Best evidence of hope for FCP?

I read a post this morning talking about the reasons that FCP may be doomed… the fact that it sucks as pros we don’t know what our suppliers are doing. We can’t forecast jobs into the future because we don’t know what our tools will or won’t be able to do by then.

And I agree.
It sucks that we haven’t had a good upgrade to Final Cut Pro since… well… I’d say that the last substantial upgrade was FCP HD… Not that I don’t think colored markers are BAD ASS (and I don’t). Actually I saw the writing on the wall when they first posted the web page for Final Cut Suite 3 and they highlighted, as in one of the top 7 features, colored markers.

Really? thats a feature? Come on!!!

But alas, there may be hope… A couple months back I had the chance to talk at the SF Cutters meeting in San Francisco. Great group of people and they have a meeting this thursday July 15th, 2010 if you are in town. The night I talked Karl Soule from Adobe was there talking about the new Adobe Premiere Pro, that is a part of CS5. Karl is a skilled demo dude and has been doing it for a long long time.

What was interesting was who was in the audience. Right as Karl began his presentation a guy walked into the back of the room and stood at high table with his brand new iPad and flipped open the case and started taking notes… who was it? I recognized him as the Final Cut Pro Product Manager from Apple. His name is Steve Bayes I believe and he used to work for Avid but about 5 years ago moved to Apple to head up the FCP team.

Steve stood there furociously taking notes while Karl presented new features in CS5, both features of Premiere and features of Photoshop. I thought it was cool that Steve (not THAT Steve) would come out and see how people were using his product. However. as soon as Karl was done talking about CS5 he flipped close the cover to his iPad and headed for the door.

So FCP may be on its way out… we don’t know cuz Apple won’t be upfront with what they are doing, but we DO know they are still watcing. They are still looking at the competition and we DO know that they consider Premiere Pro ‘the competition’.

Maybe I should switch??? Where would you go?

This Week in Photo did an interview with us.

Just days after returning from our Route 66 trip, Frederick Van Johnson came to our house and we sat down and discussed the photographic elements of our trip. Gear selection, packing, data management and photographic strategy on a one month road trip. We are also the first show posted on their all new website, which looks great. You can also log onto iTunes and Subscribe there.

Cardboard is deadly, be careful out there.

These kids are awesome... i wonder how much help they got.

Why I won't buy an iPhone 4.

Among my friends I'm pretty much considered "the Mac Guy" and of course that translates into being "the Apple Guy". Every time the boys from Cupertino release a new product every one of my friends at one point will call me, eMail me, voice mail me, or smoke signal me and ask me, "So... what do you think of the new iThing?"

First off, I want to say that I think the new iPhone 4 is pretty bad ass, even with the potential reception issues at hand, and the fact that the HTC EVO seems to out perform it in every single category, I think that if I were in the market for a new Phone that this new iPhone 4 would be the one I bought.

I think the double cameras are great, I think the flat back is MUCH better then the stupid rounded back on the 3G and 3GS. I dig the fact it records video at 720P. Face Time may be cool, but the jury is out. I think it is a marvel of technological achievement, so you may wonder, "why WOULDN'T you want to get one?".

Here is the purpose of this entry. The reason that I won't be getting an iPhone 4 has NOTHING to do with the technology but everything to do with economics. Simply put, I already have a phone. The phone that I have, I've had for 1 year. In my world, a phone needs to last me for 2 years. Therefore I am going to wait another year before I buy a new phone.

I'm always amazed at the "Leo Laporte Types" that have to have EVERY SINGLE product that ever comes out. Or if not every brand that comes out at least every MODEL of a given brand. So i may not have to have an iPhone, an HTC, an Android and a Blackberry but I at least have to have every MODEL of iPhone. Pure and simple people... this is not healthy. Its not financially wise, and it just isn't smart.

We need to be a bit more aware of the brilliant marketing that drives us into owning every single thing that gets shoved in front of us and have a bit of will power to stand up and say no, at least once in a while.

The other thing that bothers me is what I would call, for lack of a better term, "forced justification". If you look hard enough you could 'justify' any purchase. I could come up with a good enough, legitimate excuse, to buy an iPhone 4 if I wanted to. But no matter what the reason I'm still going to go against my own personal rule and 'logical lifespan' of 2 years to hold onto a phone. Its for that reason that I'm gonna hold onto my 3GS for another 11 months.

Notice I said, 3GS. I was in the Palo Alto Apple store the day the first iPhone was released and had it from day one. I did not however, go out and stand inline to get the 3G. No, I held on to the first gen iPhone until its 2 year life ended and then gladly picked up a brand new 3GS last summer.

So why am I telling you this? If you want a new phone there is no way I'm going to talk you out of it. BUT the thing I CAN do is try to get you to rethink some of your purchases. Ultimately, in the long run, we as consumers are better off if we temper our purchases and not fall prey to every marketing gimmick that gets thrown in front of us and, most importantly, not over extend ourselves and our credit cards in an attempt to "keep up with the Laportes" all the time.

I also want to say that I DO own stock in Apple, and I probably would see my stock go up if everyone in the country bought a new iPhone, and yet, I DON'T believe it is good for us as people, and as consumers.

I'll probably think of more I want to say, and I may add on to this in the near future.

Take a deep breath people, you may not need that new Microsoft Kin.

iPhone makes good video.

A lot of times these "gimmick pieces" are lame... "oo, look at me, I did an entire video on just... [insert name of kit here]". I don't feel that way about this piece at all... Although, it WAS shoot just on an iPhone 4 and they claim it was done with no color correction. Even if it wasn't... its a great piece.