Apple Announces New Pro Software 479
yroJJory writes "Apparently, Apple has just announced new pro software today. First off is the new app Motion, which is a new motion graphics program with real-time previews, procedural behavior animation and Final Cut Pro HD integration. Second, is Final Cut Pro HD, boasting the beauty of HD with the simplicity of DV. Capture DVCPRO HD over FireWire, edit using camera-native footage and output over FireWire with no generational quality loss. RT Extreme, now for HD, can deliver multiple HD streams, effects, filters and transitions in real-time to an attached Apple Cinema Display. Last, but most important to me, is DVD Studio Pro 3, which has slick new transitions, superb HD to MPEG-2 encoding, Graphical View, support for all professional audio formats -- including DTS -- (FINALLY!!), and integration with Final Cut Pro HD and Motion. Motion will be available this summer for $299. The Final Cut Pro HD update is available now for FCP 4 users. DVD Studio Pro 3 is expected to ship in mid-May." Reader green pizza writes "Apple today introduced Xsan, a clustered filesystem for Mac OS X systems."
What impresses me (Score:5, Insightful)
However, I wonder how long Apple can continue with such heavy investment in this excellent software. The return on investment of this kind of thing can't be that great considering the low low price of the software. Granted, it moves Mac G5 boxes, but I wonder if the markup on the Apple hardware can compensate for the loss leading of the Apple software.
Your cause and effect's all out of whack. (Score:2, Insightful)
Why do you think the likes of Adobe are scaling down their Mac product line? Apple are trying to have their lunch. Why bother writing software to bolster your enemy?
Re:Your cause and effect's all out of whack. (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple only seems to be stepping in where a competitor's product is languishing on the Mac platform. Two examples:
Internet Explorer for the Mac was left to rot by Microsoft, so Apple came up with Safari.
Adobe Premiere for the Mac was a neglected piece of shit, so Apple came up with Final Cut Pro.
This is a very clear message to software makers: "Shitty, infrequently-updated Mac software will not be tolerated. If you're going to make it, make it right or we'll take your marketshare with a kick-ass app that shows off what the Mac can do."
Re:Your cause and effect's all out of whack. (Score:5, Informative)
Apple did not "come up with Final Cut Pro." I worked at Macromedia when Randy Ubillos (of Premier fame) started creation of Keygrip. The product was 2 or more years in development and quite behind schedule. It was done out of the Macromedia offices near Oracle in the mid 90's. Macromedia sold this technology to Apple and the development continued to become Final Cut.
Re:Your cause and effect's all out of whack. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Your cause and effect's all out of whack. (Score:4, Interesting)
Their purportedly multithreaded renderer in After Effects is so poorly done that you can damn near double a multiproc box's performance by running two jobs at once. Their multithreading is so poorly done a user can do it 2x better by making a few extra mouse clicks in their software.
Re:Your cause and effect's all out of whack. (Score:5, Informative)
Avid dug their own grave on this one, and all Apple did was see an opportunity and fill it.
Re:Your cause and effect's all out of whack. (Score:5, Informative)
They projected well into the future what it could and couldn't do and suggested that folks could even build sherlock plugins based on this. Someone took these specs and made another software and released it before Apple released their much more refined version.
Moded +4 Insightful at the moment. Maybe these people don't know the true story. Or maybe you are the developer of Watson and pissed off Apple didn't buy you off like a few others had been paid off when they had done this isame thing in the past.
Actually, your cause and effect might bekinda off (Score:5, Interesting)
It is true that Adobe is scaling back some of their Mac operations. But apps like Premier and FrameMaker have been seriously neglected (four or more year w/o and update). So if these are the applications Apple risks losing because of their great software then so be it.
Avid/ProTools treats the Mac like a second class citizen so thankfully Apple has helped give them some competition. If it hadn't been for Apple who would have provide quality compositing, audio, video editing, DVD-authoring and now motion graphics software? Was Apple supposed to wait and hope that someone would come to the plate?
If anything, Apple is capable of producing great software. They will always be reliant on third parties with limited resources (or interest) for supporting great Mac hardware. Their strength is their software. It'd be great if Apple could get out their hardware sinkig ship and concentrate on bring great softare to different platforms.
