Who will sue Apple for Final Cut Pro X first?

by Sebastian WöberJune 29^th, 2011

Final Cut Pro X is going down!

Except for some individuals like Conan O’Briens editors most professionals are pretty pissed at Apple right now.
A poll we did last week revealed that more than 55% (750 votes) of our visitors don’t really like Apple’s latest update to the Final Cut Pro line and the ratings on the actual product in the App Store show similar statistics:

Apple reacts by issuing refunds to unhappy customers. E-mails like this emerge:
“(…) I understand that you are not satisfied with the app “Final Cut Pro”. I can certainly appreciate you would like a refund, and I would be more than happy to help you out with this today. (…)”

Apple also made some announcements about future updates for Final Cut Pro X in the form of an FAQ sheet they published on their site. They promise features like multicam editing, XML export, OMF, AAF and EDL support. Find more infos on the FAQ (it’s not a very long read).

So what about the sueing part?
Well, obviously many people and most of all production houses who have built their workflow around the oder versions Final Cut Pro are affected by the downgrade of their software which sooner or later might even kick some of them out of business, let alone the costs involved for most of them.

As bladeronner.com put it so nicely: “Apple Has You by the Cojones”.

A group of editors and filmmakers have now called for an online petition that demands the reinstallment and continuation of the old editing software Final Cut Pro Studio 3 from Apple. It might not make sense to sue Apple but usually when people get angry that’s what they tend to do.

Excerpt from the petition:

“Many have invested hundreds of thousands (some even millions) of dollars in creating Final Cut Pro based companies. These are now threatened by a “prosumer-grade” product upgrade of Final Cut Pro 7 titled “Final Cut Pro X,” and will likely put several of these companies out of business. The costly process of migrating studio hardware and software is a major burden, especially on studios that have made recent upgrades to support Final Cut Pro. If many had known of the Final Cut Pro X release prior to investing in expensive hardware and software licenses, most, if not all, would have sought alternative solutions.”

By today, the petition has gathered about 5000 signatures and is currently the most active list PetitionOnline.
(via CNN)

Here’s a refreshing comment by user walkerfilm. “You mustn’t be afraid to upgrade a little bigger darling”:

Former Shake product designer Ron Brinkmann also weighs in on Apple’s Final Cut Pro X release and says

“Doesn’t Apple care about the professional market?”
In a word, no. Not really. Not enough to focus on it as a primary business.

via MacRumors:
… (because) there are maybe 10,000 “high-end” editors in the world while the market for an easier to use more casual product is “at least an order of magnitude larger”.

Let us hope that Apple will be forced in one way or the other to provide the software we need, otherwise many of us will no other choice but to switch to Adobe once and for all.