Well, guys, this is it:

AppleInsider | Apple scaling Final Cut Studio apps to fit prosumers (http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/05/18/apple_scaling_final_cut_studio_apps_to_fit_prosumers.html)

Bummer.

Right, and according to Steve Jobs the next FCS would "be amazing" according to that posted report a month ago.

I guess it's not totally suprising, this is exactly what insiders and people like myself have been surmising, that Apple is indeed scaling back true "pro" apps to go more after the "i-consumer" market.

That's fine, "i-hope" Apple makes tons of dough on the effort. As far as the future for companies like mine and our monies invested with Apple products? I've got a new app for that, it's called "i-Don't Think So".

Wow! Bummer 'cause I'm really fast with FCS. At least my upgrade to Adobe CS5 Production Premium will include Premier! Time to learn another platform! AND I might have to sell my stock!

If this is true (does this belong in Area 51?), this has got to be making everyone at Avid happy.

Sure glad now that I stuck with FCP for 10 years. I'm not that great at figuring out new programs. I can't believe they're doing this.

Remember this is all just Rumors and your current FCS3 will still work for years to come.

FCP is a powerful program that has a learning curve, steep for some not, so bad for others.. Apple spends a decent amount of time publicizing professional use of the program and they make a lot of money with it. Why, when Apple is doing great financially, would they abandon it? Crazy things happen I admit but that seems a bit too crazy.

Sounds likely that FCE is getting some change to make it better than iMovie but less cumbersome to "prosumers" who don't like the FCP learning curve. Who knows? IMovie has some nifty tricks that would be nice in Final Cut but I couldn't imagine editing anything substantial in it. I recommend less panic, download Premier CS5 test run to experience the competition (try the new Media100 as well) and wait to make a drastic decision unless you are rolling in dough and free time. My two cents, right now Premier has the processing power down better than FCP but the interface is harder to work with, AVID still is the best in the interface and media management department. AVID is probably the way I would go if hell froze over and Apple abandoned FCP. I don't expect that anytime soon.

I would also recommend reading the entire AppleInsider article. The end of it is very positive about the ProApps in general.

I have a feeling Apple, who sells far more copies of Final Cut Express, may do it to that program. Who knows?

Rumors, of course. Let's hope it's nothing too radical. I've been on FCP since late 1999.

Heath

FCP is due for a facelift modernize the interface (flatter control buttons, resolution independent graphics, etc).

Hmmmmm......looks like Area 51 material to me.....being as it IS from a rumor site.

Well, it is. They tweaked the interface a bit in 2003 for FCP 4, and that's been the UI for 7 years now... I'm optimistic!

heath

It would be no bad thing to incorporate some of the great features of iMovie '09 into FCP. The way that one can scrub through vast numbers of clips & the Media Manager functions of iMovie along with very fast editing functions are great. Ken Stone has a nice review iMovie 09 (http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/imovie_09_stone.html)

My personal take on this: Keep working with what I got.

If it suddenly takes a turn where it doesn't do what I need to get the job done, then find something else.

Worrying about things are beyond my control isn't going to help me in what I'm doing.

This make sense

The present and future of post production business and technology Why Apple Insider couldn’t be more wrong! (http://www.philiphodgetts.com/2010/05/18/why-apple-insider-couldnt-be-more-wrong/)

dumbing down isn't what Apple does.

There are only two types of professional tools: tools that are so simple & elegant that it's a no-brainer why paid professionals use them and tools that are so complicated only a paid professional would put up with them. FCP has been and continues to be both, and I have no doubt the future version of FCP will be the same.

As for the word "prosumer", if you put any stock in that word at all, I've got a bridge for sale in Brooklyn I'd like to sell ya.

Gosh Denise do you really think so? Will this be happening before or after they release the all singing all dancing Final Cut Extreme that the same site were so certain about a few years back. This is yet another rumor ... and this time its one that those who seem to wish Apple to fail will crow about ... why they wish it is hard to understand, perhaps they've whined so long they want to be proved right in order to pander to their egos, perhaps the feel somehow cheated that FCP didn't give them what they want when they wanted it, perhaps ... well I don't know. Seems to me that if you see an alternative NLE that can better serve your needs then go for it, this is a free choice open to us all and is nothing more than common sense for you and your business. If your software of choice is till now FCP/FCS then remember that it didn't suddenly stop working and still functions just as it did when you paid for it (or better). Next year, or whenever, when a new release shows up, we can judge it on merit instead of whining about these rumors made by folks with little or no real insight into the video production industry.
Just my 2c, no offense intended.

