By SteveJack
Ironic.
SteveJack is a long-time Macintosh user, web designer, multimedia producer and a regular contributor to the MacDailyNews Opinion section who gets paid by the article, not the word count.
Related articles:
Final Cut Pro X ‘backlash’ coming from competitors scared to death over Apple’s $299 price tag? – June 24, 2011
Conan blasts Apple’s new Final Cut Pro X (with video) – June 24, 2011
Answers to the unanswered questions about Apple’s new Final Cut Pro X – June 23, 2011
‘Professional’ video editors freak out over Final Cut Pro X – June 23, 2011
Apple revolutionizes video editing with Final Cut Pro X – June 21, 2011
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but…. they wouldn’t be able to complain….
or file one of those online petitions (that rarely, if ever, work)
Online petitions are nothing more than a list of people who agree with the petition’s argument. They are not legally valid for anything other than folks ganging up on some entity and presenting a group opinion.
There are lots of these: Sign here to impeach Obama, Sign here to Recall Bachman, etc etc. They are more a “feel good” thing that ordinary folks like you and me think will affect change. The recipients of these petitions usually toss them in the round file.
Apple, please listen, here is a quick fix for all your problems!
CHANGE THE F***ING NAME! for anything that doesn’t say FINAL CUT, and people will realise it is indeed a different and new product. done.
It’s not a name issue. We don’t care what Apple calls it. It’s also not a money issue. We don’t care for refunds or if Apple adds what’s needed and triples the price. It’s also not a UI issue. Most of us love the new UI, 64-bit, speed and everything else about it.
The issue is that it needs the pro features that pros have come to rely upon. Specifically, it needs the ability to import projects.
The quick fix for all of Apple’s problems is to put FCP7 back on the market. Then announce that FCP7 will remain on the market until an announced set of features are implemented in FCPX. At the very least import should be on that list. Then they should communicate when they expect this to occur. A year is reasonable, but whatever it takes, as long as it’s an honest an open communication and they follow through with it.
The key here is communication. Apple didn’t do this ahead of time, and they’re failing at it now.
I thought that site was for SERIOUS causes, guess I was wrong.
Get a life whoever started and signed the petition!
X2
I’m sure Apple would be perfectly happy selling licenses for the old Final Cut Pro at $1000 a pop, if you REALLy twist their arm…
But Apple would rather have 10x more Mac users getting into high-end video editing for the first time, for only $300 (and a less steep learning curve).
High end? Get real. If you knew anything about the many workflows associated with “high end” editing you wouldn’t be talking that way. It’s precisely because Apple 1st promised us a revamped Pro tool and then didn’t include the majority of the tools necessary to work in a high end or collaborative editing environment that pros are pissed. We can’t upgrade. That also means we can’t add seats to our current facilities.
The interface is slick and fast. But it is missing the very features that made it pro. Have fun trying to get your project out for audio sweetening, color grading and FX. Color (the app) is MIA. So is STP. So you can’t even do initial grades or sound staging before being sent out. Oh wait. You can’t send it out anyway.
Yeah we’re just bitching for the hell of it.
It’s “high-end” compared to iMovie. 🙂
You’re bitching because you’re talentless hacks who have been trained to do things one way, and are so freaking scared of the future that you can’t be bothered to spend an hour with the new product and learn how it does the same things you’ve always wanted to do… and so instead, you run screaming to the internet to cry like crybabies, while pretending that you’re too “professional” to use a really good tool.
Fact of the matter is, you guys all sound like amateurs. You use “professional” as if it was a justification to make up arbitrary demands and claim that anything that doesn’t meet them is not “professional”— its nonsense.
Crybaby amateurs gonna cry.
The real professionals– they’re busy learning FCP X and will be taking your jobs from you over the next couple years.
I went to film school in NYC in a class of roughly 50 people. There’s a listserv from the school which serves hundreds of us from all the recent classes. I can tell you EVERYONE is jumping ship. These are people who switched to Mac from PC just so they could use FCP. I can promise you this is happening everywhere. Apple is losing EVERYONE here. They could have done a gradual transition but are going to lose the market to Avid and Adobe if they don’t change course.
