Pros Didn't Make the Final Cut

Sorry Apple. I love you, and have loved you since my first Macintosh in 1985, but this one is a complete FAIL. I had concerns after the announcement of FCPX at NAB (that is the National Association of Broadcasters - a professional organization) that this new, "ground up" rebuilt version of FCP would be not much more than iMovie on steroids. The price-tag alone was a cause for concern. I wrote then that my first impression was that FCPX would have a lot of fantastic new poser under the hood, and a sexy new instrument panel, but basically it would be impossible to drive, used an alternate fuel source that would not allow me to fill it up at any other gas station, and wouldn't fit in my garage.

The 64bit architecture and background rendering are fantastic ('bout time), and even the new concept of metadata management and workflow were obvious (and not bad really) evolutions toward tapeless workflow. But at the cost of not taking the time to implement the majority of elemental post-production workflow requirements is just a miss of epic proportions that is inexcusable even for a version re-evolution of a previous software suite. It's 2011 for crying out loud and this is not your first venture into editing software (as FCP 1.0 was many years ago).

I won't bother everyone with the laundry list of what's missing - as those who care can all read that in many blogs around the web. I am concerned and wonder why some of the new "innovations" so obviously fail in practice
in ANY professional workflow beyond one-man-band videography.

In no particular order:

Media management

I get where you were trying to go with the new paradigm - and agree. I am a strong proponent of metadata and believe the industry on many levels has not used it to it's fullest to make things work better. More and more we have original material coming from hard-disc cameras and memory sticks. And with DSLRs becoming a real production tool, this can and will be a more modern workflow for managing media ingestion. That said… there are some fundamental strategic errors on your part and the success of this paradigm makes one huge assumption - that the keywords used and the vocabulary and search parameters are consistent throughout ALL of my media. Now for anyone that has worked on a large television reality production can attest - fat chance of that happening. Do we seriously anticipate that a bank of twenty-something year old production assistants or interns logging hours upon hours of raw material from multiple sources are going to all use the same keywords? That a production supervisor is going to have an approved glossary of descriptors that must be used? Doubtful. I mean - the one thing an editor hates to do is look for material. That's why we have had bins to sort things in over the years. Now finding anything in the haystack will be like a google search where one needs to try different search parameters to find that clip? This paradigm may be a good method for a storyboarded commercial or a scripted music video or feature - with scene, shot, and take numbers to work from as a baseline, but I am very skeptical to the success in larger productions.

Facility licensing and multiple users and clients

Uhhh… Software only available via App Store download. That means I need to have an iTunes account. OK. Easy enough. Now. There is no possibility to by multiple licenses or group licenses. If I have 20 seats at my facility - it appears I need to have 20 iTunes accounts to get one to each machine. And does that mean that a post-house's editing suites are tied to individual iTunes accounts for activation? Or… can I buy it once and install it however many machines I want? Hmmm… doesn't appear as if you thought this part thru entirely.

No export of any useable interchangeable format

No EDL, XML, OMF, MXF… unless you're willing to pay nearly twice the original product price for a plugin. Whatever.

No assignable tracks and no native XDCAM  or RED support.

Well, can't deliver anything to broadcast. Every major broadcaster in my region has a digital spec in the flavor of XDCAM 108050i in an MXF or a QT wrapped XDCAM HD422 file with specific groupings of audio channels. Without these export possibilities… no go and no pro.

What I fear, and believe, is that Apple has abandoned the high ground in favor of the masses. A financial decision. Fine. But don't call this software FCP anything. It ain't. And don't pitch it as such to attract the masses with a low price point. I predict within 2 years Apples hardware will be confined to iMacs, Laptops, Tablets and Phones. In the absence of any compelling professional software the pro towers will fade away and if they don't get a grip on this FCP situation along with the rest of their professional suite of tools, that decline will accelerate.

I wish it were not this way. I wish i didn't feel that this is a sign of bigger changes underway in Cupertino, but when Conan's team hashed out their parody (below) you could just hear the first nails going into the coffin.