Re: One Year Later, redux: Apple, FCPX and The Perfect Roll-out

[Herb Sevush] "And I am patiently explaining that the upgrade could have preserved what was valuable in the old without tossing the baby out. Adobe and Avid among many others have managed to upgrade their basic software without destroying the workflow of their users.

I assume that this is still true, but when I was there, this was a great concern. It was sometimes maddening to sit in customer facilities where they demanded that Media Composer change to keep up with Final Cut Pro, then walk through step by step them: What if we changed THIS? "No." What about THIS? "NO." Or this? "HELL NO!"

No disrespect intended to either Avid or the customers, because this really is a very difficult row to hoe.

Which is why, in the end, Steve didn't want to talk to customers. I can cite interviews in both 1985 and 2008 (and did in the article I referenced above) where he explained why: customers will ALWAYS favor what they know. In the 2008 interview, he specifically said that customers can't see around the corner, so why ask?

Pretty arrogant, even for Steve. Maybe we should start some Chuck Norris-style meme. Steve Jobs could see around corners, and the corner after THAT. He could see all the way around the world so clearly that he could kick your ass even while you were behind him, without even turning around.



Apple chose not to, basically because Steve Jobs found it hard to edit his family's home movies. Now there's a great reason for change."

I'm not saying that any of this was GOOD, or done for any right reasons other than the ones I mentioned: he wanted it to look and act like Apple, and he wanted it to do something completely new. They could NOT do that and maintain old workflows -- because at the end, neither Adobe nor Avid changed anything FUNDAMENTAL.

Why? Because they care about maintaining continuity. Apple, not so much. Their whole heritage, from the origin of Mac, was founded on dis-continuity. People love it when it works for them, and don't when it doesn't.

Also as I mentioned, I really really like what Adobe and Avid have done. :-)

I should have said this a lot earlier, but I'm glad that it appears that nobody has taken my "zombie-Borg FCP" ANALOGIES as saying anything about FCP as YOU experience it. It's obviously been doing awesome things for you awesome people for a very long time. I was speaking from an imaginary perspective that I also obviously think is pretty accurate, rhetorical/humorous exaggeration notwithstanding.

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