Apples Strategy
What is everyones feeling on Apples digital video strategy? Maybe this topic might have come up before but I thought I should raise it with todays announcements.
I mean they are totally barking up some trees. Today FCP4 got better and DVDSP2 got insanely better. Shake is getting better. I mean today was a serious day for Apple.
My curiousity lies in with the competition. DVDSP1.5 got a dramatic price cut which I'm assuming will be the same price for DVDSP2 when it gets released. Adobe said that they thought that their new Windows only DVD product, Encore, will be a intermediate program while DVDSP was for the more advanced people but that doesn't really hold true as of today. DVDSP2 got a whole lot easier and cheaper(maybe). So where do they stand with Encore? I mean I know one is PC only and one is MAC only and I am not the type of person that goes around saying Apple and Adobe hate each other but where does this put them? And oh let's not forget how FCP and Premiere are competition.
Also part of DVDSP2 is COMPRESSOR, their new encoding application. It can be used as a intergrated part of the pipeline between FCP4 and DVDSP2 or as a stand-alone application. This goes head to head with Cleaner 6. Granted, Cleaner and combustion are the only Discreet products for the MAC, isn't this kinda something that would piss off Discreet?
Is Apple on the road to alienating themselves from the rest? What are your feelings?
I mean they are totally barking up some trees. Today FCP4 got better and DVDSP2 got insanely better. Shake is getting better. I mean today was a serious day for Apple.
My curiousity lies in with the competition. DVDSP1.5 got a dramatic price cut which I'm assuming will be the same price for DVDSP2 when it gets released. Adobe said that they thought that their new Windows only DVD product, Encore, will be a intermediate program while DVDSP was for the more advanced people but that doesn't really hold true as of today. DVDSP2 got a whole lot easier and cheaper(maybe). So where do they stand with Encore? I mean I know one is PC only and one is MAC only and I am not the type of person that goes around saying Apple and Adobe hate each other but where does this put them? And oh let's not forget how FCP and Premiere are competition.
Also part of DVDSP2 is COMPRESSOR, their new encoding application. It can be used as a intergrated part of the pipeline between FCP4 and DVDSP2 or as a stand-alone application. This goes head to head with Cleaner 6. Granted, Cleaner and combustion are the only Discreet products for the MAC, isn't this kinda something that would piss off Discreet?
Is Apple on the road to alienating themselves from the rest? What are your feelings?
Comments
That's how I see it, party, at least.
Originally posted by Brad
If third parties can't put out good enough products for Mac OS X, Apple's gonna suck it up and do it itself. Someone's gotta keep the Mac as a killer media platform.
This is unfortunately very true. Third party companies that have been slow at bringing their apps to Mac (specifically Mac OS X) or third party companies that produce garbage aren't tolerated by Apple.
Apple ultimately had to make a decision: Let third-party software developers push Apple around and decide when and what to release, or produce the software themself.
I guess the decision wasn't too hard. I wouldn't let other companies decide *my* company's fate either.
Microsoft neglecting to update IE for Mac. Did MS think they could get away with that?
Adobe shipping a problematic OS X Premiere. Did Adobe think they could get away with that too? And now Adobe is showing signs that their future products will be PC-only. Apple is supposed to let this happen? **** no.
I'm glad Apple is taking a stance and producing the software that *should* be on Mac...that 3rd-party should have been able to produce but haven't.
By the year's end, Mac users should finally get what 3rd party's should have been producing but haven't:
-an awesome pro movie editing, digital compositing, DVD authoring suite (FCP, DPS, Shake)
-(hopefully) a nice consumer office productivity suite (iWorks?)
-a music media player to end all music players (iTunes 4)
and
-a good browser (Safari)
Any consumer that says Macs don't have software will have to be promptly slapped.
And any pro movie editor that ignores the 970 chip + the newly introduced pro apps will need a kick in the nutz.
And I haven't even talked about 10.3.
Again...I'm glad Apple is, once again, raising the competition bar in these stagnant markets ran by monopolistic software companies.
With Apple's present strategy, the Mac will become the preferred platform for professionals, and this in turn will attract the most capable developers who have something worthwhile to contribute. Weaker developers may abandon the Mac, or take up a niche where they can still contribute and sell products.