cut repeatedly fought you versus Avid flowing with you. A reality show can have 24 or more cameras with 50+ video/audio tracks all sync’d on a timeline — much more advanced than a movie that has 1 or 2 video tracks with simple cut, cut, cuts.
The move by the respected Bunim/Murray is a major statement; as was Disney/ABC’s frustration with trying to upgrade over 2,000 Final Cut editing stations one-by-one because of Apple’s repeated missteps.
2. Let’s not kid ourselves: While I love Apple, the only reason Final Cut Pro made any imprint in theatrical, broadcast and professional industries was its low entry cost. At a time when Avid was the defacto standard, but its software cost $50,000 and exclusive hardware to connect it all was another $50,000, FCP’s software-only entry at $1,000 made a lot of sense. A school could set-up 100 desks for the cost of 1 Avid. That didn’t mean FCP was better because they quickly grabbed market share. The Betamax was a far superior home VCR than VHS, but Sony was initially greedy and controlled all Betamaxes – while VHS licensed it to whomever wanted to make one (is there a parallel to Windows and Apple here – the better OS always being in Apple’s domain, but Apple’s exclusivity led to higher prices, and so the public went cheap with ubiquitous IBM/MS-DOS instead?)
FCP did force Avid to look at their cocky ways and re-invent itself, and lower their prices drastically. FCP’s early trade ads were even mis-leading, showing a $75,000 FCP edit suite with a bold headline “Edit for $995.” The $995 was only for the software and not all the things in Apple’s picture, showing a Miramax feature being edited on a $50,000 Sony HD monitor and about $200,000 worth of needed gear.
With Apple, many high schools and colleges could now afford editing via FCP – which was great. Greedy career editing adult schools would continue to fool naive first-timers by loading laptops with the best John Williams score and Steven Speilberg-shot stock footage, ask students to grab a mouse and put some clips together – then voila, hit the play button and see how “easy” it was to become a well-paid editor. These students were “editing,” – they weren’t “editors.” When giving lectures, I can stand in a room full of 30 students; we can all grab a spray paint can and paint the wall blue. Maybe only 1 in the class is Picasso. Editing has, and always will be an art based on something that isn’t “taught” — human emotion. Avid, FCP, PremierePro, Vegas, Media 100 and the like are tools, but they don’t make an artist. I still force editing students to cut film and even edit with two VHS machines or (3) Betacam SP analog decks with a controller, editing linearly, before I sit them down at a non-linear editor.
I really wanted to LOVE FCP. I ended-up investing a lot of time and money for external boxes and forced half my projects to go with FCP; leaving the remaining to Avid. And I appreciated the low cost entry-point for democratizing what used to be a nearly impossible field to enter in due to its restrictive cost (I grew up in the projects and had to force myself into a black-and-white training films post facility to earn my chops at age 11).
We would yell at Avid saying, “remember when you were scoffed at as the new kids on the block in 1995? Remember the lesson in Sony’s mistake with the Betamax? Your software came down to $2,495, but you won’t open your hardware to third-parties, so that still costs $25,000. This is where FCP has got ya.” Avid finally listened, and Avid 5 and the new 6.0 is now open.
3. Apple and Steve Jobs got cocky – they never listened. Having a grandfather who was a WWII hero, who instead of taking a purple heart, asked to re-enlist with his men on the front line, he taught me that I should talk to the people on the front line and consider all options before making any decision as a leader. Apple becoming iGadget lost its way, and said, “You are going to do it our way – we are reinventing editing.” Editing didn’t need to be re-invented. I can’t tell you how many times AVID listened to me when I was a nobody in the industry and actually implemented changes. Final Cut Pro could have been made 100% better by 7 small changes in the way it does things; instead, Apple blew it up and re-invented a wheel when all we wanted was some power-windows, navigation, and better air conditioning. I’ve showed the small changes of Avid vs. FCP in systems side-by-side.
Apple TOLD the world how the iPhone and iPad would be, and for those consumer products, that was great.
The writing was on the wall with them destroying “SHAKE,” ignoring Blu-ray, and not keeping their MacPro Workstations up-to-date. I bought my first Apple PowerBook when it was the first with a 17-inch screen; the first with a WiFi antenna built-in instead of having a USB stick protruding out of it; the first with a DVD burner; the longest battery life and then a cheap Final Cut Pro to edit on location with. That was the best $5,000 investment in hardware I ever made, and even used it on a live Fox Sports national broadcast, impressing my producers and the director. But I still often had to do 5 steps for every 1 I did in Avid. The old Apple Computer would not have waited for Thunderbolt – they would have been the first with USB3 and Blu-ray burners as the mid-step. And people like me would have bought 3 systems for our home edit suites.
I am still holding out for a new MacPro workstation, but am worried that like with FCP-X, Apple will screw it up. I love Apple’s OS and it is an example of improvements done right. SHAKE should be #1 and be giving NUKE a run. MacPro’s should be setting trends, not following them 2 years behind. Apple should bite the bullet, kill FCP-X and call it iMovie Plus, and make the small changes to FCP-7. The “PRO” has left Apple’s soul, and making plans for the next 5-10 years, Apple is proving it can’t be trusted.
So are you listening, Apple? Your die-hard fans are holding hope.
http://www.KitchenTableEditorial.com
Hollywood
Keoni:
Your voice is always welcome.
Larry
I think the most significant straw in the wind recently has been the news that App0le will restore ‘save as…’ in Mountain Lion: Tim Cook really might be listening to us.
Wow, a personal reply from the General himself. Thank you, Larry! I am much humbled and honored at your priceless time and all you do to help us in the trenches.
I really hope Apple will do as my grandfather taught, and invite VIPs like yourself in early on the development stage to get it directly from the men on the front line. Even if they end-up not taking all input, the additional respect they will earn will be priceless to not only fan loyalty, but to their development process and bottom line!
I convinced a guest last week to use my FCP bay instead of my Avid bay because of QuickTime advantages, and I want to keep doing so!
🙂 Cheers,
keoni tyler.
Larry, you have it a bit backwards. Apple doesn’t make money on software. They make their money from Hardware. Always have. The software is just to move the hardware (overly simplistic, but essentially true.)
It would be nice if Apple did some listening to it’s user base of Mac Pro’s & Editing & other Pro Apps, but I’m not going to hold my breath.
For example, their root business model, more or less from the beginning, has always been about creating as close to a monopoly as possible within their market-share.
“Buy FCP, it’s a great pro app, and oh, you need a Mac to run it, by the way”.
“Buy a Mac Pro, it’s a pro computer, and oh, you need more memory, more & bigger hard drives, and more & faster graphics cards at $450 a pop”.
“Only 3 choices of Graphics cards available now for your Mac Pro and we make 2 of them, pay the piper to get one”.
“See FCP run, it makes award winning movies”.
” Oh, we’re not selling that broken down old FCP anymore, we’ve got the new fantastic iMovie plus!, er…we mean FCP X, it’s the thing now! Hurry up & get it.”
“Buy the way, you’ll need a Mac with that.”
I’ve seen this picture before, I didn’t like it then and I don’t like it now. Extract maximum cash, what it cost to make in China has nothing whatsoever to do with the price.
Ken