Re:Actually, your cause and effect might bekinda o (Score:4, Interesting)
The other advantage in having Apple take these types of software under their wing is that they can strategically coordinate releases of both software and hardware. Looking at the Xserves, the XSAN, the software tools, OS X, etc., you can clearly see that they're targeting high-end, corporate users of media software (ie, entertainment). The scientific community is already sold on the Unix underlayer of OS X - X11 make is possible to port a lot of apps.
Re:Actually, your cause and effect might bekinda o (Score:5, Interesting)
And doing it very well.
Re:Actually, your cause and effect might bekinda o (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple is far better off than it was a year ago, or even five years ago, when things were really ugly.
There's a strange (and, IMHO, unrealistic) trend of opinion lately that says that Apple should stop making great hardware and concentrate on making great software that only runs on that great hardware. If you think the software is that damn great, then buy a Mac. That's what Apple's trying to get you to do, but people seem to be missing the point.
Re:Yes, Hardware is a sinking ship. (Score:3, Insightful)
Why do you say that Apple can't compete on hardware? They're doing great right now. Do you expect that to change? And if you do, are you also one of those people who said back in '90 that they've be out of business in just a couple years?
Apple's business is great now. Never better. Never.
I don't think Steve Jobs gives a shit what you think as long
Re:Yes, Hardware is a sinking ship. (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple has made a decision to use a non-standard platform as the vector for their OS. In a lot of ways, that has simplified the task of creating a reliable operating system. So WHAT if they're doomed to charge more than HP for an entry level system...they aren't trying to create a monopoly. So long as enough people buy their computers, devices and software to turn a profit every quarter, they're far better off than the hundreds of other PC manufacturers who can't see past the concept of hardware as a commodity.
Re:Yes, Hardware is a sinking ship. (Score:3, Interesting)
Is it? Maybe. But outside of the clonebox PC market, that's exactly what every electronics manufacturer has to do. There is no chip with the ubiquity and appeal of the "x86" chip in, say, the PVR market, or the car stereo media decoder market. Sure, there are market leaders, but very rarely do you see one that has 97% of the market.
Which is, I think, the POINT to Apple's dogged insistance to keep running with thei
Re:Yes, Hardware is a sinking ship. (Score:5, Funny)
Their recent earnings report says otherwise.
But you're right. They should go commodity. Cause, y'know. Dell. See. Money. They have some. A lot. Commodity. That's where the big bucks are. All those companies raking it in, hand over fist. Like Dell. And... Dell. Oh, and Gatew... wait, no. Compa... no, they got absorbed. HP!! Yes! HP! They make their dime on commodity boxes, don't they! Oh, no, they don't. It's their servers.
I'm sure I'll think of some other company that has billions in revenue and millions and millions in profits from white boxes.
You just hang on. I'm sure I'll be back soon.
You should re-read that earnings report (Score:3, Insightful)
46 million of profit on 1.9 billion isn't too good (2.35 percent). In fact were it not for the AMAZING sales of the iPod I don't think Apple would have reported a profit. If Apple hadn't been deversifyi
Re:Yes, Hardware is a sinking ship. (Score:3, Insightful)
Why must every company have impossible sales numbers to "compete?" Why isn't it possible to simply continue making money on lower volume? (which is precisely what Apple is doing, and doing better than any other company)
I'm saying their hardware isn't profitable.
It's probably more profitable than the $599 machines from Dell.
Apple has some great consumer and professional applications. They have the potential to deliver more.
Re:Yes, Hardware is a sinking ship. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Actually, your cause and effect might bekinda o (Score:5, Insightful)
Oops. Stop right there. There's your problem. You've only recently awakened, Rip VanWinkle-like, from 1999.
I'll try to get you up-to-date. OSX!!! OMFG! Flat-panel iMacs! OMFG! G5s! OMFG! iLife! OMFG!
OK. Just giving you a hard time. But bitching about 5 year old hardware failures just makes you look silly.
Re:Actually, your cause and effect might bekinda o (Score:3)
Re:Actually, your cause and effect might bekinda o (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Your cause and effect's all out of whack. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Your cause and effect's all out of whack. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What impresses me (Score:5, Insightful)
Shake 3 - $4950
The big production houses use it, use it lots, and use it on several workstations.
