Does Apple's Logic Pro X have a future?

Anyone who has watched Apple's recent so called "Special event" product and development presentations will be in no doubt that user's of Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro are no longer priority customers for the tech giant.

It was several years ago that the late Steve Jobs announced Apple were now a mobile computing company, and the recent focus on iPhones, iPads, laptops, watches and their mobile OS looks set to continue.

It looks more and more as though the recent re-vamped MacPro is a sideline that allows Apple to claim it is still interested in professional users, and can innovate, but we're not so sure.

Here's the evidence against the future of the Mac platform as a professional platform for video editors, musicians, sound engineers and photographers ..

1) Aperture has been discontinued. Some of it's technologies have been rolled into iPhoto, but iPhoto is not a serious solution for professional photographers.

2) Final Cut Pro X is a superb solution for web video producers, such as ourselves, but it's first release excluded too many professional features and it's reputation was damaged for existing power users. And despite Apple's claims, it looks as though few professionals are using it, especially for on-line editing. Left out in the cold with no Mac Pro for months, professionals have moved back to Avid.

3) Years in the making, Logic Pro X arrived with a shiny new paint job, and the longest list of bugs we can recall in a major release. Once Logic led the field, but now it is playing catch-up, and Apple have ben slow to add features which have long been available in its major rivals.

A lot of bugs have been repaired (the recent service release bug fix list was huge!) but many remain, and the new Flex tools contain the most.

The programme also has many features that feel "consumer" orientated such as drummer and Apple loops whilst the environment (a serious professional tool) languishes with the old version 9 interface. Don't get us wrong, we like seeing powerful tools put into more hands, but too many features feel Mickey Mouse to us. The real problem is that the de-facto professional alternative, ProTools, is a huge investment leap away.

4) Final Cut Pro X, Motion and Logic Pro X are cheap. Really cheap. This suggests that Apple are focused on selling more iMacs to non-professional / consumer users. If the demographic is changing, Apple will need to make it's applications user friendly, which they are. You might say 'dumbed down'.

Also, are we the only ones who think that Apple is looking less and less like an innovate tech firm and more and more like Benetton? Everything seems so bland, and someone should tell Jony Ive that good design is not just the absence of bad design. Where have the bold design statements gone? (But this rant is for another day).

Thanks for reading.
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