“Yesterday we posted about Apple’s startling new pricing of their digital composition software, Shake. It was news that Shake had dropped from a US$2999 price point to a more economical US$499 price point overnight. An astute reader pointed out in comments that there was much more to the story. According to the FXShare website a letter was sent to Shake users via the Shake List Server Discussion regarding their 4.1 release of Shake,” Jeff Smykil reports for Ars Technica.
Apple will no longer be selling maintenance for Shake and no further software updates are planned as we begin work on the next generation of Shake compositing software. While we’re excited about the innovations we can bring in the future, we understand you have a business to run today that requires Shake.
Smykil reports, “Suddenly US$499 doesn’t seem like such a great deal for a piece of software that will receive no future updates and no future service contracts.”
Full article here.
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What a load of hooey!
$499 is a great price for a piece of software if it allows you to generate income of several tens of thousands of dollars between now and the yet-to-be-officially-revealed successor to Shake 4.1.
Actually, on an ROI basis, if it cost me $10,000 to create a single Shake studio machine I’d be happy if I generated $60,000 over the next three years plus the cost of the operator, Given that I’d aim to sell 6 hours a day for 180 days each year, that’s $18/hour which sounds like a perfectly reasonable figure to me.
So, do you think they will integrate Shake in with Final Cut Pro?
Come-on MDN, you throw out a question but don’t provide a possible explanation or multiple choice of possibilities.
They are not just going to discontinue the program like your headline suggests. (It did get me to read the story though)
They did the same thing with Final Cut a few months ago. If you owned so muc as one piece of the Studio, you could upgrade to the entire Studio for $200–an absurdly awesome deal.
It’s obvious. They’re unloading the media to make way for F Studio 6 and Shake 5 for the new Mac Pros!
Oh god… don’t get all the xenophobes excited, they won’t read to the bottom of the piece.
It’s NOT in competition with or a rival to Google Earth at all, it’s a joint project by the French Office of Geological and Mineral Research and the National Geographic Institute. It’s going to be using the EU’s navigation satellite network.
And if you’ve ever used Google Earth over France, it is poorly served – as in fact are most areas that are far from metropolitan areas.
Oh and Ray, this posting has nothing to do with France last time I looked.
“Suddenly US$499 doesn’t seem like such a great deal for a piece of software that will receive no future updates and no future service contracts.”
Not really. A lot of small companies and indie filmmakers are going to be really happy that an excellent piece of filmmaking software has dropped to an extremely affordable price. I have real interest in filmmaking and under better personal circumstances (like having my small personal studio completed), I would grab Shake in an instant.
Maybe I will anyway, even if I can’t use for a good six months or so.
The next version of Apple’s compositing software (whatever it may be called) will likely see an end to the availability of this version of Shake, and it is sure to be just as expensive (but worth every penny to big guys like WETA and ILM) as Shake originally was for small and indie filmmakers.
can someone please explain how posters like “charlie” manage to post in the wrong thread? Is it a gift I don’t have or some software that makes submitting extra complicated. /tia
i just hope they use the past revenue (and the current one) on a decent interface. why they worked with that legacy crap is beyond me. a guess, they will revamp it and make it part of FC6 or Motion.
Yes, it’s amazing that people can get a perfectly good piece of software, relatively cheaply, and gripe that it won’t be further developed.
We are so spoiled by the next greatest things that we never – almost ever, use what we have to it’s full potential.
As soon as my new MBP gets replaced by a faster model, it doesn’t become obsolete – but tell that to the whiners on the forums.
If you can use this software for work, then it’s a bargain and will last you as long as your system remains relatively the same.
How often do we NEED new hardware/software vs just WANTING it?
SB
Yes…but Charlie IS right. 😀
1. Shake is NOT in competition with or a rival to Google Earth at all
2. This posting has nothing to do with France last time I looked.
Kind of puzzling why Apple would do this before not having the other the next generation of Shake compositing software available. (I am guessing they had very, very few customers and so it effects basically no one.)
Could you imagine them or any company doing this with all their software?
“We just dropped the price by 80% because we think it sucks and we are going to make a new version sometime in the future.”
A great piece of software that yesterday was out of reach for the majority of potential users, today is suddenly available at a reasonable price for a huge potential jump in user base…
Sounds good to me!
PNo service contracts? For the new price, big deal. Plus, there is extra support staff that’s no longer needed. I see no negatives there, either.
The more Shake users there are,m the better it is for Apple in the long term Great move on Apple’s part.
How many you big “rah,rah,rah,wonderfulnews” talkers have bought it today?
Answer: None.
Apple are producing a Flame level compositing application to replace shake.
Well, that’s my best guess.
Think where we’ll be in 2008:
At least 8 core workstations and dual core graphics cards. A new code base is needed to make the best of what the future holds.