Um, they’re a little late, aren’t they?
i don’t know why people are acting like they are forced to upgrade and us X. You’re right they can use the old program. Why doesnt any reputable the site state that one fact, use the old program.
well didn’t they pull the latest final cut suite? that implies that they’re not going to support it any longer. eventually, the content on message boards and forums would eventually become fcp x heavy and fcp7 users would begin to feel like 2nd class citizens.
keep fcp x just don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.
Something like us aluminum AppleTV owners that Apple seems to have completely forgotten about?
Tell me about it.
Imagine a post production house that owns 10 computers running FCP 7, a big job comes up and you need to install 2 more computers… Oh wait, apple doesn’t sell the licenses anymore or provide a program which offers the same level of capability… Damn. So to get to 12 computers running an ecosystem which will allow separate machines to easily talk to each other, you need to throw away EVERYTHING you have invested in plugins and software, which is very expensive, and start from scratch… With no warning or period of transition… I say, develop FCP X, I’m excited to see all the great new things they will do with it! BUT, continue to support the companies and individuals who have invested so much. It wouldn’t be that hard, then as time goes on, the switch will happen more naturally instead of like a system shock!
Every professional I know is upset, most are interested about the possibilities in FCP X over the next few years, but feel they’ve been screwed big time! Apple must fix this!! It’s just cold hearted and mean…
Really?
All these petitions seem really dumb. I think Apple gets the message. They never issue responses till they have decided on a course of action or in the very least have decided how to fully explain their intentions.
Final Cut Users,
I’ve been using this product since version 1.2. Stick with 7 till Apple addresses the issue. Then, God forbid, move over to Adobe or wait till Apple puts out a roadmap for adding the features you want or need. They did a pretty big thing with Final Cut X. They rewrote it, from the ground up in the way they rewrote the operating system. It’s not backwards compatible in the same way OSX wasn’t. I believe they are readying it for the future. Apple will listen to its customers. In the meantime, we don’t have to be assholes about it, demanding our “rights”. We have rights only to use the products we’ve purchased, not to dictate what they create for us to purchase. Me? I haven’t purchased yet. That’s how I’m making my voice heard.
@xj,
“It’s not backwards compatible in the same way OSX wasn’t.”
You couldn’t be more wrong here. Apple released a roadmap for OS X way in advance. There were beta and preview versions of OS X long before it went public and longer still before it was proclaimed as ready for prime time.
Apple released OS 9 as a transition OS where developers could write universal binaries that would run on OS 9 and OS X before OS X was released.
After OS X was released you could run OS 9 apps in classic mode, or reboot into OS 9. It was years before Apple transitioned by removing OS 9 booting and later classic.
But even then, your data could still be imported. Your MP3s, your JPGs, your Docs, etc… Pretty much everything simply opened in OS X based apps.
Heck Final Cut projects survived transitioning from Macromedia to Apple, could be opened on Windows or OS 9, opened on PPC OS X and all the way up to Intel based OS X. So you’d think they could handle this transition while allowing at least some level of compatibility.
“Then, God forbid, move over to Adobe”
Ya, cold dead hands and all that goes with it. Petitions may be dumb, but the louder the community cries, the more likely Apple is to change. Yes, they’ve done it in the past. Yes, they have people who’s jobs it is specifically to provide feedback reports from a variety of sources (I know people who do this) and petitions and even blog comments count.
“We have rights only to use the products we’ve purchased, not to dictate what they create for us to purchase.”
I’ve seen many comments, but not one suggesting we could dictate this. On the other hand, we have freedom of speech, and the louder we yell, the more likely Apple is to respond.
It’s the difference between FireWire and Floppies. People whined, complained, and petitioned. Firewire came back. Floppies didn’t. Although Apple *did* make adjustments in regards to floppies in terms of zip and CD-R drives in response to consumers demands for some kind of portable media.
Apple released FCP X in preview releases, both publicly at NAB and then privately to REAL professionals.
They all seemed to love it, by the way.
Cry on, crybaby!
@Engineer,
Where did I say that FCPX wasn’t previewed? At NAB it wasn’t publicly preview released, it was just previewed. Previews were also given to reviewers and certain developers, but numerous film and tv studios were not given copies or anything else beyond the previews.
