Ever since Apple released Final Cut X there’s been a huge outcry in the editing community that the long-awaited updated lacks many key features and essentially dumbs down the video editing process. What was supposed to be a version that brought the powerful Final Cut suite into the HD era ended up sending people away to other software solutions like Adobe Premiere (if you’re a masochist) or Avid DS. Today the second major update was released for Final Cut X that adds some features that many video pros were clamoring about, apparently to reverse the exodus. The thing is, Apple is not scrambling to reverse shit. The noise being made by the “video professionals” is not taking into consideration one major point: Final Cut X is not catered towards the professional. It has been pivoted to focus on the consumer and prosumer.

If you think that editing studios worldwide are crying foul over Final Cut X you are mistaken. The editing industry is not software-dependent and Apple knows this. The editing industry moves quite lethargically when it comes to software because of this. Post-production is very expensive which is why your movie crews are so huge. Lighting and visual tricks employed by a good cinematographer reduce the amount of work required in post production by the editor. This is quite common practice in all the motion arts and in reality, you can still create an amazing advertisement, movie, TV show, or whatever with outdated software. Most movie studios moved over to Avid DS long before Final Cut X was announced simply because Avid DS was designed for the HD era, which is now a standard.

In the last 30 years, there has only been one major shift in movie standards, that being the transition from film to digital. Think about that for a second. Final Cut 7 was able to handle any kind of video elements made in the last 30 years. So if the original shooting medium doesn’t change that often, there’s only so much you can do with new software releases. A studio that bought software in 1998 probably is just updating its software now, because there is simply no reason to update video software every year or two. The Jerry Springer show makes a ton of money. Do they have some high-tech editing studio for their production? No, they actually still do their editing with tape. That’s right, tape. If the tools you have get the job done, you don’t need to update them. It’s a waste of money and resources to do so, and Hollywood is all about saving money.

Knowing this, Apple decided to change the focus of its Final Cut product with Final Cut X. It could either create a linear successor to Final Cut 7 that will be purchased once and then kept for 10-15 years, or it could shift the focus of X to be aimed towards consumers and prosumers which have a higher rate of upgrading. Think about Apple’s OS updates. Each new version offers some slightly incremental bonus to the previous software. Is it really worth upgrading from Snow Leopard to Lion? For most people there is really no need to upgrade just for a few bonus features, but the consumer mentality surrounding Apple products is what drives people to upgrade. This is why Apple gets away with charging lower prices for top-notch software, because people will pay for it and pay for it often.

Hollywood does not have this “cult of Mac” fever like consumers have. The biggest hint that Apple is switching focus away from the professionals and over to the consumer/prosumer is the price: $299. Apple would be losing ridiculous amounts of money by just selling their product to Hollywood for such a low price, knowing that they wouldn’t get any more revenues from it for at least a decade. This is also why professional software like Avid DS costs upwards of $10,000. Avid needs to offset almost a decade’s worth of dormant sales with each copy of Avid DS it sells.

Final Cut X is geared towards a whole different market, a market that will generate a steady stream of revenue for Apple. The revenue Apple will get from Final Cut X and its later upgrades over time will far surpass the lethargic adoption rate of the professional video industry. Apple is adding some features that were initially missing in the release of Final Cut X but it isn’t scrambling to plug any revenue holes, especially in a market that it was late to considering how most major players have already moved to other software alternatives.

Apple disappointed the world today with its terribly named new product the iPad. With all the hype surrounding it and Apple promising that it will bring some revolutionary ways of interaction, I was expecting some Project Natal-like tech to be used in controlling this thing. But we were graced with an oversized iPod Touch and I don’t see crowds forming outside the Apple Stores nationwide for this thing. And no, I won’t tell any iPad tampon jokes since the web has exploded with them! However, I do want to touch upon an observation I made about the iPad. It’s taken me all day since its unveiling to put this to words cause it’s a bit of an abstract idea but I’ll do my best (hell, I even dictated my thoughts and recorded them to my iPhone in order to piece them all together!).

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not a hater of the iPad. It’s just not something I’d go get and not something “magical and revolutionary” as Steve Jobs proclaimed. It does however shed some light on a potential gaming revolution that could be on the horizon. Now no gamer is gonna go snag one of these because it’s a gaming machine. But one cannot help but to think of the door that this device has opened for the industry. Imagine the next generation handheld gaming devices. What do you envision?

What if Sony, Nintendo, or Microsoft jumped onto the iPad concept and took it to a whole new level when it comes to gaming. Imagine a Microsoft iPad-esque product that has a front Natal camera. Just set the device on your lap and use your hands as guns or a steerig wheel and see the results in front of you. Imagine using gestures to go between screens, similar to Minority Report or Gamer. Juice up a thing like this with the appropriate hardware and you can be looking at a whole new gaming experience. Imagine bringing the device home only to transfer what’s happening on it’s screen to your console/TV in real time!

Apple’s focus with the iPad isn’t gaming but it does help provide inspiration and innovation into what the next generation of handheld gaming devices could be like. Sort of how mini-PCs were ahead of their time yet provided the groundwork for netbooks, the Apple iPad could be laying the groundwork for the PSP 3 or the DSi 2.

I think most game companies in the industry should explore the possibility of expanding their support departments to include Apple Macintosh computers, even if their games are PC only. Apple has a nifty piece of software currently in beta testing called Boot Camp that allows Mac users to install Windows XP or Vista on a separate partition of their hard drive. Boot Camp will be released in it’s final form as part of the new Mac OSX called Leopard, which comes out this fall. Unlike Windows emulation software that is available for Macs, such as Parallels Desktop, Boot Camp allows for the entire Windows experience, including the use of DirectX. This means that when Leopard is released Mac users will have access to the vast array of titles available in the PC gaming market.

With the swarm of Mac gamers knocking on the PC gaming doorstep, it is only logical that gaming companies start supporting their products on Mac’s using Boot Camp as well. This doesn’t mean creating Mac ports of their products, but it means that if a Mac user has some issues with their game while running Boot Camp, the game company’s tech support team will be able to help him or her resolve that problem. What do you think?