Apple are making a bit of a profit, but they also have an intensely INTENSELY loyal following just because it's the best of the best.
Their other apps are cheaper, but then they'll all continue to be updated, all continue to need new hardware, and all continue to need newer versions of the Mac OS.
Combine multi million dollar production budgets and that level of loyalty, Apple's video production market isn't going anywhere anytime soon, and is going to keep bringing them in solid profits.
Hey, they're not a market leader by % of total machines sold, but they're still a business with a near $2billion turnover each quarter with profits in the tens of millions. I'd like to be in that position
Re:What impresses me (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What impresses me (Score:4, Interesting)
It should be noted that Weta Digital opted for the more expensive Shake+Linux combination than going the full Mac route, heh
Sunny Dubey
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What impresses me (Score:3, Informative)
As far as cost in many situations in high end VFX the cost of the software is not that important considering the cost of the artists and technici
Re:What impresses me (Score:5, Informative)
One thing that I am pretty sure about, but not positive, is the cost of running a linux cluster node in the farm. I know the OS X licenses for a cluster node are free. However, I do not believe that to be the case with a Linux node. Again, further driving the cost way up. The most cost effective option for recent shake adopters are most likely XServe G5 Cluster Nodes. As they are relatively cheap individually (for the power they provide) and you do not need to pay a licensing fee for each node.
Re:OS licenses for Xserve nodes (Score:3, Informative)
Render nodes are free for Shake on OS X, but not for Linux.
Slight correction (Score:5, Informative)
==========
http://www.creativecow.net/forum/read_post.php?
Kathlyn and I remember when FCP was being developed on WindowsNT (at Macromedia and was known as Key Grip) and Media 100 had signed on with the Key Grip team to make it their front-end of choice for M100's soon-to-be Windows system. (It was Q3-1996 at the time.) At the Macromedia World Developers Conference in September 1996, we were guests of John Molinari (founder of Media 100) and he introduced us to Bud Colligan of Macromedia, Lauren Herr of Truevision (later Pinnacle), Peter Hoddie of the Quicktime team and many members of the Key Grip team.
Later on in October of 1996, I was asked to appear on a TV show as one of the panelists discussing digital video. The other panelists were Randy Ubillos (lead engineer of both Premiere and Key Grip (FCP)), Steve Whitney (then of M100 but later of Puffin Designs and then Pinnacle), and one of the key people from MicroNet (who then were key drive manufacturers in this marketspace).
I also quite well remember when Apple bought Key Grip and later rechristened it Final Cut Pro. I remember the chagrin it gave Avid and how that also intensified when Apple announced that they were dropping the six-slot PCI architecture of the old 9500/9600 design base.
I worked for Avid for 18 months under contract as a consultant to help reposition the marketing message of Avid after they made the ill-fated "We're going to be PC-only" at NAB and set their predominantly Mac-only user base on fire.
Apple did NOT develop FCP as an answer to Avid's announcement -- it was quite the opposite, really. Avid saw the writing on the wall and determined that they stood a better chance on the Windows-side of the aisle -- a move that would later prove a lapse in judgment and would require "a repositioning of the reposition."
Just to set the record straight,
Ron Lindeboom
creativecow.net
Re:Slight correction (Score:3, Interesting)
I think it was the need for multiple PCI busses, as at least AVID Mojo requires a "segmented PCI bus" in order to work at full capacity. Most Xeon-based machines sold for the last five years have had two PCI busses. I don't know if the PCI-X slots on the G5 now would have addressed this need had they done it back then, because I think eac
Re:Slight correction (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, I remember that fracas.. One incident I loved hearing about was one Avid customer asking his sales rep "what about Mac compatibility?", only to be told "we don't have to be compatible with the Mac". The customer was incensed, and told the idiot "You have to be compatible with your own installed base, asshole."
There were a bunch of Avid customers who decided right then and there that Avid was history as soon as they had an alternative.
Re:Slight correction (Score:4, Funny)
Say what? Your position is to sell your product to whatever platform your customer are running, not to make them switch to something they don't want, *especially* when every single product you're demoing runs on BOTH PLATFORMS!
