My iPad 3 Event Predictions

Last night sucked.

But, the good news is that Wednesday brings a new day and, perhaps more importantly, a new iPad for the whole world to see and bask in the glory of.

It seems a popular pastime to read rumor blogs and sites on days leading up to the big Apple announcements. I do quite a bit, and I suspect that even Joe I-know-nothing Schmo is even remotely aware of some of the features of the new iPad.

My intention is not to guess feature-by-feature, though I will. To me, the new features seem fairly obvious. While Apple has a history and passion for surprising the tech industry with new innovations (who saw the Smart Cover coming?), I suspect that most of what we will see on Wednesday will not be as shocking as other Apple events. I'd like to take some guesses at how the event will roll out. Then, maybe I'll come back here and judge how I did.

1. The stage is sure to be set with a giant Apple logo on the screen, as it always has been. They'll be playing a mix of Adele and perhaps some other new, hipster artist over the PA. The room will be dark and there'll be some chairs, just as Steve sat in for the original iPad introduction. There'll be some iPad 3s (or whatever they're going to call them) on a table near the side of the stage for demo purposes. They'll, of course, be covered in black sheets.
2. The lights will dim and Tim Cook, the new CEO, will come out and greet the crowd. Apple typically begins with news about the company and it has been far enough from their quarterly earnings report that they'll have some updated numbers about the business. Tim will run over how well the iPhone and iPad are doing, emphasizing the recently passed 25 billion app downloads. Apple has sold over 50 million iPads, and I suspect that that'll be a large part of the numbers presentation.
3. Tim will even speak to how well the Apple TV is doing. I should make this clear, I doubt that we will see an actual Apple television set at this keynote. If there is an update to the product line at all, it will likely be an A5 chips that powers it, 1080p output, and perhaps a few more services integrated in. I suspect that they'll announce a new model Apple TV box (one that connects to your TV via HDMI) but it will be a minimal upgrade. This event is about the iPad, not the Apple TV.
4. Tim will introduce Phil Schiller, Senior Vice President of Worldwise Marketing. Tim Cook is a nice guy and definitely a wiz at organizing a company, but Phil is the presenter. Phil is, in my opinion, the only executive that can hold a candle ate Steve's presentation style. Phil will be the one to introduce the new iPad.
5. Phil will talk a bit about the success of the iPad and present some very high sales numbers that perhaps Tim had eluded to earlier. Don't bet against them talking about how the tablet competition can't keep up. He will absolutely also talk about the popularity of the new iPad Textbooks and present some spun numbers that will actually be very low but will seem high. Phil can spin numbers like few others.
6. Then, he will begin to talk about the new iPad. He will talk about how great a product the iPad is and how it is changing the way that people interact with content. He will likely show a video about how the iPad is changing lives. Expect the video to be touching to your senses.
7. "Then, we thought to ourselves, how can we make this magical device even better? We have come up with a ton of new ways, and we will focus on many of them this morning," he might say. What will it be called? My guess is either the iPad 3 or, more likely, the iPad 2S. He will show it and it will look a whole lot like and iPad 2.
8. "The first revolutionary change...our unbelievable Retina Display. The Retina Display on the iPhone 4, 4S, and iPod touch is just gorgeous. It's something you have to see to really believe. It's the only display that truly lets you read from your phone as if you were reading from a printed page. It is phenomenal. Now, we are bringing that display to the iPad. It doubles every pixel to present things you might never have imagined. It make reading on the iPad the most enjoyable reading experience you've ever had." Apple keynotes are known for their superb use of hyperbole.
9. Demo of the Retina display a la the iPhone 4 announcement. Hopefully without the "Turn off your wifi" moment.
10. Next, the dual-core A5X processor. Phil will talk about how fast it is, dual core, with updated graphics. I'd imagine the new graphics will be about 7-9x the graphics performance of the iPad 2. "This thing just screams. And, mixing this with the retina display creates an amazing gaming experience." Also, I expect an update to the iMovie for iPad software.
11. Demo of the A5X processor, done by game makers like the makers of infinity blade or Electonic Arts. If new iMovie software, a demo would go here as well.
12. Next, Cameras. The iPad 2 cameras are horrible for everything but FaceTime, so a camera update is entirely needed. I'd expect a camera upgrade to the level of the iPhone 4, but not the 4S. They'll show some gorgeous pictures of what can be done with the iPad cameras.
13. Along with that, a new app. iPhoto. Scott Forstall will likey come out for this. The photos app for iPad is simply unable to do anything like iPhoto for the Mac can do. Because Apple insists on photos being tied down to apps, the third-party offerings are insufficient. I don't expect this to be a separate purchasable app, this will be an updated version of the 'Photos' app that already resides on your iPad.
14. Next, Siri. Siri, at least for dictation, makes too much sense to leave it out. Scott will either stay out or Phil will welcome him back out to talk about how much better Siri has gotten and how pleased customers are with it. They'll do a thorough demo of Siri and if I were you, I'd expect several new functions for Siri that will ship on the iPad 2S. Perhaps coming later via a software update to iPhone 4Ss. Sorry iPhone 4 users, I doubt Siri is ever coming to your phone. iPads are used differently that iPhones so this will be an interesting place for innovation on Apple's part.
15. Next, LTE. Phil will be back. He will talk about the popularity of the 3G iPads and how quickly companies like Verizon are building out their LTE networks. I suspect that the 3G in these models will be like the iPhone 4S and be compatible with both GSM and CDMA. Not sure what to guess about whether or not you will still have to choose Verizon, AT&T or Sprint, like you do on the phone. No contracts though, that's for sure.
16. Battery life. The iPad 2S will have the same 10 hour battery life. Which, if you think about it, is quite a feat.
17. Then Phil will talk about price. Price is easy. $499 16GB. $599 32GB. $699 64 GB. Add $129 to each to get the Wifi+3G+LTE versions. Same pricing as before. The iPad 2 will continue to remain available for $399 at 16GB only.
18. And that'll be it. There could be some sort of surprise attachment or accessory, but for the most part, the event will be pretty standard. Phil will invite everyone to the hands on demo center and a few lucky journalists will go home with loaner models with which to reveal.
19. Release date? I'm guessing March 16th. If they do a pre-order (unlikely), it will start on the 9th.