OS X was available to anyone *years* before the transition. That included developers, IT managers, and even consumers.
That FCPX was *previewed in demos* misses the point entirely. That is to say that OS X had a lengthy transition with a full path for existing content and even most apps, whereas there’s no transition path whatsoever for FCP projects.
“They all seemed to love it, by the way.”
Yes, reviewers did love it. We all love FCPX in of itself. However, any pros that need existing FCP projects simply can’t use it *and* many of the features pros need were not revealed to be missing during the demos.
Because they’re like Greenpeace – no big stink about something Apple related = no press.
+1 Thanks for the chuckle!
So… a group called Change.org is actually resistant to change?!? Ironic. Next thing you know, pro-choice groups will actually favor choice – even if that choice means actually having the baby. The end is near!
This is Apple you’re deal with.
Let me know how that whole petitiony thing works out for ya!
YOU voted for change … Now you got it!
Best. Take. Ever.
NoChange.org
Unless you are a professional editor who has been screwed by apple, shut you holes. It’s easy to sit there and call everyone who’s complaining a bunch of cry babies who are too lazy to learn new software. This is what people’s business’s and livelihoods revolve around. Apple just completely changed the program taking away essential tools for pros. Just like xserve apple just gave the big f u to their professionals. Of course people editing their family videos don’t care. Avid will be getting a lot of new business i suspect.
XServe wasn’t selling.
Rumor is the new Mac Pro will be rack mount, or option to be.
Sorry, I didn’t know Apple Broke into your bank account, took $300 and then FORCED FCPX onto your Mac without your knowledge. I forgot that FCP had OTA updates and was FORCED down every users throats on day one.
I am sorry that you, being the “Professional” that you are, didn’t read LONG BEFORE the release of FCPX, that there were changes coming… And I’m Sorry Apple wouldn’t allow you to READ those changes PRIOR to purchase.
I’m sorry you didn’t READ that some of the key things NOT in FCPX that people are bitching about… ARE coming to FCPX but were not ready to be launched with FCPX due to the massive changeover.
I’m Sorry you never were able to read ANY reviews, by anyone.. until after the purchase.
Should apple have waited to take FCPX out of the Oven till it was 100% cooked? probably.
Do you hold ANY responsibility for you not doing ANY due diligence prior to the purchase?
Nah, what am i thinking… It’s always someone else’s fault…
keep drinking the kool-aid jackass
Yet the only people acting like jackasses are so-called “professionals” who are doing their very best to throw angry tantrums and calling everyone names instead of acting like reasonable individuals.
“keep drinking the kool-aid jackass”
Keep proving that you’re just another basement-dwelling gamer/hater/creep.
Gamer? You sir need to go back to insult school. Now back to my World of Warcraft. WTF?? 😛
+1
well said!
From what I understand fcp x does not offer tools that people still using tape “need,” but does offer important upgrades for people using more modern mediums.
I use Embarcadero’s Delphi 2007, not their latest software – Delphi XE because the application upgrade path does not work. I am not complaining – I’ve got a great software application that does exactly what I want.
grow up cry babys
OK, professional here.
The ones crying like babies are idiots. FCP7 still works and in the meantime Apple just gave us the beginnings of an amazing new tool that will within 18 months have all the features and more that people are whining about.
I have never, NEVER, met an editor that would jump to new software without beating the hell out of it to get the ins-and-outs down so they could work blind-folded in an edit suite. I worked with some shops that used three year old Media Composer suites and didn’t want to upgrade because the new version “wasn’t really ready”.
Does that sound like the same kind of people? Doesn’t to me. My guess is this charge is being let by Adobe and Avid astro-turfers with some knee-jerk editor types thrown in to the mix.
You just don’t switch tools that fast people.
Fine, then wait until it’s usable to release.
Apple has clearly violated “The Bobo Protocol”
Having a bad day? Yogi yell at you? Oops, my bad, not enough o’s. How’s the circus? So you know someone who is a professional editor? Who’s making them use “X”?
