Apple recently released Final Cut Pro X, putatively their new version of their flagship film and video editing suite.  Except…   Except it isn’t a new version, it is an utterly new program.  And most of the suite (notably Color, the higher-end color correcting piece) is gone.  And it can’t open projects from older ‘versions’ of Final Cut – at all!  And it doesn’t facilitate sharing projects among editors.  Or interchange with other professional software, as is routinely done now.  Plus, they pulled the current ‘version’ (FCP 7.03) from the shelves – had stores ship back unsold copies! – so that nobody can upgrade or replace or expand based on the old program.

Professionals are pissed.

Adding to the stew has been New York Times’ tech columnist fairly glowing review, then seemingly Apple-spoon-fed response to the wall of angry e-mails he got from professional editors and other post production types, and finally a grudging admission that Apple might have goofed.  Many have painted him a shill for Apple.

Larry Jordan has a pretty balanced view of things on his blog.  Apple’s stony silence – a paranoid attention to absolute secrecy – seem’s very misplaced in this setting, a professional software suite that needs to meet many different workflow needs and interact with many other processes, and is used by pros.  Egg on face.