I think people are going to feel Steve's absence. The last product announcement was a day before Steve's death and I just suspect that it'll be felt worse here than before.

I think some will come away feeling disappointed with the event, because it won't be as flashy as we expect. The Retina Display is going to be amazing and the device is going to truly scream. The graphics will be astounding and there's surely some exciting new software possibilites coming. All in all though, I wouldn't expect to be blown out of the water.

If all this comes true, would this be a device worth getting? Definitely. Worth updating form our iPad 2? Maybe. One thing is for sure, they're going to sell a lot of them. Millions. And they'll sell them fast.

Would you get one of these iPads?

-B

Microsoft's Home of the Future

Interactive, projection displays everywhere. Cool ideas, though I wish the video had been a little more thorough. Seem like I might get a headache with that many screens moving around me all of the time...but I'd sure give it a shot.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo-fRuuwoPI]

Microsoft is a great company and I look forward to their future endeavors as they continue on the legacy they've built thus far. My hear cries for them to get back into the game.

-B

Apple TV, iCloud, and The Future

When Steve Jobs introduced iCloud at WWDC, he announced a new thing called iTunes in the Cloud.  In essence, iTunes now makes all of the music that you purchased from iTunes in the past available to download onto any iOS device or Mac you own. One problem though: how much music have you bought from iTunes? In recent years, probably a decent amount.  But in the past, perhaps not as much. Problem solved: he then announced iTunes Match, a $25 a year service that takes your iTunes library and matches the music you own (legally acquired or not) and matches it with the high quality iTunes files.

This makes one thing possible: if your hard drive goes down, your iTunes will be backed up in their cloud services. Thanks Apple, nice touch.

Today, quietly, Apple updated the software in the second generation Apple TVs and allowed for any iTunes TV Shows purchases you ever made to be streamed to the Apple TV over the internet.  Kind of like Netflix, but with content you've already purchased.

Presumably, after more deals are made, iTunes Movies will be next.

Before we press on, allow me to explain to you what I do on a regular basis now. Throughout my life, before things like Netflix and Hulu, I purchased a lot of content on optical discs (DVDs). I got a little addicted to the 4-for-$20 deals at Blockbuster. We bought (or usually, received as gifts) TV seasons of shows that we enjoy.  And pretty soon, we had a nice little library of DVDs that had to find a place to sit in our tiny apartment.

One thing has struck me as strange throughout the past couple of years though: why do we do this? You know where my collection of CDs is? I have no idea. I really don't know.  Every piece of audio I own has been ripped into my iTunes library. Prior to Amazon Cloud Player, Google Music, and iTunes in the Cloud if my hard drive crashed, I'd consider my library of music gone. Not because I don't have the physical CDs (for a lot of them, I do), but because the amount of effort to find and rip would be too much to go through.  From the time when I first learned of digital music players (and particularly, the one that could hold ALL of my library in my pocket...iPod), I knew that optical media was going away. And it was going away quickly.

So, recently, I've been doing the same to my video collection. Slowly, but surely, I ripped all 9 seasons of the King of Queens onto my computer. It took time, yes, but it was well worth it. Because here is the process I used to have to go through to watch an episode:

1. Decide I want to watch a random episode of the King of Queens.
2. Go get a season from the bookshelf.
3. Open the box.
4. Find a disc (usually three or four per box)
5. Put it in the DVD player.
6. Wait for the opening menus (that don't allow you to fast forward) to end.
7. Pick an episode.
8. Press play.

But here's how I usually watched an episode: TiVo. If there wasn't a recent episode to watch on TiVo, I just didn't bother.

Last year, Apple introduced iTunes Home Sharing, allowing the new Apple TVs (and an iOS device on the same Wireless network) to access your iTunes library. Thanks to my handy ripping, here is my new process:

1. Decide I want to watch a random episode of the King of Queens.
2. Change the input of the TV to Apple TV.
3. Choose an episode.
4. Press Play

Because of this, I literally haven't used TiVo in months.

When it comes to personal digital content, I am convinced that this is the only way going forward.

And as always, there's a catch: Apple TV must connect to an iTunes library. Which means that your computer must be on, awake, and iTunes open in order for Apple TV to see it.

So this update today: big news or small news? BIG news. Why? Because now, you can watch anything you purchased through iTunes anywhere.  At the airport and forgot to sync that TV show you've been meaning to watch? No problem, download it from iTunes.  You bought it, right? You have the right to watch it. FINALLY.

But there's a catch: how many TV Shows have you purchased from iTunes?  Not many, I'd bet. Why? Lots of reasons: too expensive, crazy copy protection, only digital forms (can't lend them to people, etc), and more. Instead, you'd do what I did.  Buy it at Target on sale, rip it all and THEN access it. Or if you didn't know how to do that, you'd still be using those silly old things called DVD players.

Which leads me to my proposal: iTunes Match for TV and Movies. PLEASE, Apple.

Here's how iTunes Match works (from what we know).  Apple went to the Music companies and asked for it.  They most likely said no. Then Apple said, "We'll pay you large sums of money.  You're not getting a dime from people stealing music now, how about we do this and give you large sums of money?" To which the music companies thought, "Good point." This is the same reason Netflix has a bunch of content you may never watch.  Netflix approached the studios and said, "Listen, you've got content collecting dust on shelves not making ANY money.  How about we write you a check and you let us stream it?" To which the studios thought, "Good point."

This needs to happen with iTunes TV Shows and Movies. I own a bunch of video content in optical form. And I definitely don't want to have to buy it again. BUT, if I could pay a yearly fee (probably more that $25) and could give it the bar codes to everything I own and then have that content on any iOS device I want, whenever I want, however I want, it'd be worth every dime.

The studios would get more money than I've already paid them, and for those who stole episodes of this and that...the studios would be getting something from someone they weren't getting anything from. Everyone wins.

Every time you go to Target, more and more optical content is priced cheaper and cheaper. Why? Because Netflix and Hulu are popular. And because it makes less and less sense as time goes on.  Netflix doesn't have the King of Queens or the Big Bang Theory. And if I stop paying my subscription, Netflix goes away. I need a way to access my content that I own, in as convenient a way as I have through Netflix and Hulu.

Please, Apple, hear my cry.

-B

Scrolling in Mac OS Lion

Apple released the newest version of what they call "the most advanced operating system on the planet" on Wednesday, as expected, at 8:30 in the morning. It is the first operating system (by Apple) to be distributed solely by online digital means at launch and is highly encouraged to be installed without any use of optical discs, USB drives, etc. Supposedly, Apple will sell copies of OS X Lion in the coming months in their retail stores for $69 on a USB stick.

While $69 is still cheaper than your typical install of Windows, it is basically what you pay $29 on the Mac App Store on a USB drive. The USB drive would only need to be about 4GB in size (and you can buy these as low as $8 on Amazon) so a $30ish markup sends the customer one clear message from Apple: download this, don't buy a physical copy. When they released the Mac App Store not long ago they dropped the price of their photo editing software, Aperture, from $200 to $80. The price didn't drop on the copy with physical discs. If you went into an Apple store and bought Aperture you would pay $199. If you wised up, went home, and downloaded it online through the Mac App Store, you could install it on any machine you own as many times as you'd like for no more than $79. Apple is getting rid of optical media(DVDs) in a large way and is more or less pushing their customers into the future...like it or not.

This is all well and good, but if the download and install for Lion went horribly wrong (think MobileMe), Apple would have to answer for this seemingly hasty decision.

But it didn't.

It installed perfectly, without a single hitch, on both of our machines and seems to be running well. The rest of Apple customers seem to be saying the same thing. More than a million people downloaded Lion on day one and everything everyone has said has been more than positive about the download and install process.

I have had limited experience with it thus far as we have been traveling, but I really do like it. And to be able to install it on as many machines as you own for $29 is more than a good deal, it is a steal. To not upgrade to Lion seems absurd, unless $30 is really a huge strain on your wallet. If you through down the >$1000 on the computer to begin with, chances are that you can afford the $30 upgrade. If you're even considering it, and don't have a legitimate reason not to (some of the old PowerPC apps will not run anymore in Lion), it seems very dumb not to do it. You don't have to got to the store to buy a disc, you don't have to have it shipped. You simply pay $30 through your iTunes account and download. Within an hour and a half, you've got the brand new operating system.

Many, many things have changed in Lion. Almost 100% of these changes are easily seen as good, from the user's perspective, right from the start.

One, though, has been getting some backlash.

For years, you've been able to scroll on the Mac using either a scroll wheel on a non-Apple branded mouse, the Apple Magic Mouse, the Apple Magic Trackpad, or the trackpad on your laptop.

I assume that scrolling really evolved from the directional arrows that have sat on the side of our browsers and windows since the beginning. If more content went past what was currently visible on the screen, you clicked on the down arrow to move the page downward. You could also click on the scroll bar and move it toward the bottom.

Scrolling, without having to interact with the side scroll bar, developed from this idea. The most common way on a Mac has been with two-finger swipes on the trackpad. If you want to go down on the page, you swipe with two fingers downward. It makes sense, right? Not anymore.

One of the things Apple is starting to do with Mac OS X Lion is to bring some of the quality designs and decisions they made with iOS back to the Mac. One of the most immediately evident is...scrolling.

On an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch, when a user wants to scroll through a web page (and much of what users do on these devices is completely through the browser), they take their finger (on an iOS device it is just one finger) and "push" the content on the screen around. This process is actually exactly opposite of the Mac's directions, but gives the user the sensation that they are physically manipulating the content on the page with their hands. Apple really debuted this concept with the outset of the iPhone with "pinch to zoom" multitouch but didn't speak at all about how scrolling worked on the iPhone. It just made sense.

The decision seems easy. The layer of abstraction is gone when a mouse and keyboard are gone, so why create another layer? The user knows there is more content they wish to view. So, like in the real world, they physically move the content in front of them, out of the way. You never have to explain to the four year old manipulating your iPad how to scroll a page, they just do it. Because it feels natural.

So on Mac OS Lion, Apple decided to reverse the scrolling. They decided to call this new scrolling "natural" because it feels more "natural". You can tell there was some internal conflict at Apple about this because the VERY first thing you see when you start up Lion is a welcome box that explains how scrolling works in Lion. They are very conscious that this is going to be very different and very frustrating at first to seasoned users. And, if you're reading this and thinking that this isn't good at all and is the sole reason not to update, have no fear, this can easily be changed by unchecking one box in System Preferences (another example of why, perhaps, everyone at Apple was not in total agreement).

The idea is simple. If we are going to interact with the content on our computer in the same way we interact with the information in physical form in our lives, the way we interact with it needs to feel more natural.

Which brings me to my plea: don't uncheck that box. Give yourself some time. Allow your brain to relearn how to interact with everything. Because, in general, this too is a good change. We want to feel as if we are directly manipulating content on a screen. And, in order to do that, we need to get rid of the layers of abstraction that have existed because we couldn't think of a better way when we all began.

Here's where I think Apple went wrong though: Why even refer to it as scrolling? When Phil Schiller introduced it, he described it as "pushing the content" but he stilled called it "scrolling". They shouldn't have stuck with that name. "Pushing" is much, much better. Instead of a welcome screen titled "Scrolling in Lion" it should have read "Pushing in Lion". Because really, we aren't scrolling anymore. We are manipulating. And when we need to move from top to bottom, scrolling seems silly, we are pushing. In that sense, it wouldn't appear as if Apple simply reversed the way it used to work, they just came up with a new plan, a new concept, a new paradigm of thinking. Imagine Apple saying, "scrolling is out. We don't need it anymore. Now, we just push. So from now on, we call it 'Pushing'. Welcome to the new "Pushing" in Lion, it is more natural, revolutionary, and...magical." It would have brought the house down.

Give it a shot. Don't uncheck that box. It took me only a couple of hours to get used to it. It was very, very strange at first, but as we move more into the world of touch screens and manipulated content, "pushing" is the future, not scrolling.

Apple has always been a company to make big sweeping decisions and force customers into the future. They put the computer in one box and gave it a mouse and new user interface (but what about our command lines?). They took the floppy out of the iMac (how absurd!). They took the CD out of music (it's a shame that didn't work out). They took the keyboard off a smart phone (that's been totally unpopular and never was copied). They took the keyboard off of the tablet(gosh, if only 28.6 million of those hadn't been sold). They ended scrolling on a screen (if only they had marketed it that way). In every instance, it has been met with much positive approval and has led to a complete paradigm shift of thinking in the computer industry.

Stick with it. It'll get better.

-B

Final Cut Pro X = iOS

Apple released the new version of their professional video editing software Final Cut Pro. The older version is Final Cut Pro 7, the new version is a huge step forward...X. Within hours of the release, the critics came out in droves. They have been not only negative, but they've also used this to pass judgment on Apple as a company and the decisions they've chosen to make.

I need to make a few things clear before I move on:

• I do not own Final Cut Pro X (I don't have the extra income to make a $300 purchase, especially for software I don't use on a regular basis)
• I have read extensively on the new product (when Apple releases a "dud," it is always intriguing) and have considerable experience with Final Cut Pro 7 (though I am in now way, form, or fashion, a "professional" at Final Cut Pro).
• Apple is a 90-90 company. Apple makes decisions based off of what 90% of the people want/need to do 90% of the time (I didn't come up with this myself, I stole it from Alex Lindsay, founder of the Pixel Corp).

Because of these things above, I've come to one basic conclusion: most who are criticizing the product (no matter their prestige in the video editing world) do not understand Apple as a company.  After all, Apple makes some seemingly-crazy decisions on a regular basis. They seem, under Steve's leadership, to be doing ok.

It is my goal here to draw comparisons between Final Cut Pro X and iOS, as Apple has made strategic decisions with both of the products.  I do, in fact, think that iOS is indicative of the direction and market Apple is pursuing. I think these decisions parallel, in many ways, the decision that Apple has made with Final Cut Pro.  It's not a clean analogy by any stretch of the imagination, but I think it has some ring of truth to it.

It's hard to remember the first iPhone now. But, not too hard.  There were no direct competitors.  Today is the four year anniversary of the launch of the original iPhone. Let's compare some features that we take for granted now, shall we?

The original iPhone had:

• no multitasking (this is true of the original iPad as well, when it first released)
• no third-party applications
• no home screen backgrounds
• no Microsoft Exchange support
• no front-facing camera (the original iPad didn't have any cameras)
• no 3G support or coverage
• an audio jack that required an adapter for a regular headphone set
• no intelligent way to deal with notifications
• no push notifications
• no user-replaceable battery (still true today)

Slowly, thanks to adequate competition from Android, Apple has added a majority of these over the past four years. Slowly, but surely, Apple has redesigned some of the most basic features in Mac OS X to work in ways that are best suited for the mobile environment.  Many argue whether these are the best strategies or not, but no one argues whether or not they are working...they are.

Because here is what happened with iOS: Apple wanted to make a mobile phone (Steve has discussed on stage that this actually started with the pursuit of a tablet device). It was important that this device be radically different than anything within the market.  Because the original idea came from a tablet form factor, a big candy-bar shaped piece of glass seemed like the best idea. If they could implement a worthwhile digital keyboard (and they did), then the full glass front would prove to be a great solution.  Apple had a leg up on the competition for two reasons:

• they saw a new phone not as a mobile phone, but rather as a mobile computer.
• they already had a phenomenal proprietary operating system.

The enabled them to start the iPhone OS with a strong foundation: Mac OS X.  This was, in fact, one of the points in Steve's original keynote when he introduced the iPhone. Here was the problem though: no one was going to use a mouse to navigate the iPhone's screen. Because Apple makes decisions often based on minimalism or simplicity, they also threw out the idea of using a stylus. Steve has said it before: When you throw out the stylus, you have to use your finger. Mac OS X was built so that someone could have the precision of the tip of a cursor.  Without a stylus, you don't have that precision. You have a finger tip, which is much, much cruder.

Apple, taking the foundational elements of Mac OS X, designed a completely new interface to the iPhone's operating system. It is important to understand this distinction. When Windows 7 went "touch-enabled" Microsoft did little more than make it a bit easier for a hardware manufacturer to add a touch screen. A touch experience on Windows 7 today is more than painful (try it and you'll see). Apple took a different approach. The rewrote EVERYTHING so that it would work with the point of a finger. iOS (originally called, iPhone OS) required Apple to, more or less, start over.

And start over they did.  If you look at the history of iOS, it becomes obvious that people at Apple sat down in a room and said, "If we were going to reinvent computing, what would we do different?"  You can imagine that they thought of things like malware, spam, viruses, ease of writing, finding, and downloading apps, battery life, the file system, price, etc. Little by little, with their own unique approach, Apple has fought each of these things. If there are features that people want/desire on an iPad or iPhone that their computer has, Apple slowly implements those features in a way that suits the device that they're running on.  It hasn't been perfect, but it is hard to argue that it hasn't worked.

So, how does this relate to Final Cut Pro?

Final Cut Pro 7 (the older version, just replaced with FCPX) was a 32-bit application. Apple has migrated most of their apps to 64-bit over time. Final Cut Pro was one of the last. And Final Cut Pro was on old product. Somewhere along the line, I imagine that it was decided that to take FCP to 64-bit, a significant amount of re-coding was going to need to have been done. Here is a big change, and it needs to be re-written to work well (sound familiar?).

One must imagine that at some point someone working on this re-coding said, "If we're going to re-write this anyway, why don't we just start over?" as if to say, "If we were going to reinvent movie editing, what would we do differently?"

And so they did. They did this a while back with iMovie. Now it was time for Final Cut Pro. So, they re-wrote it, from the ground up.

We can make a strong argument that Apple is willing to enrage 5,000 high-end professional users in order to satisfy 2 million new users.  That argument would be valid.  We can argue that they lowered the price to entice new users to come.  That argument would be valid.  We can argue that most of Hollywood is already using AVID and is unlikely to switch (editors get very quick and comfortable with editing environments that they know and love).  That argument would be valid.

But my argument is that they're starting over.

There are a lot of things that they've done well this time:

• Distribution and licensing is much easier as it is handled through the App Store.
• Stepping up from iMovie is much, much easier with the new FCPX.
• Many of the extra features that used to exist in stand-alone applications are now well-integrated into the Final Cut Pro experience.
• Magnetic timelines have made it so that non-educated or non-experienced users can easily perform tasks that used to be a burden.
• The user interface resembles iMovie so that all of their products have a seamless workflow to them.
• Rendering is done in the background so that the editor doesn't have to worry with telling the computer to re-render every video edit.
• Final Cut Pro works works much better with Motion (so much so that using Motion to create FCP Title templates is much, much easier) than it ever did.
• Everything is 64-bit.
• Final Cut Pro renders footage more useful now that it has facial recognition built into its logging of clips.
• Many, many more new features.

The two biggest complaints from the high-end professional world have been:

• The interface is too foreign (unchangeable and too much like iMovie Pro)
• It doesn't import old timelines and projects.

Apple has said that the second one is simply impossible. Many might ask, why would Apple go forward with a project that wasn't compatible with the old one? The answer is easy: when there is something better in the future (and for Apple, this is much better) a few sacrifices sometimes need to be made. Remember when the iMac released without a floppy disk drive? Yeah, that didn't work for them at all...

iOS was a complete re-write, leaving out key features until they could add them in a way that made sense.  Final Cut Pro X is a complete re-write, until they can add the features users want in a way that makes sense.  It's a compromise that Apple made to please tons and tons of amateur video editors at a low cost, knowing good and well that the high-high end market may react because it is...different.

It's almost like asking a computer programmer to write an app on the original iPhone.  They'd probably laugh.  When you asked why they were laughing, they'd say, "It doesn't have the right tools."  To which you would reply, "yet."

Does this hurt their growth in the high-end professional market? Probably.

Does it help their growth in the low-end amateur market?  Without a doubt.

The high-end market is tiny.  The low-end market is huge.

Can you really blame a company for making any different of a decision?

People really seem to like their iPhones and iPads.

-B