He repeated the same anti-Mac statement later, at which point I yelled from the crowd for him to shut up.
I was amused greatly that the Windows demos kept crashing, but the Mac ones went flawlessly from the start.
Re:What impresses me (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What impresses me (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What impresses me (Score:4, Insightful)
Like it or not, but for 90% + of desktop users, there is nothing "much outside of the OS and Office".
cheers- raga
Re:What impresses me (Score:5, Insightful)
Hardware delays not withstanding, ( within reason ) Apple's future is pretty bright. Check how many /. readers have and use Macs compared to 3 years ago. 3 years ago, anything Apple was a running joke here, becuase the hardware was so outdated mostly, but also becuase OS X was not ready for primetime.
Big difference today - Apple is the geek computer. Hardcore gamers are the last holdout IMO.
Re:What impresses me (Score:5, Interesting)
- BSD backend with full hardware/software support
- Incredible battery life. (I get 4+ hours with normal use)
- Weight
- Internal wireless with antenna integrated into the display
- Plenty of OSS software available
- Apple software bundle is impressive
- And lastly, all this for only $1099
Needless to say. I'm loving' it.Re:What impresses me (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What impresses me (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, the media cartels are mostly using Avid (on both Mac and Windows), not Apple's FCP.
It's not in the high-end market they are competing (though that may change), but in the lower end where Adobe Premiere was not good enough and Avid too expensive. That's where everyone jumped on FCP and... bought a Mac. That's not to say FCP isn't good. It seems to be pretty good, and the editors I know tend to rather like it, even
Wait ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Xsan (Score:5, Informative)
Just look at Apple's Xsan home page [apple.com] and Xsan press release [apple.com].
Re:Xsan (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe you should read inbetween the lines. It sounds like special software along with fiberchannel. It's much much more than "regular san". You ever tried to mount san read/write onto several systems? It will cause errors and problems all over your filesystems. XSan allows you to mount multipule systems read/write onto the same fiberchannel san system. This requires special software way beyond regular san. People have been looking for solutions like this for years. The closest thing to it is gigabit NFS, but NFS is intensely CPU intensive. I'd be curious to see how well this handles.
Re:Wait ... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Wait ... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Wait ... (Score:5, Informative)
A CVFS client on Window, Solaris, whatever, will plug right into an Xsan network.
You're missing the whole point of SAN... (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, Xsan lets several Macs and Xserves share files, but it does so through Fibrechannel, not through a LAN. Several machines can share files and/or cluster their storage together without having to rely on a fileserver. Each machine has direct access to the storage via the fibrechannel switch. No filesharing or networking protocols to get in the way of good perforamnce. Now without some sort of controls in place, this could quickly become a huge mess, that's where the Xsan software comes in. It handles things like connect/disconnect and access privleges.
$999 per machine sounds steep, until you compare that to similar software offered by Veritas and SGI (SGI InfiniteStorage CXFS). Apple's is a bargain.
Apple does it right (Score:4, Interesting)
Simply, they are the trend setters. Best computer company period!
Unix makes it easier (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Unix makes it easier (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Apple does it right (Score:5, Interesting)
We just bought a Dual G5 Xserve. I set it up last weekend. In about 4 hours. From my house. In my PJs. All done via Apple's Remote Desktop and Admin tools over my cable modem. Designers came in Monday morning and all their stuff was there and working as if it had always been there.
I know most hard core geeks who regularly SSH into their servers and various boxen won't be impressed by that, but please understand that I work for a decently sized (14 designers) graphic design company. I admin all the G5s and our web server, FTP, mail, etc., in addition to my normal duties as a production artist. I am a "geek" who regularly reads slashdot, but UNIX is not really my forte. I drop into the Terminal occasionally and sudo, but it's not really my main gig. I know enough to be dangerous, basically.
