No Apple at NAB2009
 

As of this posting, there is no sign of Apple at NAB 2009 which begs the question is there a FCS 3 in our near future. They skipped last year for a number of reasons including but not limited to no major new release. What is the deal?

and no Apple at MacWorld after 2009. Seems like they've decided conventions no longer fit the long-term strategy. Kind of a shame, I love going to those shows.

Noah

Full Circle.

I attended the very first MacWorld.

Maybe I should try to go to the last "Apple" MacWorld just to complete the cycle.

Apple sure has come a LONG way since I got my original 128k Mac in April of 1984 bundled with the only Mac software on the planet... MacWrite and MacPaint! (They included coupons for the coming Microsoft "Multiplan" and what I think was the first 3rd party company Mac software ever - Habadex.

Lots of great years in between.

Thanks Apple.

OH NOOOES!!! APPLE IS GOING OUT OF BIZNESS!!!!

Wait, that's what everyone screamed when Avid realized it was pointless to go to great big trade shows...

Yeah, conventions are great fun, and very expensive. I'm guessing the really big boys with world wide name recognition don't see much point in doing them.

Who knows when FCS3 will come to pass but there's no worry that Apple is going belly-up with it's pro apps.

Apple like almost every other company has realized that:

A) They never directly recoup the millions spent on large-scale trade shows

B) The internet has completely taken over as the primary medium for delivering new product releases, information and even surpassed TV as bang-for-the-buck in advertising costs.

The latter also just happens to fit nicely into Steve Job's perfect vision of how to deliver content, through the web. His preference is that all of us would distribute and receive our filmmaking masterpieces via iTunes which is one of the major reasons he's snubbing Blu-Ray involvement. (If you buy into the excuse Jobs gave that BR is "too costly" then he's good at pulling the wool - discussion for another time and place).

In fact more than 10 years ago Bill Gates publicly surmised that eventually there'd be no need for a local-machine OS that end users have to manage, rather that the machine would have "boot RAM" only and then receive the OS completely over the web. God help us all if that were to ever come to fruition.

Point being, with exception to consumer shows in the EU such as Photokina the massive all-encompassing trade shows for the manufacturers are a dying breed. Kinda sad in a way because most of the enjoyment of these shows *isn't* the showcasing of hardware it's being able to rub shoulders with industry colleagues or icons - and of course the networking that occurs.

Therein lies part of the problem: The manufacturers who spend the millions to show-off their stuff have realized that what these trade shows have really created is one massive networking and social event and are not that effective as a sales tool.

As these shows die off it's my hope that someone recreates the over-sized environment not to be another trade-show, but specifically to be a networking tool, period. Maybe it would be like attending Sundance but without the ego and pomp of a "show". One can only hope.

Multi-threaded pipe dreams
 

It is true; venues such as NAB make less and less sense for the big guys. I am still going! (great deals on travel due to economy, Bellagio here I come!). I guess I was hoping to see them there as a sign of the much needed new release. Perhaps it is still on its previous bi-annual schedule for this spring.

It's clear Santa isn't leaving FCS3 with true 64bit processing, BR, shared processing between CPU, GPU and RISC chip based hardware like Ambric for encoding from incorporated on I/O from companies like AJA, Black Magic and Matrox under my tree. (Sorry for the run on sentence)

Hopefully Apple celebrates St. Patty's Day

Apple's done with the large Trade Shows
 

It's kind of a curse and a blessing.

They are now free to deliver products when they are ready rather than by someone elses schedule.

They miss a bit of the pizzaz of wowing the faithful in a large group setting.

Final Cut Studio 3 will be delivered this year as well as large updates to many of their Pro apps like Logic Studio, Aperture and more.

Basically anything that was Carbon or Cocoa 32-bit now has to become Cocoa 32-64-bit.

I figure Apple will have to deliver before Snow Leopard hits because they will need to offer a PPC version (32-bit only) and then deliver a 64-bit cocoa version after Snow Leopard ships. I'm figuring they may announce around NAB timeframe as a special release.

I bought a Mac but i have held off buying FCPS2 in hope of the Apr FCPS3 release.. now i dun know what I should do!

Sean,

If it's any help, I've learned that while waiting for VERSION upgrades in hardware and software is often smart - waiting to start up the learning curve with NEW TOOLS is almost always a losing game.

Because every day you wait, others are not - and they will eventually become your competitors. And what you're really doing is giving them a chance to become more experienced and skilled than you.

The critical time path is finding the quickest possible date to START learning new skills and tools.

Because until you start - you can't start to improve - and therefore begin building your own competitive advantages in the marketplace.


FWIW

without hitting the panic button either :

1. apple doesn't / won't have FCP3 ready for NAB time, and they want to release later in the year or -

2. they will release it just prior to the show, and it will be in many booths there showing FCP3 with 3rd party products.

either way they want to be on their own time table. there is also of course the chance they will show up scaled down a bit. they will make room at the show for apple if this is the case. they could also do the sunday morning event too, which might make the most sense, and save a lot of $ over doing the big block sized booth

apple may also do suites or rent smaller rooms at the show to preview to select people. this happens all the time.

Unless you NEED the shiniest and fastest version to work with brand new technology, don't worry about it. Until 4 years ago I was using FCP1.2.5 and then I updated to FCP2.0.x. It was only last year when FCS2 was announced that I did the BIG upgrade. Personally, I'll wait until FCS3 becomes stable (normally a couple of months after release) UNLESS there is a significant workflow advantage to make the jump, which probably means Snow Leopard on a new Mac Pro 8 core running Nehalem processors that hasn't been released/announced yet.

Rumors are that Apple may do a brief demo of Snow Leopard at Macworld San Fran in early January. If this also came with a more solid ETA about a ship date then you have the best indicator if when Apple will be looking to release Final Cut Studio 3.

Snow Leopard is the first OS X version to be 64-bit from kernel to UI but it will still run 32-bit apps as well.

I look for Apple to have Final Cut Studio ready in a 64-bit version for release around the date that Snow Leopard will be available.

I expect the inevitable bugs but I also expect people to finally see what is "special" about OS X. Snow Leopard is going to look like Leopard there will be very few external features that differentiate it from what you may have now but underneath it has a significant amount of changes that in my estimation will not only bring FCS up to its competitors but surpass them in performance.

Apple has realized that trade don't always meet product update cycles. hence Apple announcing products on it's own timetable at "Town Meetings" held on it's campus.

It probably has to do with Jobs too. If he can't attend, the conversation would be about him and not Apple announcements. They need to make the company's "persona" less about him.

I was thinking about the first hard drives for mac were 20mb or the HUGH 40mb. The big drive could record about 8.5 seconds from my newest camcorder.

I want the new Mac Pro more than FCS3