You are correct. Anyone who switched is an idiot to put it mildly. But Apple isn’t giving anyone a choice. Just continuing to use 7 is fine as long as we don’t have to add seats. If any ONE of the jobs I’ve bid recently comes through I will have to do exactly that.
So Apple has made the choice for me by discontinuing a product without a REALISTIC UPGRADE PATH. There is nothing knee jerk about wondering how you can grow your business without access to the appropriate tools. This just one thing that makes Apple unsuitable for big business – no reasonable roadmap. They told us one thing, sorry, but I was at NAB and then delivered something else. No one expected it. Nor did they expect the tool they were using to be REPLACED before the new tool even had a fraction of the necessary functions to be able to fit in the workflow of collaborative post houses.
I’m going to make a f’ing fortune with the FCP 7 seats I own by selling them. Hell, I won’t need any clients or FCPX for a year probably if the people clamoring for seat licenses get all these huge jobs they claim to be. Right about the time I spend my fortune down to $299, FCPX will be ripe for the pickings.
I love Apple.
heh, i just clicked the link to see the “petition”
a Whopping 17 signatures.
Apple better watch out, the whole interwebz is gunning for you on this one.
31 signatures at the moment.
44 now…
I’ll be the first to admit it that it took me a minute to get Steve Jack’s one word commentary.
Come on now – fess up if it took you a minute, too!
maybe 15 seconds.
I’m a bit slow. It took even longer to realize that his one word was a link. I kept clicking on the title hoping that would take me to the petition.
I don’t even use FCPX (yet), but it does seem that Apple have done some fairly fantastic things . . . but then said ‘oh, we’ll be sticking that in soon’ about a load of stuff that professionals need. Why not just wait till it’s ready? Or are we supposed to be in some kind of massive Beta like OSX 10.0? Is someone about to release something else (Abobe or similar) and that’s forced their hand? I just don’t get it. Even the lead designer said it wouldn’t be ready for professional prime time? Very . . . odd?
It may have been one of those forced to release it early things.
Maybe some internal timeline that it had to be out before Lion.. Dunno.
Or because some of the problem areas may have been taking too long to switch over. Maybe 95% of FCPX was ready months ago and was to be released at like WWDC or something.
We’ll never really know.
Maybe SJ just wanted to piss off FCP users for bitching about FCP not being updated in a while.
I remember reading quite a while back that QuickTime would need a complete overhaul to become “modern.” Maybe Apple released as much Final Cut as possible until that foundation is ready? I’m still using QuickTime Player Pro 7 because the new app is bare bones.
A threat from Adobe? Yeah, that would be Flash video editor, right?
Apple did wait until it is ready.
FCP X covers all of my professional needs right now and more, and will give me new stuff to learn for quite awhile as I work to master it.
Most of what’s “missing” is actually in there already and just is accomplished slightly differently than it was done before, and the rest is pretty irrelevant.
Apple will add some features and some conveniences, and the crybabies will claim that crying works, even though these things were always in the pipeline anyway.
If you hold a software product until it is perfect, you’ll never release it…because there is always going to be a list of features you could add to it.
“FCP X covers all of my professional needs right now and more, and will give me new stuff to learn for quite awhile as I work to master it. ”
That’s great that you don’t have professional needs that most actual working professionals have. You know, simple stuff like being able to open existing projects.
“Most of what’s “missing” is actually in there already and just is accomplished slightly differently than it was done before, and the rest is pretty irrelevant. ”
Oh, can you point me to the Import feature? How is that done differently now? Or is it pretty irrelevant for a studio with a library of shows they can’t open in FCPX?
“Apple will add some features and some conveniences, and the crybabies will claim that crying works, even though these things were always in the pipeline anyway.”
Or we could remain silent and Apple might think that nobody cares for these features pros are asking for.
Also, you’re contradicting yourself. You said FCPX already met all of your professional needs. I thought your professional needs were the only ones that mattered in the universe.
To be fair they do ask for Apple to revamp the current version to 64-bit and then incrementally add the new features from FCPX.
Watch, within a year = no professional work done in FCP X. BET.
I am starting a petition to have FCP X released on floppy disks.
5.25 inch please 😉
They are Stupid. No. STUPID. All caps.
