One day after Final Cut Pro X is released and the average rating is 2.5 stars. There are 125 five star ratings and 201 one star ratings. I can see why pros are up in arms about this release. For most professional users (the people who make feature-length films using Final Cut Pro), FCPX is a laughable release. Most of the glorious reviews I’ve seen were written by people who do FCP training for a living, not film makers. If you train people on how to use FCP, naturally, you want people to upgrade and buy your training. Bloggers who link to guys who are FCP Certified Trainers should be careful and wait for reviews from actual filmmakers.
Here is a sampling via the Mac App Store:
UPDATE: Gruber has chimed in on these situation:
I made the analogy to the first release of Mac OS X — a true ground-up rewrite with the intention of laying a solid foundation for the long-term future, but, in the short term, lots of missing features and frustrating changes compared to what current users were accustomed. The difference is that with the transition from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X, Apple kept Mac OS 9 around for years, both as a boot-the-machine OS and in the form of the Classic emulation layer. There was a years-long transition. Whereas the previous — dare I say classic? — versions of Apple’s professional video software were discontinued upon yesterday’s release of the new versions.
This ground-up rewrite may well have been the right thing to do. Apple seems convinced that this is a better fundamental concept for video editing — and, really, storytelling in general. But it may prove risky not to offer a transition period.
Of course, he defends Apple. I see his logic here but it doesn’t mean this was the best way to do a transition. However, look at Adobe. They screw over their userbase with each new release and millions buy the software every 18 months. Apple has some time before their most loyal users begin to jump ship and many will just skip this release and remain FCP7 users.