Final Cut being made prosumer-friendly?
updated 11:25 pm EDT, Tue May 18, 2010
Apple said to be eyeing a wider group of customers
Apple is allegedly refocusing its Final Cut Studio applications to appeal to a wider range of potential customers, including prosumers and advanced home users, a source has told AppleInsider. The shift is said to parallel Apple's changing customer base, which has continued to expand with consumers who fall somewhere in between casual users and professionals.
The unnamed source claims that within Apple's ranks, there has been a shift in leadership for the Final Cut development team. Randy Ubillos, the original lead developer behind Final Cut Pro, had left the pro-level project to spearhead the redesigned iMovie '08 and latest iMovie '09 revision.
Ubillos is now claimed to be back on the Final Cut Pro team and tasked with making the software attractive to prosumers. Final Cut Express, the scaled-back variant, now outsells the professional-level Pro version, a trend that has driven the company to expand the focus of Final Cut Studio.
Rumors suggest that Apple has purged its Final Cut team of many existing members, although several job postings for Pro Apps UI designers suggest the company is simply bringing in new talent as the software heads in a new direction.
Specific details regarding changes to the post-production suite, along with a time-frame for the transition, remain unknown. Steve Jobs recently suggested the next Final Cut Studio update will be "awesome," in a response to an e-mail sent by customer critical of the previous release.
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Sep 2009
sure folks will freak
and for no good reason. it is unlikely that Apple will reduce the potential of the package and lose all the production companies etc that use it. After all the hype they push about things like 9 out of the 10 documentary films up for an Oscar this year were done with FCS.
it's likely they are redoing it for 64 bit etc. and creating a common interface like they are doing with ilife. and easier media movement like ilife.
perhaps like in garageband and DVD studio pro they will have a basic mode and an advance mode. or they might scale down the package and use add on plug ins for advance features, with hopefully a master package where you can get everything at once. so like the basic for $500, the master for $1000
with luck they will add Shake back into the mix. AND change DVD studio pro into a Media Studio with DVD, Blu-ray, itunes SD/HD/Extras and perhaps even youtube, facebook etc (which are being used more and more by big studios as marketing tools)