Friday, June 24, 2011

Conan O'Brian Pokes fun at Final Cut Pro

Thought this was pretty funny.

16 comments:

  1. Yeah, I know. It is supposed to be a joke but the reality is the average rating for it is 2.5 stars and that's with Apple censoring some of its user reviews. Yup, pretty ironic alright.

    http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/final-cut-pro-x-under-fire-from-professionals/

    http://www.macrumors.com/2011/06/16/apple-has-a-poor-track-record-on-dot-zero-releases/

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  2. Here's the thing...

    Apple now has a serious pro app running under 64 bit and selling it for 300 bucks.

    The other version hasn't stopped working with this release and no serious pro would do an upgrade mid project anyway with deadlines looming.

    The irony is that I don't think a pro software release from Avid or Adobe has had national TV coverage outside of tech or business journalism. This skit goes to show just how much clout Apple have.

    Here's the thing... Who would have the most to gain by slagging off a release of a 300 dollar editing program? That would probably be the companies that charge more than that for the upgrade prices.

    For every top end editor who is saying "that is going to be 3 Macs *I* won't be buying on my next upgrade cycle" there will be tv stations with ENG teams buying 5 or 6 Macs as on the road editing systems in their place.

    This is the same argument that happens whenever Apple releases new kit - the iMac killed off the floppy disc with everyone up in arms - but Apple were right and people kept buying Macs in ever increasing numbers.

    Most companies wish they had such failures.

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  3. Although Conan's video is deliberately screwed up (to hilarious effect), the actual objections to Final Cut Pro X have nothing to do with bugginess.

    Some legacy users complain of missing features (that don't impact everyone, and may be remedied eventually), the necessity of learning the new user interface (which is to be expected), and inability to migrate current projects to the new program (which would be risky, even if it were possible).

    Depite all the complaints, Final Cut Pro X is incredibly powerful, and a certainly a comparative bargain at $300. Many new users will be attracted to the Mac in order to run this program.

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  4. For an insightful comment from a former Apple insider see:

    http://digitalcomposting.wordpress.com/2011/06/28/x-vs-pro/

    While I sympathize with the pro editors who feel betrayed, I understand why Apple released FCP Pro X as it has. Macs have long been pigeonholed as niche computers for creatives, but over the last several years, have increasingly been moving into the mainstream. Continuing to cater to a relatively small number of sophisticated customers with specialized and demanding needs is not going to be as profitable as appealing to the legions of amateur video enthusiasts and semi-pro users who will be delighted with FCP X's feature set.

    While FCP X will eventually address some of the initial feature omissions, it seems inevitable that some pros will eventually be driven to adopt competing software. This is a calculation that Apple seems to have allowed for.

    There are a lot of people who harbor grudges against Apple for one reason or another, and in some cases they are justified. You just can't please everyone. I doubt there are any large companies that haven't caused offense at one point or another. Keeping everyone happy while remaining profitable is a balancing act. In the end, Apple's continued success depends on delighting more customers than they disappoint.

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  5. Mainstream? Hardly. I work with lots of vendors, consultants and other IT pros and still have not seen any sign of an Apple product aside from the occasional lapse of judgement iPhone purchase. As for FCP X reviews, there are some amusing quotes here:

    http://www.businessinsider.com/final-cut-pro-x-reviews-2011-6

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  6. I love the way you refer to purchasing the world's most popular smart phone as a "lapse in judgment"! User-satisfaction surveys put the lie to that assertion.

    I'm not sure what your definition of mainstream is. Maybe you need to associate with people outside your niche of IT Pros.

    It used to be that most people blindly followed the recommendations of cognoscenti like yourself, and wound up saddled with a Windows PC (and all its attendant issues that often required expert assistance). Slowly but surely, Microsoft's iron grip is slipping. More people are willing to jump to Apple these days. Yes, Apple still has a relatively small market share, but it has been steadily growing.

    The self-selected group of uber-geeks will hang on to their "anything but Apple" mindset, but the rest of us are moving on.

