Apple and the pro market

Question

So upon a few days of playing and reflection, a few things are clear. Actually they've been coming into focus for a while and it's been pretty clear if you've been paying attention.
Bear in mind that I'm not bitter or angry about this, it's just business. But the bottom line is we need to find other solutions and move on.
1. Apple is no longer in the Professional market
Please let's not argue over "Professional". Obviously I don't mean if you upload to youtube you don't do good work. There is some genius work being done by kids sitting in the living room with an iMac. No doubt. "Professional" has nothing to do with quality. It has to do with worklfow, clients, and commerce. If you run a facility, you need to move away from Apple solutions. I'm not saying Apple won't magically add the features to FCPX to make it work for facilities, but it's so far off right now that it's not even in the discussion. To people who've never hired editors, or collaborated with audio post house, etc etc, please don't argue. Take my word for it when I say you might as well suggest that a facility begin deploying iMovie in their suites.
By the way, this is not only about video post production. Look across their product lines. Apple changed the game with low cost editing solutions, so we have them to thank for that. Be grateful it happened at all, and now look for other solutions. It was great while it lasted but it's over, at least from Apple.
2. Apple doesn't generally make these kinds of mistakes
Which is why I don't think it was a mistake. I don't think the product managers are particularly surprised by the reaction. Maybe they are disappointed, but I'll bet you anything they saw it coming. It's just part of the strategy. And that strategy involves selling more seats at a cheaper price to all the people buying DSLRs and finally shooting that movie they've had brewing in the back of their head. Which is great, and I don't begrudge them that at all. But essentially FCPX is not a replacement for FCP7. It's a replacement for FCP Express.
3. Apple might add the features necessary to use in a profession environment.
I'll grant that this is a possibility, but right now it feels like a long way off. And if you are running a shop you need one thing above all else. A plan. And if you don't know that these features are coming, why on earth would you spend any time investing in training? I doesn't make any sense. There are so many things missing that I just don't see it happening. For starters, I've never hired an editor that didn't completely re-arrange the layout of FCP to suit their style of working. The list goes on. Yes, there are some cool things in FCPX. We may even install it on the machines so we can modify some shots using those tools. I'm not sure, we need to keep investigating. But as facility tool it's a non-starter.
4. Why does a one man band care?
Well, here's where it gets tricky. And this is why this version may be a miscalculation on Apple's part. Even somebody sitting alone, editing at 10x speed due to FCPX's "revolutionary workflow" will likely eventually need to communicate with the outside world. Suppose you edit your masterpiece, submit it to a festival, but the audio *****? You realize this is your big break, but you don't have the skills to sweeting the audio yourself. Now what? Autoduck to OMF I suppose. Or maybe you've gotten your edit 90% there and you need a rock star editor to come in and really finish it off. Erm... who would that be, exactly? So I guess my point is, unless some real interchange is built in quick, people are going to be sandboxed without the ability to exchange and collaborate. And collaboration is the lifeblood of this industry.
5. What now?
Well, the prevailing attitude seems to be "What's your problem? Keep using FCP7 you Dinosaur Who Hates Progress! What, you want to go back to floppies too?!" I'm sure we will keep using FCP7, but eventually it's a dead end. There will be system update which fixes some other bug and simultaneously breaks something in FCP. So we'll be in a trap. Not to mention having no hope of the existing bugs (gamma shifts, cough) never being fixed. But the real issue is access to labor. Essentially there are Avid editors and there are FCP editors (with a lot of them doing both). I've never once tried to hire a Premiere editor, though I suppose it's possible some know Premiere it or could find their way around it, but I'm not exactly willing to pay an editor to learn how to navigate the UI. So... for this one I suppose what we'll do is add a Media Composer to an edit suite and start using Premiere on the graphics workstations and see how that goes.
There is obviously a split on this board. So to those of you who don't understand why many professionals have a negative reaction to this release, maybe this post will help explain why. It has nothing to do with "progress" of the fear thereof. I'll no doubt personally keep playing with FCPX at home to see what it has to offer, but generally speaking I use tools that play nice with other tools. For all the hysterical reaction, well, I *do* get it. It's bit like having the rug pulled out from under you. But oh well. It's not the end of the world. There are other tools out there. Personally I'm starting to wonder if Motion isn't the real story here.
And like I said, maybe Apple *does* have a plan for adding the required functionality. If they do, I wished they'd tell us straight up. I'd cheer that news. I'm just not convinced that they have any desire to be in this market any more. Apple didn't exit the professional marked because they hate you. I'm sure they did it because it wasn't profitable to them. Apple (or any company) doesn't really make emotional decisions, they make economic ones. We need to do the same.
Gary Jaeger // Core Studio
<Personal Information Edited by Host>

Answer 1

VERY well said.     Everyone who is furious and feels betrayed uses the word "clients"
All the folks calling us Ludite Greybeards have NEVER dealt with a client.
The only thing that i would disagree with is that i DO think this is a massive mistake.   This isn't the Steve Jobs Apple Corp that we knew and loved (yes, past tense).    I don't think anybodys hands are on the wheel of this ship.
They were the dominant, industry standard...  and they snuffed a once proud FCP franchise out of existence in one day.
And this makes me VERY worried about Lion.  
Speaking of Lion,  in one months time....  you will only be able to buy new Macs that have Lion.   And you can't install FCP7 under Lion (and you can't buy FCP7 anyway).    So this is an absolute end of the road for any pro shop.   Right now.  Today.