The G5 server is freaking amazing. Open Directory is very nice as well. Say what you want about overpriced hardware (though the G5 server and the X-RAID are pretty reasonable for what you are buying), but Apple does do things pretty well. You get what you pay for in my opinion. Could I have built or ordered a similar machine with Linux or Win2K3 and spent a little less? Probably. We spent about $5K and got 750 gig of storage and a gig of RAM. But the difference in the cost of my time (and headache trying to get it all running) is far outweighed by the simplicity of the Xserve. And the really nice thing is that there is a TON of usabilty built into the Xserve for those who need/want to delve deeper. PHP. MySQL. Open Directory (Apple's LDAP stuff). VPN. It's all there and easily configured or tweaked from the Admin Tools or from the CLI.
It wouldn't surprise me one bit to see more and more Xserves sneaking into data centers. They really do rock.
Re:Apple does it right (Score:3, Insightful)
The real news .. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The real news .. (Score:2)
Has to be the XSan
How would this affect SGI or SUN? Both companies offer comparable machines, and have 20+ years of experience doing high performance computing, clustering and filesystems. Check out Solaris10 (http://wwws.sun.com/software/solaris/10/). With features like DTrace, NFS v4, a highperformance TCP/IP stack and other enterprise level features Apple has a long way to go to compet
Apple's is a bargain, but not the best (Score:3, Interesting)
If you do the math, Apple's hardware RAID setups and per-seat SAN software prices are the lowest in the industry for now.
Re:The real news .. (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow, how many companies can do this?!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Wow, how many companies can do this?!!! (Score:3, Informative)
The SANs system will be a boon to production companies. The biggest issue with working with video is disk space.......you need LOTS of space.....
Re:Wow, how many companies can do this?!!! (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong. HD over FireWire is 100 Mbps. It's only after the program content has been sent to the transmitter that HD gets squeezed all the way down to 19 Mbps. In production, the bit rates are 50-100 times higher than that.
(Real men deal with uncompressed SMPTE-292, of course. Gigabit and a half per second, thank you very much.)
You shouldn't comment on what you don't know.
Right back atcha.
Re:Wow, how many companies can do this?!!! (Score:3, Informative)
Ce n'est pas correct, mon petit frere. Regular DV/DVC/DVCAM/DVCPRO is approximately 25 Mbps. There's a 50 Mbps variant called DVCPRO50. (The 25 Mbps variant is 4:1:1; the 50 Mbps variant is 4:2:2. If this means nothing to you, don't worry about it.)
There is no 720p variant of DVCPRO-HD. The DVCPRO-HD format anamorphically encodes either 1280x720 or 1920x1080 into 1280x1080 with 8-bit samples (4:2:2) at 100 Mbps.
I suppose you work with 1.5 gigabit digi
Don't forget Shake! (Score:5, Informative)
HDTV over IEEE1394 (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:HDTV over IEEE1394 (Score:3, Informative)
Re:HDTV over IEEE1394 (Score:5, Informative)
Apple suggests that you have a 160MB(capital B)ps connection to do uncompressed (read: non DVCPRO HD) HD content, which requires a PCI-based solution, not firewire.
HD over FireWire (Score:5, Interesting)
1080i HD content can be moved between a Panasonic HD VTR and a computer via FireWire with no generation loss:
"With Panasonic's new, compact AJ-HD1200A DVCPRO HD VTR, 24fps or 60fps progressive scan material shot by Panasonic's AJ-HDC27 VariCam HD Cinema camera or 1080i studio / sports truck footage recorded by DVCPRO HD VTRs can be transferred via the VTR's IEEE 1394 interface directly into Final Cut Pro HD without generation loss. Once transferred, the material is instantly available for real-time editing operations. All footage maintains its camera-original quality, because the IEEE 1394 FireWire interface transfers the native DV-HD high definition files, as originally recorded on tape in the VTR or Varicam, directly to the Power Mac G4 or Power Mac G5 host computer's internal hard drive."
Read the joint Apple/Panasonic press release [apple.com]
Re:HDTV over IEEE1394 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:HDTV over IEEE1394 (Score:5, Informative)
Been waiting for DTS support (Score:4, Informative)
This has been a requested feature since 1.0. Noce to see they finally got DTS support into the product.
It's things like this... (Score:5, Interesting)
To me, Apple seems a much better development house than Microsoft (not really necessary to state), and their products seem much more reliable/functional than Microsoft's efforts. Maybe it's the extra time spent in development, maybe it's the extra attention spent on details, or perhaps it's just the hardware.
