When well-respected FCP advocates like Larry Jordan need to publish statements to their user-brethren to clarify the limitations on their involvement in a software release, and Walter Biscardi immediately starts to share his journey to an alternate application, I think it's clear that the development philosophy, if not the majority of the process wasn't really opened to the installed user base for discussion, even though apparently Apple did solicit input. As Michael Wohl, an FCP user who had pre-release access to FCPX put it in a recent LAFCPUG meeting demo, he submitted "pages of notes...", then indicating none seemed to have been used.
While I have to admit that as a bit of a software advocate myself for a competitive product, I can relate to the feeling you're not being taken seriously when you're asked for this type of input...however, depending on the company, a user asked for input may not be completely informed of larger company plans or initiatives, either because of corporate confidentiality, or even just because the company may be interested in a completely unbiased perspective.
In any case, the reaction of shock on the part of users seems odd as Apple is known for decisive innovation, as well as pretty effective feature-set intuition when it comes to creating products that are popular and profitable. Apple's genius has never been so much in knowing what the market wants as much as it has been in persuading the market that what Apple has is what the market wants. Steve Jobs himself has been quoted multiple times uttering statements that are various iterations of "Customers usually know what they want when you show it to them..." In my opinion, Apple's track record indicates this cannot possibly be a significantly flawed philosophy.
In the case of FCPX, Apple has made a move to get into position for the "everybody will edit video" marketplace and I think that they'll likely see revenues in a couple years that will validate their fundamental revamp in FCP's operating philosophy from a stockholder benefit perspective.
However, when a company decides to change their market target, that effort can be especially clumsy when the existing customer segment they've been highly publicizing as an indication of their product's legitimacy is actually part of the casualties. Apple has been standing on the shoulders of their vast installed base of professional Final Cut Pro users who edit high profile entertainment projects in network television and film to show proof of their established legitimacy for the last couple years as their users have been waiting for some sort of significant upgrade. Apple's customers (who have a brand loyalty that is likely the envy of any business in any market) have been some of the most effective promoters of the Final Cut Pro application, even as it has been left behind in features and versatility by its competitors in the years since its last significant release.
Final Cut Pro's installed base bought it some time, as Avid's installed base did 5 years before. Even as it became obvious during the "DV years" that multiple players in the industry had passed Avid in feature set and cost-effectiveness, Avid wasn't completely out of the race until a significant portion of their users got frustrated enough to undergo considerable stress to change platforms...not something a professional facility can do spontaneously.
However, after spending their "customer base inertia" capital buying a couple years of customer patience, Apple created a new piece of software. No upgrades. No legacy version project loading. Existing FXplug-ins (a completely new plugin standard for Apple alone that the industry was forced to comply with, introduced a few short years and one version ago) aren't compatible.
To top it all off, the new "professional" application not only looks like Apple's consumer editing application, it's actually project-compatible with it. While this iMovie compatibility isn't a cardinal sin, it certainly is an embarrassing feature to have front-and-center for a customer base and a company that has traditionally been so professional image-conscious up to now.
Ryan from FilmRiot in this clip sees the iMovie compatibility and legacy FCP version incompatibility as a "...big middle finger to professional editors signed: Apple..." and it gets more entertaining from there:
Is what Apple did wrong?
Apple is a business and businesses make money, and Apple has shown that they know how to do that.
Is what Apple did foolish?
I think if even professional editors are honest with themselves, the combination of more varied and shallow markets for video content developing simultaneously with a significant cultural shift toward media literacy can't possibly be ignored as a force in moving video creation "down-market." Odds are that in a short time, Apple will see revenue figures that endorse their re-targeting efforts.
Does FCPX change the professional post market?
I think so.
Adobe Premiere loads projects from versions that are ancient, even in cases where not all the features translate, you can still load the basic project and revise or update it. I get calls from clients to do this with regularity, and I don't think my business is that unique. Avid makes efforts to maintain backward compatibility. This is how you keep a massive user base massive in the professional world. Does it restrict how far you can jump from version to version? I would think it would have to, but if you are creating a product for professional use, that product's ability to keep productive continuity flowing and therefore keep your customer's groceries paid for, is the most critical feature that product has.
Apple allows a user to run their legacy version of FCP along with FCPX on the same machine (since it's not an "upgrade" I don't see how it could work any other way...), but previous versions of FCP are no longer for sale (Edit: 7/7/11 it now appears that Apple will offer FCP7 for sale again...for those who wish to buy additional seats before it's permanently EOL'd). Of course the way Apple upgrades hardware and their OS, it's not likely that FCP legacy will operate on Apple systems all that far into the future.
FCPX is enough of a philosophical and operational departure that FCP users will have to take some time to adapt...but the clock is ticking as the next Apple OS revision in a year will sneak up fast, not to mention big changes in the media architecture (QuickTime) are moving forward...
While all this might be on-plan for Apple's ultimate goals, it will have to change its marketing pitch for its new editing system as the user names and faces it's been putting out there to be the image and reputation of its professional editing product appear to be left standing outside the new target area for FCPX.
...and it doesn't seem like the fact is lost on anyone that iMovie projects load in FCPX and the features and television programs edited in FCP projects previous...load in Adobe Premiere Pro.
I thought it interesting that Michael Horton of the Los Angeles Final Cut Pro User's Group was quoted as concluding the recent meeting with some at least partial humor: "...LAFCPUG has never been about just FCP; we're about the craft of editing, the art of editing — no matter what tool you use. We just draw the line at PCs."
Um...OK...perhaps the name of the user group may need revision?
MMSG perhaps? (The Mac Myopia Support Group)
TimK
