Shake was an outside acquisition. I agree that Apple’s track record with maintaining those long-term is spotty. You’ve got Logic on one side, Color and Shake on the other. If there’s an app you really like and Apple buys it, you should probably worry. But this isn’t strictly relevant to FCP X.

And not to put too fine a point on it, but the “too little too late” is precisely the sort of short-term nonsense Apple should (and does) ignore. The idea that a significant number of people making an NLE decision in five years (or even 18 months) will care about FCP X’s rocky introduction isn’t very plausible. Most people aren’t paying attention to the Internet drama; they’ll buy based on what product offers what they deem to be the best price/features/interface when they’re ready to buy, and once video monitoring comes out of beta and various third parties support FCP X’s XML a little better, there are few users for whom FCP X won’t be right there in the mix.

As for Apple leaving FCP 7 importing to third parties… 7toX is a great effort, and seems to be a really useful tool, but look at the limitations. A lot of these are an unavoidable consequence of conceptual differences between how FCP 7 and FCP X work. It’s fairly clear, given these limitations, why Apple might not be comfortable including this as an official feature.

And yes I am glad that you can import FCP 7 projects, but it is through a third party application and via XML, well I can already do that into Premiere Pro without a 3rd party application.

“… I agree that Apple’s primary focus is not on film and TV editors, but it never was. This didn’t stop FCP from becoming a very compelling tool for our market, and I don’t think it will stop FCP X from becoming one.”

Are you saying that this was all a coincidence?

http://www.youtube.com/crazyproapple

However, the amount of professional features lost, combined with the immediate removal v7…. That’s irresponsible, nay, adversarial to the user base it has built up in the last decade. All the money invested in hardware and software, MILLIONS, and Apple treats it’s base of customer like this? No thanks Jobs. I’ll stick with my avid. It still is a better editor.

And Avid must be thrilled, because all the professional jobs are going back to them. Maybe a few obscure smaller houses moving to premiere for the integration.

Personaly, I’ve used X. I reccomended it to my gf, so she cut cut cutesy lil home projects. But I would be unable to recommend it for anything else. It’s not a 1.0 that was ready for release. It probably needed a full other year.

And some actual editors trying it out.

This is not some crazy workaround. It makes sense conceptually for a music video, because the music is what drives the timing of the entire edit, the same way, on another type of project, interview footage in the primary storyline might drive the timing of cutaways attached as connected clips.

I haven’t used FCP X yet, so I can’t say for sure exactly what I think, but after looking at how each new features works I think it is revolutionary and that’s part of what also makes it frustrating for people. You get used to doing something one way, so when someone comes out with a different way of doing it there is bound to be adjusting (or criticism).

I can’t see it being widely used in the industry for years, but I bet we will start to see other software adapting or building on elements of FCP X.

Apple is following the same pattern with FCP X: shipping a release with features in place for a more mainstream market first, and then proceeding to add features for film/TV editors. Except this time, based on what they’ve said, they seem to be planning to add those features more quickly than they did last time around.

Bullpucky. Then why did Apple have a PRO PAGE on the website featuring FCP? Showcasing Bunim/Murray as a large installation with over 100 seats…working on broadcast shows? And showcasing David Fincher and ZODIAK…Walter Murch and Cold Mountain…the Coen Brothers? It TOTALLY targetted the pro market. And showed off the fact that it HAD the pro market. “Hey, look, if these hot shots can use FCP for TV and feature film, just imagine what you can do with it!” If it didn’t want the pro market, it wouldn’t have fixed OMF export to include levels and pans, it would have left people to use Automatic Duck. It wouldn’t have included EDL export/import. It wouldn’t have bought Color and implimented it into the Studio package. It wouldn’t ONLY work with professional broadcast frame rates, like 23.98, 29.97, 59.94…25 and 50. It would allow people to work at 10fps, 15fps.

No, Apple totally aimed at the professional market…but then realized that that isn’t where the money is, so they went after the larger market…web video producers, DVD makers…people editing family video. They could care less about professionals. Not the buying and killing of SHAKE…COLOR…DVD Studio Pro.

Sorry, you are wrong here. Apple made FCP X for the amateur filmmakers and very low end professionals. While Avid and Adobe do make changes…and faster now that they see that people demand change faster…yet don’t leave behind features that professionals rely on.

But, Apple doesn’t care that they lost the professional market. We are the smallest blip on their radar. BUT, what they did do is move a lot of us back to Avid, or over to Adobe, and that will help those companies survive, and thrive. Because they are ONLY focused on the professionals, and not on selling iPads.