Is the IPhone killing Final Cut Pro?

Editors have been complaining for years about Apple’s ambiguous support for professional products. I feel their pain, because its seems crazy when Apple calls something a “pro” model but removes commonly used access ports, or fails to innovate over several successive software releases.

I was an early adopter of Final Cut Pro. Back in 2000 I used version 2.0 and a Digital Voodoo card to edit a promo for Fox Sports. That was a horrible experience, but I finished the spot and stuck with the software because it was affordable and flexible, two traits not shared by Avid back then. A few years later, Apple released the first Ipod, then the Itunes store. I realized then that Apple didn’t care about my needs as a Pro Apps user, and our relationship was not made to last.

Apple is a hardware company. They only produce software to generate demand for hardware. They have no interest in creating innovative post production solutions. The Wikipedia site for Final Cut Pro states very plainly that Apple bought Final Cut Pro from Macromedia as a “defensive move.” Macromedia’s beta version of FCP was built for Mac and Windows, and Avid and Adobe were moving toward the Window’s market, purportedly because of Apple’s notorious policies of secrecy and exclusion. Apple thought it was worth buying FCP to keep desktop video users on Apple hardware. It was an effective strategy for maintaining a market foothold, but its not a plan for innovation in video production.

My prediction: Final Cut Pro has three years to live. Maybe four.

Apple’s domination of the gadget market takes the focus off of desktop computer users, so they no longer need video production professionals to bolster the Mac market share. I’ve been squawking for weeks about the imminent rise of the “Consumer-Producer” and the dissemination of professional video production into common knowledge. Apple will use this growing trend to combine Final Cut Pro with IMovie and bundle it with all new Mac computers. The Apple “reality distortion field” will frame it as a democratization, movie making set free, or whatever. This consumerization will allow Apple to cease development on professional features, and the Pro Apps department will die quietly. Software companies with a real interest in post-production innovation will fill the professional void and we’ll be better off.