Even though I don't currently use Apple hardware, I still appreciate what they are doing for the computing community in general with products like these that show what great design teams are really capable of.
Re:It's things like this... (Score:3)
Find the funds. Put it on credit. The increased productivity will pay for itself.
"Apple hardware is too expensive" is an excuse that fails to look at the entire picture. Increases in productivity enabled by intuitive design and reliable equipment far outstrip the initial premium.
My theory--it's the weather (Score:4, Funny)
Microsoft--grungy Seattle, gray overcast days all the time, endless rain, boring and monotonous. And so we get Windows 95 and its ugly, drab gray, it's squares and lines, it's awful linear mindset to doing things. All the way up until Windows XP, and they just make everything blue and green, which looks like an attempt to be the pretty thing that OS X is without really "getting it."
Apple--beautiful, sunny Cupertino. Pleasant weather, lovely parks, lots of color. And so we get iMacs, OS X, pleasant colors with curves and sleek designs...seriously, who else makes hardware that you could actually describe as "sexy" with a straight face? I admit it, I see a PowerBook or a desktop G5 and I think, "Man, that's enough to make me drool!" And their usability factor is through the roof. OS X is a breath of fresh air when all you've used is Windows (and KDE/GNOME).
Just a theory on these two ways of thinking!
Re:It's things like this... (Score:5, Interesting)
I use osx all the time now (was a PC to mac convert 2 months ago), and I just find the one button mouse a much more elegant solution. I just find the keyboard and mouse combo is much more efficient. Interestingly enough, it wasn't that I was actually slower, but I was LAZIER with the two button mouse - I didn't want to bother using the keyboard, when i could do it in one hand - which in the end caused performance to suffer. And expose rocks my world. I keep finding myself how to switch windows on winxp, and I marvel at how I was able to survive without expose for so long (alt-tab doesn't cut it anymore). The app switching bottleneck is so gone now.
I work at a printshop, so I very much rather enjoy being able to work on 5-6 jobs at the same time. It reduces a lot of downtime, and I find that the biggest bottleneck on the computer is actaully me. Which, of course causes me to push bigger jobs faster, simultaneously, up until the point where the hardware is near it's limit. It's a vicious cycle, but productivity is the big winner here, and my boss likes that. Plus I feel like Johnny Neumonic(sp?).
(Score:-1, The Switch)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It's things like this... (Score:5, Funny)
weird (Score:2, Interesting)
XSan should receive more noteriety for this.
Xsan is a preannoucement. And that's Good! (Score:5, Interesting)
That is not something Apple does much if at all for its products. While silence until shipping is a good move (I would say) in the consumer space. It's bad for the Enterprise space. Apple has been criticized and justifiably so for not pre-announcing key technology so developers and enterprises can plan accordingly.
Now I agree that it's probably better to err on the side of less pre-announcement, but Apple took this to too much of an extreme.
I think this is an indication that Apple is 'getting it' more and more regarding Enterprise/Pro markets.
What to view it on? (Score:5, Interesting)
This also brings up something with the Panisonic HD DV camcorder simply because it is the only major minidv HD camcorder being pushed.
Good job apple.
Re:What to view it on? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What to view it on? (Score:4, Insightful)
B) Microsoft is readying "Windows 97"/"Memphis" with full USB support (remember the demo crashing on Gates?)
C) Manufacturers start gearing up for the anticipated USB demand
D) Windows 98 is delayed again in early 1998
E) Apple introduces the iMac
F) All those USB products in the pipeline quickly get Mac drivers and blue plastic, because otherwise nobody was buying them.
G) Every Apple customer upgrading to the imac has to throw out his/her peripherals and buy new ones
F) Mac products sales shoot thorough the roof, saving several key retailers for Apple
G) Jobs looks like a genius, when it was at least 50% luck.
Kudos to Apple (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Kudos to Apple (Score:5, Interesting)
One of my most fond memories while being an employee at NeXT before stepping into Apple was Steve's final CEO to Staff Rally Speech.
Besides the obvious, "We are already speaking to several key individuals, including John Rubenstein(sp?), etc" was the comment Steve made about when the OS hits the Shelf.