… and bring back Clarus and OpenDoc, too.
I know just how they feel. I gave up art entirely after SuperPaint went away.
Yeah. Where is the petition for MacPaint? That’s just wrong for Apple to EOL that!
I want my HyperCard, doggoneit!!!
“Change.org” !!! Hello!
Is this not the meaning of change. If they do not want change please rename it to:
Changenot.org or resistanttochange.org….,
The program will evolve quickly and this conserative group will have to be more liberal and learn to CHANGE and adapt.
Geeez!
Change.org is just a website devoted to random petitions you twatgobbler. Haha
I use Final Cut Express. I like Final Cut Express. I intend to continue to use Final Cut Express. What’s the problem?
@TFlint,
Nothing is wrong with that. Now, suppose you weren’t the only person in the universe. Suppose you had a studio full of professionals and thousands of FCP projects that needed to be accessed into the future.
FCP is no longer sold or supported. At some point that studio may need additional workstations, but can’t because they can’t buy licenses for FCP. At some point, probably fairly soon, the Macs they hang on to for FCP use won’t be able to be upgraded because the OS or other things aren’t compatible.
When you have a department with lots of people depending on their workstations to earn a living, the last thing you want is to be on a dead platform.
gaylord focker signed it? Seriously?
No. ‘gaylord focker’ used the comments section to obscenely mock out the people who signed it. Apparently he’s having a bad day.
Everyone should know Final Cut Pro X will have massive updates very quickly which will make everyone happy again.
Apple should have informed everyone at release but that is not their policy. Just be patient.
@clinicaltechmaster,
Where have you heard that Apple is releasing any update to FCPX to make it compatible with existing FCP projects?
That’s one of the biggest complaints, and there’s no indication that Apple intends to do this.
We could be quiet and wait patiently for Apple to think nobody cares about this, or we can shout until Apple responds by saying they intend to implement this and other features pros need.
All they need to do is openly discuss what they plan on doing. So far, it appears that pros are no longer their customers.
I’d you head over to the apple discussions, In the fcpx bashing discussions there have been people that have posted links to apple devs and such stating exactly what he said.
Updates are coming to address some of the missing components.
Hell
F’n auto correct X over the “publish” button…
I was going to say… Hell, I’m not even a FCPX user and I was able to figure out that I could head over to the official apple support discussions And find answers to some of the questions here.
Some people would rather bitch, moan, and complain instead of research an answer.
Learn to search, some of the complaints about the features being removed.. Are actually there. You just have to turn some settings off in order to see them.
Importing old FCP projects I believe is coming, there were issues with the imports on the new fcpx so rather than screwing up old projects they decided to wait till it works right.
There are other things, so just go search for the answers instead of complain.
But as I said earlier, apple probably should have waited to release fcpx. We may never know why it was released early.
“Learn to search, some of the complaints about the features being removed.. Are actually there. You just have to turn some settings off in order to see them.”
Where did I mention at any time any complaint about a feature that is actually there? You’re the search expert, show me where I claimed one missing feature that’s actually there… waiting…
“In the fcpx bashing discussions there have been people that have posted links to apple devs and such stating exactly what he said. ”
No, as far as official Apple communication on the matter, they’ve only talked in generic terms. That’s great. Every hour there could be a new update to FCPX. That doesn’t help. What’s needed are the specific missing features (like import) that prevent pros from using FCPX. Apple is making the situation worse by not communicating when or even if some of these features are coming out. In fact, many of the statements have address a focus on a different set of consumers…implying that the features pros need may not be coming if Apple prioritizes FCPX for the “prosumer”.
“Importing old FCP projects I believe is coming, there were issues with the imports on the new fcpx so rather than screwing up old projects they decided to wait till it works right. ”
That’s nice that you believe it’s coming. Where is Apple’s official statement that it’s coming? Rumors don’t help here.
This is the dumbest F&@#ing petition I’ve ever seen.
I think its awesome. Won’t change anything but at least people are being vocal.
Seriously from reading what pro users are saying Apple f*cked up imho. I dont blame any of them for being pissed. You wait a couple years and the upgrade you hoped for ends up feeling like a step backwards. That sucks.