With our incubation project SpottingSession (and our upcoming addition to the platform ProSpotting) we’ve gotten to know the post-production community quite well. It turns out, a lot of TV and feature work gets done on Macs, but Apple’s refresh pace has not kept up with professional appetites (or even other Apple products). This is compounded by some pro users’ aversion to change. With the professional audio and video community “time is money”, so requiring users to relearn how to do something they’ve done a million times before is a tough sell, particularly if not coupled with significant other improvements. As a short but illustrative history of Apple’s somewhat contentious relationship with pro customers:
May 2010 – Rumors that next version of Final Cut Pro will broaden it’s target beyond pros.
July 2010 – Last significant Mac Pro rev until yesterday.
November 2010 – Apple discontinues Xserve
February 2011 – Apple introduces Thunderbolt connector as a successor to FireWire on MacBookPros. Bypassing tradition of adding new features to MacPros first.
April 2011 – Apple debuts Final Cut Pro X at NAB 2011 with pro criticisms about a drastically altered feature set.
Fall 2011 – Concern about the future of Mac Pro.
June 2012 – Mac Pro released with bumped processor but still no Thunderbolt support. However, in a likely damage control move, Apple CEO Tim Cook hints at a new Mac Pro in 2013 via an email to a concerned customer.
June 2013 – Completely rethought and redesigned Mac Pro announced at WWDC.
Predictably, pro reaction to the announcement of the new Mac Pro is mixed. Some are wowed by the tech specs and design:
If you aren’t impressed by the new Mac Pro…and you design or create audio/video content, you’re out of your mind.
— King Shimbo (@NeverDauntedNet) June 10, 2013
Some are underwhelmed by the new design:
Mac Pro does not impress me so far.Pretty design, but not functional design.Function is most important for pro users.
— Peter Cote (@petercote) June 10, 2013
I love that they made the new Mac Pro look just like your travel coffee mug. Computer + Thermos = innovation
— Luke Mullen (@ldmullen) June 10, 2013
IF there’s new MacPro today @ #WWDC: “fanboys” will love it, “pros” will hate it, everyone else will say “it’s better than what we have now”
— Scott Simmons (@editblog) June 10, 2013
MacPro cylinder huh… Anyone remember the Mac Cube? Hope this isn’t a repeat…
— Matt Turrigiano (@matt_turrigiano) June 10, 2013
So Apple’s new innovation priorities are tube shapes and reducing size. And thus begins the golden age of suppository computing. #macpro
— John Pickup (@JJRP3) June 11, 2013
And many are disappointed by what it doesn’t have (internal spinning disk drive storage, PCIe expansion support, swappable GPUs):
It seems new #macpro has no PCI expandability we don’t seem to know about any other internal expandability…how are these people praising it?
— Scott Simmons (@editblog) June 10, 2013
@necrosian regarding the MacPro I just hate the fact that u r stuck w/ the original GPUs and need to buy TB adaptors for just about anything
— PУЯO (@_pyro_O) June 10, 2013
Having a build-to-order Nvidia option would make this new Mac Pro option awesome, and nobody can tell me that’s not possible.
— Alexis Van Hurkman (@hurkman) June 10, 2013
So if you’re looking to get the new Mac Pro, or if you’re just going to stick with your old one, you can always use SpottingSession for your post-production note-taking.
Regardless, we’re excited to have an excuse to buy a new toy for the office.