Re: One year later...

[Shane Ross] "If they had released FCX with all the features 10.0.3 had, the reaction would have been less..outrage.....And I still wouldn't use it due to the magnetic timeline...."

I agree with both, but I like the second sentence more than the first. :-)

It was understandable to focus on the things that were missing, for reasons and specific workflows we've all talked about. But even in the equally understandable excitement over features coming back, I don't see that the "solutions" that Apple provided addressed problems that people had. "If they'd just get that damn source window out of the way I could REALLY fly." Most people just didn't feel a need for so many basic conventions to change. For you and others, the solutions caused more problems, without answering the problems you actually had.

The irony is that, among the reasons that the other A companies are finding traction in new ways is that they kept many conventions, while also providing actual features that people had been hoping for from FCP for a very long time.

I mean, if you think about it, the last big deal in FCP for many people was ProRes in 2007, which means that the big change before that was 2005. (Which really WAS big, starting with multicam.) THAT's why people were so "fast" to jump -- after years of waiting, it was clear that Apple wasn't going to provide what they were looking for....

Unless Apple did. And for more people than I think we acknowledge, Apple DID.

That's why I completely agree with you, Shane, that FCPX's long-term fate will be fine, and so will Apple's place in the pro market. Your anecdote about students and FCPX is critical to understand. Apple -- like Adobe, Avid and Autodesk -- have long focused on students on the keys to their products' long-term success. Today's sk8trboi is tomorrow's film school/media school graduate, and after using FCPX+ for 4 or 6 years between skateboards and mortarboards, they may well have little incentive to even consider switching, even as working film and TV pros: FCPX is clearly on the way to re-integration into distributed workflows, and tape will fade even further away.

I actually the next year will be the one that tells a more interesting tale. The dust has settled on Apple's course. Adobe, Avid and Autodesk (to say nothing of DaVinci Resolve) have released the most elegant, robust versions of their software EVER, with insane price adjustments for Symphony and Smoke. These companies now have a different place to begin building a new heritage.

Throw in some slick new workstations from HP, Dell getting back in and now ProMax getting in the game, balance against a new MacBook Pro this summer, iMacs that work really well for some workflows (including Smoke, which was specifically optimized for them), new budget cycles rolling around -- NOW I think we're going to see some things shaking out.

Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou