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Adobe Drops Mac Support For Premiere
Theaetetus writes "In a story on MacCentral, it's revealed that Adobe Systems is dropping support for the Mac in the new version of video editing app Premiere: 'If Apple's already doing an application, it makes the market for a third-party developer that much smaller,' said David Trescot, senior director of Adobe's digital video products group. In response to the news, Apple issued a statement welcoming Premiere customers to make the switch to the Mac and Final Cut Pro."
http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=3976#11
Final Cut Pro is far superior. I know a guy heavy into video production/editing and he switched to FCP and never looked back. Premiere is/was a crash happy POS.
What are the stats for video editing? Clearly not as favorable.
Another benefit of open source - no need to obey market economics when developing products.
Hidden, unpublished APIs?
Have you even looked at the latest FireWire SDK?
Or QuickTime?
Or WebKit?
Or CoreAudio?
Or iMovie Plugin?
Or Image Capture?
Or Information Access Toolkit?
Or the rest of the Cocoa and Carbon APIs?
After you've written something that has exhausted the possibilities in those APIs,
then you might have a reason to gripe, but until then, you're just spreading FUD.
You don't understand. The majority (I have read anywhere from 58% to 70%, movie industry editing news) of the computers that use professional video editing software are Macs. So, the Windows market is actually SMALLER than the Mac market for these softwares.
Now, throw in the fact that FCP became the de facto choice by pros a couple of years ago (overtaking AVID, which was more expensive, and cumbersome), and you have the reason Adobe is doing this. Apple simply beat them, and Adobe is bowing out. Nothing more.
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
Ehh, FinalCut is a better product. It has a much better UI, handles 24p h4 video perfectly, and does quite few things that Premiere needs 3rd party hardware to accomplish. Moreover, FinalCut on a PowerBook is typically a much more robust portable solution the Premiere on a PC laptop.
FinalCut's video/audio solutions have surpassed that of Premiere's during the past two major releases. Over the past 12 months FinalCut has become -the- pro video editing solution for MacOSX.
Honestly, it makes no sense to keep selling Premiere on OS X. Adobe would be loosing money. Now that FinalCut's feature set is mature, Mac user are migrating away from Premiere. Furthermore, a lot of Digital Video folks are migrating to OS X simply to use Final Cut or Final Cut Express.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
You ARE wrong. FCP came from Macromedia, who had pinched Premiere's lead programmers to produce a Premiere killer (that's why FCP is so Premiere like - it IS "Super Premiere"). Macromedia had let the project founder, Apple bought it back to life.
Now, Adobe has finally admitted defeat. The Premiere killer has killed.
That was classic intercourse!
wouldnt it also force users to purchase an additional copy of premier (pc version) in order to keep using it?
Actually, Adobe has a great cross-platform upgrade deal. When I switched from Wintels to the Mac, Adobe gave me a great deal for Photoshop. Since I already had the latest PC version of Photoshop (7.01) they charged me for SHIPPING only to get the Mac version with the caveat that I had to destroy my PC version of the software. Not bad at all! All in all, I paid $14.99 for 2nd day shipping.
Gimp poses no threat to photoshop whatsoever.
The only people who would be interested in using GIMP instead of Photoshop are home users who pirated photoshop in the first place. Adobe makes its money from corporations, not home users. And there are no open source programs that rival adobe now, or in the near future.
when your product has been superior for years and recognized as such
In this case, it's not so. My dad runs a video production business. He runs Final Cut Pro, but before he went digital he did a lot of research between Mac/Windows, and the various editing platforms on each. Apparently working with Premiere is widely regarded as a painful, frustrating experience. It has its strong adherents who are used to idiosyncrasies, but new adopters are often annoyed, or don't know that there's a better way. His experience with FCP, btw, has been spectacular. He's awed by its power, its interface, and its reliability. It's probably a good thing Adobe is redesigning Premiere things from the bottom-up. Maybe it will be too FCP-like to distinguish it from Apple on the Mac, or they just know they can't compete on that platform. You can read the user boards on digitalvideoediting.com or www.2-pop.com to get the feel for Premiere out there.
If you didn't notice, they don't even mention Final Cut Express, which is bound to devastate whatever market share they have.
Final Cut Pro has decimated Premiere, which is quite a feat considering that it's a $999 program and Premiere was $695.
Final Cut Express would have dealt the killer blow at $299. Now Premiere doesn't even have price to recommend it.
I think Apple's market share has been low because Apple owners are waiting for the breakthrough in speed that just happened with the G5. I know I have a PowerMac G4/450 dual processor system I'm still using, and I plan to buy a G5 later this fall to replace it. There are a lot of people like me around, based on discussions I've seen on various message boards. With the G5, we've been given the "red meat" we need to get a new system.
I expect Apple's market share to improve a point or two when the new machines are available - and most of them are going to be that US$2,999 dual processor model.
Finally, Apple users are happy to spend money on software. I don't see mainstream commercial support vanishing for the platform any time soon. We're just too inclined to spend money for this to happen.
Consider Premiere's sales numbers before Final Cut. By Adobe's own admission, Mac users had 30% of sales. Those sales vanished because people love Final Cut. But a 30% market share for software purchases, coming from a platform that only has 3% of sales, is pretty impressive, no?
They're still getting results like that for Photoshop, Illustrator and After Effects, and that's why the Mac version of those products will continue.
Premiere is simply not a very good product compared to the competition. I think Adobe should have risen to the challenge, but it's possible that Final Cut is just too well loved for them to have a chance. I well remember the standing ovation for Final Cut's founders at a users group meeting I attended. FCP users are a rabidly loyal bunch, and we are VERY well treated by Apple.
I don't see that changing any time soon.
D
Yes they have. Final Cut Express was the Result. It killed Premiere, not FCP. For a couple hundred dollars, you got all the basics of FCP, none of the extras.
"You've got an invalid haircut" -Warren Zevon - Life'll Kill Ya
- iMovie, which ships on every Mac, and is an entry-level video programme that is still quite good -- and completely locks Adobe out of the low-end. This was once Premiere's territory. Even iMovie supports a thriving third-party plug-in community.
- Final Cut Express, which is FCP shorn of some of the true pro features, that only true pros need. This sits just about exactly where Premiere is in the market, but costs less and the interface skills you develop can be taken "upstairs." There's also the snob appeal of using the "lite" version of stuff the big Hollyweird boys are using.
- Final Cut Pro itself, which as other
/.ers have mentioned, is eating Avid's lunch.
Two of these have identical code bases, practically speaking, letting poor Premiere get beaten up from above and below at once. Apple also is extending FCP's reach (and Apple's money-making) with things such as add-on compositing software.The bottom line is, Adobe's marketroids looked at Premiere on OS X and said, "Why would I buy this product instead of...?" and the answer they came up with... was curtains for Premiere.