“Apple have been processing refunds for Final Cut Pro X as complaints flood in from grumpy pros – and it seems they are taking a lenient approach. Although the iTunes/App Store terms and conditions state that ‘all sales are final’ [ed. note: isn’t this illegal?], when an application does not meet the expectations of a user, like in the case of a 59p iPhone game, Apple have been known to refund the purchase. Now it seems they are doing so with Final Cut Pro X to the tune of $299.”
FCP X is actually a *good*, modern editor if you think of it from the point of view of a stand-alone, modern videographer. It does everything you would need it to do at that price range, again, for an editor who has just started his foray into professional or prosumer video editing, and has modern hardware/cameras.
But where FCP X really sucks and fails, is in the way it supports its previous professional users. Its inability to import/export OMF/EDL/XML/FCP-projects, multicamera support, good DV/HDV tape and RED support etc, are all Hollywood-class or older-prosumer-(weddings)class professionals. These features are indeed a must-have for these kinds of pros, and they are RIGHT to shout at Apple for the lack of these features. Apple’s managers should have looked at history (e.g. Lotus 1-2-3 to Excel), to see how important backwards compatibility and interoperability feature support is to OLDER users. It actually surprised me that Apple would do such an easy mistake, in terms of a pro product evolution/market.
But as I said, if you’re a new videographer, stand-alone person in the post production of things (e.g. a dSLR user who shoots official music videos, or shooting short movies — like myself), then FCPX is good enough for what it does. I don’t need multi-camera support, I don’t need older compatibility or interoperability with others. I can do everything on my own, and FCPX offers most of the features I need.
But yeah, if you’re in a STUDIO, sharing projects with others, e.g. colorists or 3D people, then FCPX is a toy.
Edited 2011-06-28 23:24 UTC
That seems to be the complaint, yeah – not that it’s a bad piece of software, but that they’ve dropped a lot of the features that justified calling it Final Cut *Pro*. And funny enough, they’ve upset a lot of the professionals who actually used those features…
I guess they should have just named it Final Cut Express X and everyone would have been happy.
What if it wasn’t a mistake, but simply a not-so-subtle way of saying “Frankly, we don’t care about you anymore” to the pro Mac community ?
I mean, what are professional products worth once you are at the center of the mainstream market ? They require more work, and they generate less benefits as a whole, although more benefits per head…
It may simply be the case that this category of Mac users have had their use, and now Apple doesn’t need them anymore. So they get deprecated, so to speak.
… are legal because they imply the sale is final – i.e., you cannot return it for cash. You can still demand a refund if you can prove that what you recieved is substantially different than what you were sold. Some states in the US also require exchanges for defective products in the case of “all sales are final”, although that’s not considered a refund because the merchant is simply fulfilling the implied contract of purchase.
But if they sold the app store items “as is”, like most open source licenses state, you would be agreeing to purchase it without the chance for an exchange or refund.
I don’t have iTunes or the App Store, so I can’t tell you what they used…
Well, in France I think you have a legal 1 week/2 weeks delay during which you can get an exchange or full price refund, even though there’s a number of exceptions (e.g. you can’t return used underwears, and for goods with a very limited number of uses like food or ink cartridges there are also some issues).
It’s like that part of the consumer law that states that if items are only sold in bundles in a shop, it is your right to open the bundle and take as many as you want from it. Though good luck for getting your legal rights acknowledged in some shops…
Edited 2011-06-29 07:42 UTC
In the UK online purchases such as app stores are covered by the Distance Selling Act and you have a week cooling off period for whatever reason you wish.
As an app developer I can assure you that Apple does indeed issue full refunds (because they are clearly labelled in the sales reports), but from what I can see they don’t make it easy for users.
For interesting sake.
The three biggest players here in order of market share among movie professionals are.
(With an example of a complicated FX movie edited with it.)
Avid Media Composer $1800
“Inception” was edited with it.
Apple Final Cut Pro $300
X-Men Wolverine was edited with it.
Sony Vegas Pro 10 $600
The 2009 flick “Paranormal activity” was edited with it.
From this you can see why Apple Final Cut pro is gaining pro market share, or maybe now “was” gaining market share until recently with all the Final Cut Pro X unhappiness.
$300 is wrong. Final Cut Pro used to be $999. I doubt they were using X
Yes…It seems the $300 is only the upgrade price.
«Co-financed by Fox and private equity fund Dune Entertainment, “Wolverine” had a budget of $130 million, according to the studio» [1]
I’m sorry, I fail to see the relation.
It’s features, not price for professionals. This release aims at amateurs and semi-professionals (who could afford all those you listed, anyway).
[1] http://articles.latimes.com/2009/may/01/business/fi-ct-boxoffice1
I think the main problem with final cut is the lack of solid information relating to a roadmap. Everyone would appreciate that it’s a rewrite laying the foundation for future versions, however apple need to back this up with a roadmap outlining when these key features will be added into the product. Some features simply having ‘summer’ availability is not enough. I can understand apple not wanting to put down a specific date through fear of missing it, however it’s going to cause them more harm than good. Editors are wondering about the missing features and when they will be added with no solid information some editors may look elsewhere.
Well we spent over $200 000 for our XSAN environment with 75TB of fast centralized storage designed for FCP 6-7 and FCPX can only see HFS+ volumes… There are stupid work a rounds but it’s a pain LOL
I personally am disgusted by Apple and there secrets. Can it really hurt to say how you will support your user base in the Future, and provide a road-map today?
Anyway our company is tired of playing guessing games with Apple and are preparing a switch to Avid permanently
One by one the Macintosh we have will be replaced by a PC…. and our company will save mega bucks by dumping Apple completely and permanently.
Available at,
http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/faq/
Previous versions of FCP were expensive all-in-one software packages that came with everything needed to handle TV production and other major tasks. FCPX is cheaper program that includes fewer features out of the box and requires the purchase of plugins which bring the cost of the total system back up to about what the old “all-in-one” version did in order to get all the features.
I’m thinking that Apple feels that if Pros want to keep using FCP, they’ll buy the plugins that enable them to keep their workflows intact, while the cheaper base price will entice more home users to upgrade from iMovie and more small-time pros (wedding videographers, indie filmmakers, etc) to buy Apple rather than some other program.
Edited 2011-06-29 12:57 UTC
The ‘all sales are final’ is quickly realised to be bollocks when you actually start pushing Apple on the matter – if you sell stuff in New Zealand you’re going to have to abide by NZ laws just as the Apple Store in Australia abide by Australian consumer laws.
I’ve applied for a refund relating to the purchase of Compressor 4 – why the hell would I want a half baked 32bit/64bit frankenstein of a compressor when I could have kept with the semi-ok that came with Creative Suite 5? if I knew in advance what a cludge Compressor 4 was I would never have wasted my time in the first place.
Oh well, hopefully this whole fiasco will make Apple get its shit together which btw, could have been avoided had the FAQ appeared with Final Cut Pro X the day it was launched.
Here, in Canada, there is two types of sales that are “final” underwear and digital products. Both for very different reasons.
In the case of Digital product, it’s because once you installed it and copied the serial number, you dont need the CD anymore, as you already have installed the product. As you can’t control that (at the time when the law was passed), then the sale was considered final. Same thing for music or movies.
You can be scammed, but you can scam. Not perfectly fair, but it make sense. Apple is doing the same thing. There is an iTunes backup folder. Once you own something, you can make a properly signed backup of it. So you could just copy the app, get refunded and paste it back. It will still be signed for your phone/mac.