In the meantime Shake for $499 is the biggest steal in compositing history. Get some….
Well,
$499 is a steal if you need to have this software to use along with other Apple video apps.
I consider myself a amateur/semi-pro video/filmmaker
I have been using FC Express and Express HD, Soundtrack,Live Type and Deck/Peak for sometime and I see no support for importing FC Express files or audio file types into Shake.
AND, you have to remember Shake is a digital video compositor app.
Meaning, you still need other apps to do all of the creative work.
So, if you don’t have a version of FC, Motion, Soundtrack or any audio/video apps that will easily import into Shake, you’ll still need to purchase some of these.
Also, am not a big fan of Apple’s latest OS X version. I do not like OS X Tiger much. I am still on OS X 10.3.9
I noticed that the system requirements state you’ll need OS 10.4.6 plus QT 7.1
So, I’ll have to shell out for OS X Tiger, as well.
If you’re doing more pro level digital video/film and already have all of the other needed tools, than this is definitely a steal for all of you pro guys/gals.
I don’t think you guys really understand the implications here.
This is going to provide for cheaper porn, and that is what is the most important aspect. Apple need to seed the ground for the next generation of video iPods. They need content from all angles and what better than porn to attact a captive audience.
So they’ve cut the price of all their video software, so that every skank can afford to create their own nasty piece of work which can be distributed in beautiful H264 for the iPod and internet porn.
If you think about it, it all really makes sense
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Part of what put me off Shake was the maintenance pricing. As a small operation I could never afford that monthly nut. I was forced to go with Combustion instead. Combustion has been a user interface nightmare. Things that should be simple aren’t, parts that are supposed to work smoothly don’t. I’ve been really really frustrated. I have fought my way through several projects and was dreading the next one when I heard about the price reduction. I immediately bought Shake, that very day and I can’t wait to get my hands on it.
Shake is THE program for this kind of work. Gaining users is gaining market share and market share means development. No one is going to go for the ‘land grab’ like Apple has done and then cut and run. Instead, they are laying the groundwork to make Shake as ubiquitous as Final Cut. Gain massive amounts of new users, let them get their footing, make lots of cool media, other people see what you can do with Apple tools, more market share. It is a brilliant strategy, with some patience and time it will pay off.
Regarding the lack up updates and the rewrite, the “stop patching the problem and start over” idea seems to fit with the Apple we have come to know. As an example, the transition from OS 9 to OS X provided a much cleaner OS than trying to patch the old aging OS. In the same way, I gather that a ground up re-write is on tap to keep everything that made Shake the industry leader and add the benefits that newer faster computers can offer. It is my understanding that the original creators of Shake are at the helm for the rewrite. I trust that they will continue the heritage that they started but bring it up to contemporary CPU ability.
If you were Apple, facing a platform change, why would you pour time and money into upgrading software if you knew you were going to have to compile a universal binary anyway? The very fact that they issued a universal binary of 4.1 at all is a testament that although they are grossly behind they still see a future for Shake. If they were going to cut and run on Shake they would have just killed it, not told the user base how they are working on the next version. Plus it seems to me like this Intel transition has been a bit slower than Uncle Steve would have liked due to unforseen problems with many of the software programs that they already thought were finished. (See Apeture as an example.)
If you have dealt with Apple for any length of time you know how tight liped they are about their plans. They often remain silent about everything until they show it at Macworld. It is very unlike them to go out of their way to explain their development path to their customer base. So why then did they come out and say that they were ceasing incremental development of Shake 4 in favor of pouring it all into Shake 5? Because they know that they have pissed off a lot of their Shake customers and are trying to smooth things over by letting you know what is going on behind the scenes. They are in effect, apologizing for being late by giving you a universal binary of 4.1 and promising to do better with version 5. It looks like this transition has been a lot more challenging than Uncle Steve thought, probably a little bit embarrasing too when software development lags behind and promised dates slip. (Hey, remember what happened last time Uncle Steve got embarrased? When he said that the G5 would hit 3 gHz in a year? They switched chip makers. What must be the fate of those poor software developers who fall into the hands of an angry Steve?? )
Maybe I am too optimistic. That could be. But I just don’t see the business sense of completely losing the heritage of the industry leading product you have purchased. That’s just money down the drain. They bought the software because of what it could do and they aren’t about to cut out it’s heart. Here’s another example, Soundtrack. Several years ago there was a technology called Dynamic Inductive Noise Reduction. DINR was an amazing plug-in for many high end audio apps but was around $10,000 and kind of difficult to use. What did Apple do? Get the technology and make it usable for every FinalCut editor. That noise reduction technology has saved the audio for more than one of my brother’s projects. That’s what I believe Apple will do with Shake, take all the things that make it great, and put them in the hands of every FinalCut editor.