To the best of my recollection:
Now obviously Steve held to his Vision.
Re:Kudos to Apple (Score:4, Interesting)
Japan seems to break the mold here though. Recall that article a week or two ago about Toyota's long term development of alternative fuel engines... now Ford liscences them.
Re:Kudos to Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
"Kudos to Apple" is appropriate. This is one company that has worked hard and managed to stay focused over a long period. They deserve recognition for it.
Interesting. (Score:5, Insightful)
Both Xsan and CXFS are cross-platform: you can attach heterogenous (Windows, Linux, Irix, Solaris, Mac OS X, possibly others) systems to the one filesystem, and have it all work. The interesting part is that CXFS needs an SGI Irix box at the centre to deal with the metadata updates (as I understand it). Xsan also needs a metadata server, but it's unclear whether it needs to be an OS X box, or if it'll work with other operating systems at its core. If the former, it's understandable. If the latter, it'll be a good chance to make it into the enterprise in a big way.
Either way, it looks like Apple is making some serious, steady steps towards the enterprise market. They're very much the underdogs; people looking at this sort of thing like to see a track record before buying; but still... interesting times, indeed.
Re:Interesting. (Score:3, Informative)
Motion name already taken (Score:3, Informative)
In light of the Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox/Fire--- browser, and the mobilix.org forced name changes
it should be noted that "Motion" is a well known motion detection software.
http://motion.sourceforge.net/
Re:Motion name already taken (Score:4, Insightful)
In light of the Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox/Fire--- browser, and the mobilix.org forced name changes
it should be noted that "Motion" is a well known motion detection software.
http://motion.sourceforge.net/
If there was some confusion, I might see the point. But there's no way Apple's Motion will ever be confused with motion detection software.
It's like saying Apple can't use "Logic" because there's a computer quiz game called "Logic!"
They really have to compete in the same space. And no, "software" isn't a space.
Final Cut Express (Score:5, Interesting)
Now that these problems are fixed, I can safely say that Final Cut Express is the perfect entry-level video editing solution. At $299, it's a steal compared to the competition (Final Cut Pro is already a steal!). Plus, if you decide to upgrade to pro, Apple only charges the difference in the price, meaning you lose no money.
Talk about a company that's nice to their customers. Apple definitely sees the pro market as an area to capitalize - it has always been their strong point in the past. You can tell that apple's trying to capitalize on their strong points as they attempt to regain the Education market with the $799 1.25ghz eMac. The pro markets are faithful to apple, and can easily afford their hardware and software - compared to the 'real' pro-level stuff, Apple's a bargin (SGI workstations used to cost upward of $10k without software)
HD editing and output,DVD authoring,1394 export... (Score:3, Informative)
A Litte Offtopic (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.thinksecret.com/news/aprillaptops.ht
This is kind of odd, they usually announce new products on Tuesdays.
To Quote Hillel (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Amateur motion capture? (Score:5, Informative)
Not to be an ass, but this could have been cleared up by simply clicking the link in the article and reading the first sentence in the product description...
Re:Amateur motion capture? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What's the Apple complaint today? (Score:5, Funny)
Um...could they complain that this new software only requires a one-button mouse?
If so...Those bastards!
Re:What's the Apple complaint today? (Score:4, Interesting)
People, that money people use to pay for things actually goes back to the company and gives employees an incentive to sit there hacking away for 12 hours producing quality code and designing amazing new hardware. Volunteer work won't give you that kind of motivation (admit it, it won't), and it also won't let you quit your day job to devote all your time and energy to it.
Apple has the perfect balance--the kernel and rest of the OS is open source, but the stuff that really matters like their GUI and other software is proprietary closed. Ya have to buy it.
Re:Is there a MacOS layer like Wine? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Ahhh, the smell of astroturf in the morning (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ahhh, the smell of astroturf in the morning (Score:3, Interesting)
You know, if you really want people to take your comments seriously, you might cut out the anti-corporate, anti-capitalist rhetoric. Just because Apple makes a profit doesn't make them an "evil company". You know, Steve Jobs has to put food on the table too, and I happen to think that Apple makes the world a slight