LA Meeting

So what was the upshot from the Apple presentation? Don't know if there was an NDA, but can folks describe what they heard/saw? Did you get a sense of the ongoing commitment?

There is definitely a sense of "complete" commitment to the product line.

There were no secrets or NDA stuff, just a high polished demo of FCPx, Motion and Compressor with three Apple senior product manager on stage, Luke Tristram, Steve Bays and woman with British accent. They even had a couple of new Touch Bar MBPs in the lobby for hands on experience.

It was a nice demo with some funny moments, when Luke Tristram instead not to call the new Rolls Lanes tracks, no matter how much it looks and functions as tracks. Also when he showed the little window that lets you select the color for your Rolls. Instead of admitting that it is a joke to have only these few weird colors and not the entire palette, he "spinned" it that way, that Apple helps you to make sure that you only choose colors that look nice (by Apple's standard, of course).

Lanes actually do things "tracks" can't do, so there is a very distinct difference. That's like calling a Keyword collection a Bin.

Luke is the pro video app manager, Steve the FCPX manger, the women (forget her name) is the Motion team manager. I forget the exact titles. Product Manager or something.

I have issues with those limited colors, also. I bet that eventually changes.

Her name is Estelle McGechie. I got the most out of her presentation, but then I'm new to Motion. Luke and Steve had very polished presentations as well, but really nothing new unless you had never heard of 10.3 before. The Touch Bar functionality was the most interesting aspect.

I don't want to diminish the event at all, it was awesome and I'm glad I went... but my take away from Apple's presence there was that they are very proud of where Final Cut Pro is now (rightly so), and are very much invested in it long term. Just my thoughts.