Who cares i don't FCP is Not the only editing app out there plus PC's are cheaper. I am so sick of this crap.


Sorry long day

The philiphodgetts.com take on this discussion makes much more sense. Catering to prosumers AND pros are not necessarily incompatible. And if any company can pull it off well, it's Apple.

Sorry Andy, et al. I have not been one of the previous whiners regarding FCP/FCS. I'm happy enough with FCS3 for now. I hope it's not true because as I said, I've been with FCP since the first version and I'd like to stick with it. I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to learning new pro apps.

It doesn't make sense if they already have three levels of editing programs, but then again, it sounds as if they'll have to do some major overhauls to keep up if it's going to stay a pro app. I guess we'll see. However, with an update just last summer (which they curiously never introduced as FCS3 even though everyone else did) there may be a long wait.

This isn't the death of FCP, it's the future.

Editing wasn't always done the way we do it now, and it certainly won't always stay the way it is now either. Apple prides itself on innovation–they did it with the portable device market and completely changed the way people do things with their phones. They want to do it other places too. Final Cut is the perfect next project to "revolutionize." Apple doesn't want to change Final Cut Pro, they want to change the way movies are edited industry wide, banking on countless other products to follow suit.

So after reading the article, I can imagine two possible outcomes:

1) Non-Linear editing is changed as we know it and Apple prototypes a completely new way of doing things with video on a computer. Likely going to be a little rough at first, piggybacking off their iMovie software. Don't get me wrong, I think iMovie is incredibly crippling to a serious editor, but the program is quite different than anything else, and actually remarkably usable for simple projects. Now imagine the capabilities of Final Cut Pro (tracks, plugins, codecs, speed) but change the interface to one that makes editing easier than it's ever been.

2) Apple adds an "easy" mode to FCP, just like the easy mode on many prosumer camcorders. If the camera has a full auto mode, shouldn't the editing software? Like a transformer, FCP adapts to the user, allowing for as much or as little control as the user wants. The profit in this idea comes from all the owners of prosumer $3-5K cams who bought them because they wanted them, not necessarily who know how to use them to the fullest potential. Lower the price of FCP to $499 (like Logic Pro) and Apple can make some bank selling a pro NLE to non-pro customers. Oh, and we all laugh our way to the bank with the latest version of FCP.

As some have said before, I highly doubt Apple will hang its huge pro user base out to dry any time soon. Macs are known for their editing capabilities, and the second Apple stops making a tightly integrated solution for their hardware, they lose a selling point. No matter what the program looks like, it will not lose the functionality we all need.

Even if everything does change (and it will someday), we will adapt and continue our work – the need for this ability goes without saying in our technological age.

....dumbing down isn't what Apple does.

Really? With the latest MBP offerings as just *one* example, you don't think that removing pro connections, limiting FW ports to one, forcing a premium for a non-glare screen, refusing to follow-suit with other pro-oriented laptops and offer a second internal HDD and oh right, still the only company on the planet who refuses to play nice with BR and Flash - and now video card development - that's not dumbing down?

When you go backwards and over-simplify what used to be a truly professionally-oriented machine you cannot give it a "pro" moniker, you can call it "pro-sumer", which is in point of fact exactly what the MacBook "Pro" has been turned into.

As far as I'm concerned the latest MBP lineup is a hardware-version preview of what we can expect with Final Cut; feature-set "simplified" and made "pretty" to appeal to the "i" market, not pros.

But don't misunderstand, I'd like nothing better than to be totally *wrong* on this one, but Apple's obvious 3-year history - and my gut - tell me otherwise.

And to what others have said - yes - this belongs in Area 51.

This make sense

The present and future of post production business and technology Why Apple Insider couldn’t be more wrong! (http://www.philiphodgetts.com/2010/05/18/why-apple-insider-couldnt-be-more-wrong/)

dumbing down isn't what Apple does.

Thank you for this link. A rational dissection of a rumor.

Really? With the latest MBP offerings as just *one* example, you don't think that removing pro connections, limiting FW ports to one, forcing a premium for a non-glare screen, refusing to follow-suit with other pro-oriented laptops and offer a second internal HDD and oh right, still the only company on the planet who refuses to play nice with BR and Flash - and now video card development - that's not dumbing down?

