[dagw]

The latest version of Final Cut dropped a bunch of features that are vital to pros and focused more on features that are useful advanced amateurs. Basically if you used Final Cut to edit home movies and amateur film productions then the new version is vastly improved. If on the other hand you used Final Cut to earn a living editing feature length movies and television productions, then the new version is a bit of a complete disaster. I guess Apple figured that there wasn't enough money in the pro market, and decided to double down on the enthusiast and advanced amateur market.

[slimfiv]

... and focused more on features that are useful advanced amateurs

I actually don't think this is quite right. I'll quote Gary Adcock's Macworld review:

"Most of the features introduced in FCP X are welcome and badly needed. Some are long overdue. Still, others are positively jarring and require a change in mindset to appreciate."

There is no doubt that Apple made it unusable for high-end pros (for the time being, at least) but I feel they also added many things that high-end pros would have really appreciated, had they been able to use it seriously. So it's not quite as simple as "amatueurs only" (even if you're talking about advanced amateurs.)

[ugh]

That also explains why professionals were going absolutly wild at that National Association Of Broadcasters event where Apple demoed Final Cut Pro X for the first time.

They liked the new features and interface changes they saw, they liked the complete rewrite (64 bit, much faster, background rendering) and, most importantly, they didn't know which features would be missing.

[ugh]

They should have done a graceful transition, i.e. they should have continued to support and sell FCP7 while also testing the waters with FCPX. This would have also allowed them to frame the product differently: “FCPX is the future and already has nearly everything professionals need to edit videos. If it doesn’t yet have a feature you need you can continue using FCP7 while we work as fast as we can on adding those features.”

The transition is just too rough.

[dagw]

If it doesn’t yet have a feature you need you can continue using FCP7

Except, apparently, you can't buy FCP7 any more (at least that's what I've heard from one guy I know in the industry). Which means that if you're a Final Cut Pro house and need to hire more staff, I guess you're kind of stuck going the pirate route for getting editing software for your new employees.

[ugh]

Sure, that’s exactly the problem. I was writing about what Apple should have done, not what they actually did.

[radley]

Good catch - people will just pirate FCP7 which Apple won't care at all about (unless FCPX flops).

[ugh]

I don’t think companies would dare and pirate software.

[jmelloy]

Also, they've been working on FCPX for two years, and needed to ship. Even if it wasn't quite ready for pro usage.

[sciurus]

Why ship a product that doesn't meet the needs of your customers?

[whatusername]

Isn't that the general philosophy of HN? Fail fast and iterate until you hit customer fit.