Like many of you, I’ve been losing sleep this last week trying to figure out what’s going to happen to my business after the debacle of the Final Cut Pro X launch.
I read in a blog last night that Steve Jobs has gotten involved in this mess and that “really great things will be happening really soon.”
So my first question is: “Why does Steve Jobs need to get directly involved in what is essentially a straight-forward upgrade to one of their well-established products?”
And this led me to a bigger thought: “Who’s Accountable?”
As I woke up this morning, I had a day-dream of Phil Schiller, VP of Worldwide Marketing, appearing on my podcast, the Digital Production Buzz, to answer questions from listeners.
(In reality, this will never happen. Apple stopped giving on-the-record interviews, with the exception of Mr. Jobs, many years ago.)
So, imagining that Mr. Schiller were on the program, here are the questions I would ask:
1. What was the benefit to Apple of immediately canceling Final Cut Studio (3) with the release of a brand-new and untested product; when there was no technical reason (according to Apple) to do so?
2. Why did Apple feel it was necessary to alienate one of their most passionate fan bases with this release; were professional users that expendable?
3. What responsibility does Apple have when canceling a product to companies that built businesses around those products in terms of notification and support?
4. Conversely, what does Apple require of its vendors, when a supplier to Apple decides to modify a manufacturing method?
5. What is the benefit to Apple for assuming a strict rule of silence whenever something goes wrong? (A short period for research is understandable, but not when it stretches for weeks. The number one rule of PR is communication – but, apparently, not for Apple.)
6. Conversely, what would Apple’s reaction be if one of its vendors, say FoxConn, refused to talk to Apple when something went wrong, such as an explosion?
7. Why is Apple unwilling to provide a general roadmap to those products it considers “professional”?
8. Conversely, what would Apple’s reaction be if Intel refused to tell it about new chips it was developing?
9. Trust is a very tricky thing. It takes time to create and can be destroyed in an instant. Does Apple perceive the extent to which it has breached this trust and what will Apple do to recover from it?
Not one of these questions deals with the features of a product. They deal with the moral character of a company.
As consumers, we are held accountable through license agreements, laws, and regulation.
But who holds corporations accountable?
The sad part is that no one holds corporations accountable. We will never learn these answers. And the damage that’s been done will be irreparable.
Larry
66 Responses to Who's Accountable?
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Kris Trexler says:
July 8, 2011 at 4:07 pm
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Larry says:
July 8, 2011 at 4:24 pm
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Ryan Ritchey says:
July 8, 2011 at 4:52 pm
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David White says:
July 8, 2011 at 5:04 pm
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Don B says:
July 8, 2011 at 5:07 pm
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Don B says:
July 8, 2011 at 5:15 pm
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James I says:
July 8, 2011 at 5:20 pm
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ron says:
July 8, 2011 at 5:41 pm
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Nivardo Cavalcante says:
July 8, 2011 at 6:58 pm
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Creech says:
July 8, 2011 at 7:04 pm
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Larry says:
July 8, 2011 at 8:56 pm
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Greg says:
July 8, 2011 at 7:06 pm
← Older Comments Newer Comments →Larry,
As I long time constantly employed pro Avid editor with a long career in Hollywood, I had not been exposed to you and your training services prior to FCX. I have seen some of your FCX videos and you’re by far the best trainer for editing software I’ve ever encountered. Your warm and friendly voice and nurturing guidance puts you at the head of the pack.
I’m not gonna let FCX beat me…with the help of your tutorials, I’m determined to master the beast as best as I can. I’ve edited videotape with a Smith Splicer, used the Ampex Editec, output punch tape EDL’s on CMX, conquered the clunky LaserEdit system, and had a great career as an Avid editor. The old reliable “source-record” workflow is second nature to me and all pro editors, and I’m determined to “get” this wacky FCX concept with your help.
You’ll serve the editing community well by offering “Adobe Premiere Pro for Final Cut Pro 7 (and earlier) Editors” and “Avid Media Composer for Final Cut Pro 7 (and earlier) Editors.” Along with your FCX course, you’ll have your bases covered.
Regards,
Kris
Kris:
Thanks for the comments. I still have some CMX paper tapes lying around here somewhere — ah, just in case I need to reedit them.
Larry
Larry,
I’ve had a real love/hate with FCP X since it came out, but now that I’ve used it on a very basic project, well let’s just say Premiere is installing as we speak… I wrote about my change of course here: http://bit.ly/pgnrQ3
But the bottom line is, Avid and Adobe treat their customers as adults, and Apple takes the “you’ll get your shiny toy when we say so” approach. I would rather use software from a company that treats me as a peer rather than a child. The Apple strategy is great for selling the world more phones, but not for selling software upon which people have staked their livelihoods.
I think Apple will lose badly with this transition. FCP’s reputation as a professional product has pretty much gone overnight. They stand to lose the higher education market, and the goodwill they had built up with the pro community (which got them into broadcast facilities around the world) has all but evaporated – all due to poor communication and arrogance.
They stand to gain the part-time video enthusiast, but at $299 I think they have misread the market.
Looks like Philip Bloom is moving to Adobe. This is from a review for “An Editor’s Guide to Adobe Premiere Pro” that he posted on Amazon:
I am currently in the process of switching from Final Cut Pro 7 to Premier Pro CS5.5 and this book has been an essential guide for me. Clear explanations, broken down in the right size chunks. It pretty much tells me everything I need to know.
