Mike Jones Digital Basin
screen media rinse cycle

Apple is a Gadget company

This idea was floated in a recent Studio Daily conversation which discussed the current state and future directions of Apple, Avid and Adobe. The perspective that Apple is a public company focused on maximum profits for shareholders means that sooner or later some bean-counter at Apple will take a look at the company accounts and realise that the ProApps division takes a lot of resources but represents a tiny slither of the company revenue. When compared to iPhones, iPods, iMacs and iTunes, the turnover connected to ProApps like FCP is absurdly small.... hence the old joke that Final Cut Studio needs a giant dongle in the form of a Mac to run.

At the same time as this video appeared a blog post by Scott Simmons explored Apple's approach to suppourting non-Quicktime formats. These two together prompted me to reflect upon an article i had written in the past entitled "Final Cut 6. Where did all the Newness go?"



To my mind Apple, sadly, have a BIG PROBLEM... And its a problem they have had before and not seemed to learned the lesson.

When FCP6 was released (in the guise of FCS2) It contained NOT A SINGLE 'NEW' THING. Not one. Everything in FCP6, that was an improvement from FCP5, was simply a catch-up to what every other NLE had had months or even years before.

ProRes was a copy of DNxHD and Cineform. Multi-format timeline was something everyone else had been enjoying for a very long time. 24bit 96k audio was standard everywhere but FCP. Multi-cam was nothing new, the list goes on. There was no innovation or market leadership in FCP6 as there had been in previous versions - namely 2 and 3. FCP6 was merely playing catchup to the 8-ball.

I said then that Apple needed to desperately get in front of the ball and release an FCP7 very quickly... They failed. FCP7 is far far too long coming. By the time it does get here I'll be not at all surprised if it delivers nothing but catchup again. In fact i fail to see how unless Apple truly come out with a from-scractch re-write of FCP into something mind-blowing, that FCP7 can be anything but a disappointment.

What do we hope for in FCP7/FCS3...?
- A real-time engine that can actually scale decoding resolution.
- Actual 4k 4096px support
- Project files able to be fully exchanged with Motion/Colour/DVDSP
- GPU acceleration (used for much more than page-twirl transitions)
- Surround sound audio
- Greatly improved audio tools in general (this is a VERY long list that starts with the ability to playback a bloody MP3 files without RENDERING!!!!)
- Metadata management
- And of course 'real' native format suppourt rather than compulsory re-wrapping to MOV.

And yet even though all these in FCP7 would be a lovely improvement over FCP6, every one of these is Already available in FCP's competitors - namely Premiere, Vegas and Avid. And moreover, have been for a LONG time.

There's only so long Apple can continue to bring very late delivery of NLE features that its competitors take for granted before it starts losing market share and industry respect. Unless Apple pull some of the guys off the damned iPhone and start putting some real resources into ProApps development then they'll be perpetually behind the market. Each new version of FCP only able to deliver what everyone else already has. I find myself asking where did Apple the innovator went?

I hope that im wrong. i hope that FCP7 doesnt just catchup but goes way past where the others are at with FCS3. I hope they deliver integration Better than Adobe's. I hope they deliver audio tools better than those in Vegas. I hope they deliver project management better than Avid. But the shift from where FCP is right now to this fantasy is so Huge that i just dont think it's possible. And that's a real shame.

At the film school where I teach students learn FCS first and the Adobe CS and are then free to choose whatever apps and workflow suits them and their projects... Needless to say, FCS isnt popular in the latter part of the course....

Posted at 08:57AM Jun 02, 2009 by Mike Jones in industry comment  |  Comments[1]