.

Firewire has always been intended to be a daisychain connection while in turn USB was expected to go to hubs. I think that the desire for a bunch of ports native on the side of a computer for both busses is a failure of the intentions of both with regard to their intended design and use.

I never felt like matte was any more Pro than glossy. What's Pro to me is accurate color (colorysync). CRT monitors had antiglare coatings but they were more akin to today's glossy screens than today's matte LCD IMO.

I too would like a second drive bay but it's not quite yet time to wean people off of slow optical drives. Maybe in a couple of years but adding Blu-ray will simply lengthen the cycle of people wanting optical drives. I think the solution is to add BR to Mac Pro but then you'll get complaints from every other Mac owner of iMac and Macbook Pro that they don't have BR. It's a no win for Apple.

You're being a bit disingenuous about Flash. Apple has little problem with Flash on the desktop. Their problem primarily is with Flash on mobile devices. With 10.6.3 Apple closed the gap on support for OpenGL extensions I'm not seeing any area here where they are dumbing down.

A guy on twitter threw this up: Twitpic - Share photos on Twitter (http://twitpic.com/1p0ftb/full)
Steve Jobs often writes customers back these days but his emails are always really short and not very specific.

Finally got a MP in March, after all the rumors said they'd be out in Feb, than March, May? June?

Apple Insider, I wouldn't bet on that.

The only issue I see with Apple is that there are many of us that bought into them because they used to be the company that catered to creative pros and now we're heavily invested in Apple hardware & software with very limited choices, i.e. video cards, laptops, desktops etc, and they've gotten cocky with the control they wield over those invested.

Unfortunate for us, they as a company can afford to be less aggressive with their pro customers.

We are still a blip on their radar, just not as big a blip as we were or would like to be.

Regardless of wether there is any truth to this issue or not (and Apple dropping their pro market is a hot topic on the web), If they don't step up to the plate this year, I do believe that they will certainly start loosing their pros.

Why is this still here? This belongs in Area 51. All speculation by an unreliable source.

Also:

Aperture 3 got many features from iPhoto. Does this make it a prosumer application? No. People are going crazy lately with regards to Final Cut Pro. I am sure Apple will satisfy our needs with the next iteration. It would be plain stupid for them to drop it or make it prosumer only.

And I have no problems with a revolutionair new interface. Apple is good in those. I hope you can control it with a special iPad application... that would be neat.

I also think Apple will show/announce something soon as the market gets way too nervous lately after al these crazy rumors. Combine that with the new Creative Suite and Media Composer and they should start to get a little worried.

I also agree with others that Final Cut Pro 7.2 is working magically for me. I haven't had a single crash, I love the new colored markers. I can edit very fast in Final Cut Pro after all those years and it works perfectly fine with my HDV footage. I don't use the other programs in the suite. I switched to Adobe's Creative Suite and export Final Cut XML's to Premiere Pro and from there I go to AE, Encore and Soundbooth.

Right, and according to Steve Jobs the next FCS would "be amazing" according to that posted report a month ago.

I guess it's not totally suprising, this is exactly what insiders and people like myself have been surmising, that Apple is indeed scaling back true "pro" apps to go more after the "i-consumer" market.

That's fine, "i-hope" Apple makes tons of dough on the effort. As far as the future for companies like mine and our monies invested with Apple products? I've got a new app for that, it's called "i-Don't Think So".

1) He said it again today
2) Look at Aperture and Logic Pro... Apple's Pro Apps are here to stay. Final Cut Studio is the most difficult program to rewrite and I do believe that it could use a fresh new and intuitive interface. The end of Shake doesn't mean the end of Pro Apps...

The only thing I really don't like is the secrecy. Apple, just make a public roadmap and show us where you are going.

Disclaimer: IMHO

I seriously doubt that this is true. It's certainly funny though. For me, I will use my current FCS tools until they no longer meet my needs. Then I will use a tool that meets those needs.

At the end of the day, it's just a tool. And it's not the only tool.

Yep, definitely Area 51 I think! - it seems that Bill Evans of Apple has actually responded to this rumour as well ....

Apple to keep the 'pro' in Final Cut Pro | Apple - CNET News (http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20005409-37.html)

The link in the first post is *not* a reliable news source.

Phil Hodgetts, as usual, has the best take on this (link above).

Moved to Area 51 as suggested -- sorry for the delay in making that happen.