A must have.
Philip Bloom
DP, DIrector, FIlmmaker
[…]
Great quote from Biscardi’s blog:
http://www.biscardicreative.com/blog/
“With Final Cut Pro X … because Tape and Capture Cards don’t fit with the “modern workflow” model, Apple dropped all support for them natively inside the application. Without that support for tape formats, I cannot make a living in our workflow.
The same apparently applies to “legacy projects” too. As in “You will not be able to open old projects because we say so.” Apparently Final Cut Pro X is only for “Modern Projects” and cannot be sullied by “Old Projects.”
So I gotta say, while I was really looking forward to whenever the iPad 3 comes out, I’m starting to get very annoyed with “You Can’t Do That Because We Say So” and the “You Will Do It Our Way” attitudes from Apple.
That’s not really “Thinking Different,” that’s “Telling You How To Think.”
With Final Cut Pro X, that was Apple “Telling You How To Edit Video.”
Does any of this remind of you of a certain 1984 commercial from an upstart company? Only now that upstart is directing the minions…….
Larry, your list of questions is perfect and I wish Apple would answer them.
But as for Steve Jobs “getting” involved — c’mon, who in Apple *other* than Steve Jobs would ever have had the chutzpah to authorize shipping FCP X without previous project-import support *and* EOLing FCP 7 other than Steve Jobs? Can you honestly imagine Randy Ubillos or Phil Schiller passionately arguing that FCP 7 and Server *had* to be EOL’d without warning?
Steve’s a genius, admittedly, but that doesn’t mean he can’t make mistakes. I cannot believe that anyone other than Steve called for FCP X to replace FCP 7.
Floris you are naive. At this point, 20 plus years into the NLE game, there is NO excuse for a product coming out from any company that lacks the basics needed for a professional editing environment where clients and multiple delivery requirements are involved. FCPX is just too bare bones to be useful to most professional editors who have companies and earn their lively hood through editing and post production. THAT is the main beef pros are having with this release. Change is always good and most of us embrace it as that is how you grow. But change for the sake of change alone, where you throw out important stuff is not positive change. What if the next version of Word came out without the ability to print or save as a pdf? That would be a stupid move on Microsofts part. What Apple has done is just as stupid and insulting to those of us who have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars building our business around this not dead tool
Thanks Larry,
If there diginidade company that their questions should be read and answered, or the man who commands. The only power we have Apple to show our anger and our grief is NOT BUY ANY MORE OF THEIR PRODUCTS. I will do. Yes, I can have hundreds of alternatives for them.
God bless you.
Larry,
I want you to know how much i respect you and your opinions; thanks for being so level-headed about FCPX.
I wanted you know that (being a filmmaker and digital film teacher at the college level for a few years now) i’m really appreciating your willingness to blog your thoughts on FCPX and keep us up to date on what is happening and how you see it.
I’ve loved Apple and FCP for a while now, and was extremely excited about the new features announced at NAB, only to bit fairly disillusioned with the torrent of news about the actual release. I have yet to try FCPX, and am worried that Apple has misjudged the “pro” film industry and market.
In my view, the film market for prosumers is identical to the market for pro photographers- a whole range of new “professionals” arise up from their amateur status because they spend a little cash on a Nikon D9 or a Cannon 7D or 5D MarkII, and they buy PHOTOSHOP and LIGHTROOM, the software they know that professionals use. The same is true of many of the “videographers” i know, who want to use the same tools that they know the professionals use. They buy it less because of the feature set they see, and moreso for the feature set it must have because the Coen Brothers or Walter Murch used it. Photoshop sells because it’s a professional standard that most people can afford, and Final Cut Pro has sold to many people for identical reasons. If you lose the real Professional Market, you don’t gain a middle market, you lose it all. The middle market will go to the pro applications used by professionals that the amateur can save up for. Being unchained from Avid Hardware brings Media Composer into the fray as well, and Adobe will not forget this lesson as it is the reason it rules Graphic and Web Design. After Effects is also an illustration of this principle, and sells copies.
I might finally buy FCPX and give it a whirl, and bet on Apple coming through.
thanks again,
Creech:
I think your comments on prosumers buy what the pros use is very insightful.
Larry
It’s funny, I’m enraged like everyone. But if I’m honest with myself, the biggest thing that puts me off of FCPX (besides Apple’s atrocious handling of it all) is, let’s face it, the interface changes. And I suspect it is in fact the MAJOR issue for other FCP pros, even though we don’t want to admit it.
Seriously, if FCPX had indeed come out with support for XML, EDL, tape capture and layback, etc., I still don’t think most of us pros would switch to FCPX. We would probably not learn the new program because we JUST DON’T WANT TO.
Seriously, we ALL know that FCPX export of XML will come soon. But in FCP land, there will NEVER again be a source monitor. There will never be audio tracks. There will never not be a magnetic timeline.
It’s just interesting, because I thought I hated FCPX for the obvious pro features that it’s lacking… but that’s letting myself off the hook too easily. I think it looks like iMovie on steroids. And that’s why I’m switching back to AVID. I totally respect Apple trying to reinvent the wheel, but it comes down to it, the wheel works for me.
I’m not proud of it, but it’s true…