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  7. iPhone is not the worlds most popular smart phone, Apple just wants you to think that, and YOU do. The mainstream I mean is that the IT Pros I know do not see any Macs being used in their many customers locations. They do work at graphics shops, accounting offices, legal firms, governments, you name it. I ask now and again if they see any Macs anywhere and I always get a "no". Most places don't even allow Macs on the network. Their numbers are still in the single digits. Sounds to me like almost everyone uses the "anything but apple" idea.

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  8. While the aggregate Android phones from every manufacturer outnumber iPhones, Apple sells more smart phones than any other single company.

    http://venturebeat.com/2010/11/01/apples-iphone-becomes-most-popular-smartphone-in-us-android-leads-os-share/

    Your informal survey notwithstanding, Apple is increasing its sales to businesses.

    http://www.corpmac.co.uk/2011/05/22/apple-makes-huge-inroads-in-enterprise-as-corporate-mac-sales-surge-66/

    Apple's iPad is making inroads in corporations too. And you know there will be a halo effect.

    http://www.fiercemobileit.com/story/apples-ipad-penetrating-major-corporations/2010-07-14

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  9. "Mainstream? Hardly. I work with lots of vendors, consultants and other IT pros and still have not seen any sign of an Apple product aside from the occasional lapse of judgement iPhone purchase."

    Then, if it isn't a threat, then why do you bother to run this site?

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  10. Well I never said or thought of Apple as a threat, more of a nuisance and , as I've stated before, I started this site to inform people that Apple is not as perfect as the illusion they create. So my question to you Apple lovers is this:

    If Apple is so great and "gain ground" on Windows, why come here to defend it?

    You are just giving my site more traffic and more credibility. If I got no visits or views, I would probably discontinue it.

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  11. More traffic? yes. Credibility? I doubt it.

    Flame bait != Credibility.

    Of course Apple is not perfect. But they are not nearly as flawed as haters portray. For many people the choice to use Apple products is a good one. Apple would not outrank the competition in user satisfaction is this were not true.

    Apple doesn't need me or anyone else to defend them. They are doing fine. That doesn't mean I shouldn't come her and set the record straight on a few things.

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  12. I think the issue many people have with Apple is that the company frequently lies about the advantages its products have over PCs/non-Apple products. In particular, both the company's ads and many of the people that use its products will claim that Macs are more secure and crash less often than Windows machines. That's blatantly false, and you can't blame people who realize that for having a lower opinion of Apple as a result.

    I own an iPhone, but I'm not going to claim that it's better than Android phones; actually, many Android phones are better than my iPhone in most ways. I got it for the Retina display, which still offers higher resolution than any Android phone.

    There's also a reason that some Windows ads have pointed out the price of Apple products. Apple's laptops and desktops are VERY overpriced. You can get an amazing Windows laptop with an i7 processor, Nvidia 500M-series video card, 4 gigs of ram, a solid state drive, etc for the same price as a Macbook with far inferior hardware. The Samsung 9-series laptops are a good example of a product with great design, build (duralumin), and performance.

    All that being said, Macs are quality products and OSX is a good operating system. Most of the anti-Apple sentiment stems from an undeserved sense of the products' superiority.

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  13. Haters that dislike the perception of Apple products as being "better than they actually are" experience a small taste of what Mac users have dealt with for years as the Wintel industry and the ignorant and/or complicit media and so-called experts marginalized the Macintosh for years while portraying the copycat PCs as the only proper computer.

    The FUD and out-and-out lying about the Mac and its capabilities was blatant. Each new Apple innovation was ridiculed -- up until the point was it was inevitably copied and thereby legitimized.

    It still goes on in certain quarters, but with Apple strong and still on the rise, there is no longer the fear that they will go out of business leaving us no choice but to use the mediocre defacto standard technology. The reason Apple fans grew to be so vehement back in the "dark days" before Steve Jobs "Second Coming" was that we were actually threatened with the loss of our chosen way of computing.

    But there are still those who, even today, would stamp out Apple if they could. It's hard to understand the venom with which Apple is attacked, as it is unlikely that Windows or Android will ever be in serious jeopardy. Apple's business model of avoiding the low end of the market, "controlling the whole widget" and doing a limited number of things very well, while clearly successful, will never satisfy or appeal to everyone.

    Why can we all just get along?

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  14. Get a life Brett & a pc

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  15. Lol, simple but effective.

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