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#MacStoriesDeals - Wednesday
Unofficial Final Cut Pro X Announcement Videos Now Online
Apple hasn’t posted an official video of yesterday’s Final Cut Pro X announcement at the Supermeet in Las Vegas (and some say it likely won’t), but as noted by MacRumors two unofficial videos has surfaced on Youtube showing the entire presentation. The video are in good quality, audio is decent and they can be viewed in 720p.
You can watch the videos below. More screenshots of Final Cut Pro X were posted this morning, as well as confirmation from Apple to “stay tuned” about other apps of the Final Cut Pro suite coming in the future. Final Cut Pro X will be released at $299 on the Mac App Store in June.
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Oscium’s $300 Kit Turns iPad into Oscilloscope
For anyone that doesn’t know, an oscilloscope, or O-scope, is an electronic measuring instrument that creates a visible two-dimensional graph, on a screen, of one or more continuously varying voltages or currents. Oscium has revealed the iMSO-104, a combination of a free universal iOS app and a $300 hardware kit that attaches via the iDevice’s dock connector. Read more
Squrl: Collect Videos From The Web, Watch Them Later on iOS
Released yesterday on the App Store and the web, Squrl is a new service powered by an HTML5 interface that allows you to save videos from several supported services, collect them on the iOS and web apps, and watch them later at any time. The concept behind the service is very simple and attractive: much like an Instapaper for video, Squrl enables you to save videos from Youtube, Vimeo, Hulu, Netflix and many other providers with the click of a bookmarklet (which you have to install from the website). Unlike Watchlater, though, Squrl doesn’t stop at collecting videos in a single place, it also packs social functionalities and organization features to let you create galleries and collections of videos, share them, or even subscribe to collections shared by other users in your social graph. Read more
Suppliers: iPhone 4 Demand Still High, No iPhone 5 Roadmap Yet
Speaking to suppliers “related” to the iPhone’s production in Asia, Digitimes reports today Apple still hasn’t released a roadmap for the next-generation iPhone – unofficially dubbed iPhone 5 until today – leading many to believe Apple might want to focus the upcoming WWDC in June (the usual stage for new iPhone announcements) on software and release a new model this Fall, or in early 2012. Digitimes, however, also reports another “theory” that has been formulated by component suppliers: unlike previous rumors that suggested the iPhone 5 would be a completely new device, the iPhone 5 could be a slight redesign of the current iPhone 4 and still launch this summer “to fend off the rising popularity of Android.”
Apple has not yet released a production roadmap for iPhone 5 as shipment volumes of iPhone 4 have continued to mount and related suppliers are not yet ready to shift their production lines for new products, according to sources at Taiwan-based touch panel makers.
While acknowledging there should be a roadmap for each generation of products, the sources insisted that touch panel shipments for iPhone 4 have remained steady, and that they have not seen a timetable to stop current production in preparation for the next-generation of iPhone.
A report surfaced yesterday indicated the iPhone 5’s production is set to start in September for a Fall release, with a cheaper iPhone model still in the works to grant Apple a larger share in different market segments. According to previous speculation, the iPhone 5 should be an updated version of the iPhone 4 (featuring the same design scheme), but with a metal back and redesigned antenna, 8 MP camera, NFC capabilities and Apple A5 processor.
New Final Cut Pro X Screenshots, Apple Says “Stay Tuned” For Other Apps
Last night, Apple officially announced a new version of Final Cut Pro during the Supermeet in Las Vegas, Nevada. As you might have read in our liveblog and announcement post, Final Cut Pro X has been completely rebuilt from the ground up to be as revolutionary as the first version of FCP released in 1999: full Cocoa, Core Animation, Grand Central Dispatch and 64-bit support, iMovie-inspired menus for easier navigation and media management, a whole new underlying engine that – according to people who saw the demo yesterday – makes the timeline incredibly fast and responsive. With keyboard-based nesting, magnetic timeline, background processing and automatic people and media detection on import, Apple aims at revolutionizing Final Cut Pro.
As announced yesterday by Chief Architect of Video Applications Randy Ubillos on stage, Final Cut Pro X will be released at $299 in June. Final Cut Pro went under a major price cut (it used to be sold at $999), and it will also be available on the Mac App Store – like every new Apple desktop app nowadays. But last night, many immediately wondered whether the lower price and Mac App Store distribution would lead to the demise of Final Cut Express (widely regarded as an “iMovie for Pros”, lacking many of the functionalities of Final Cut Pro) and boxed copies of FCP. Furthermore, Apple made no mention of all the other Final Cut Studio apps last night such as Motion, Soundtrack Pro, Compressor, Color and DVD Studio Pro. On Twitter, I speculated Apple could release them as standalone apps in the Mac App Store or – when they don’t make sense as apps because they’re basically “extensions” to Final Cut – as in-app purchases within Final Cut Pro X itself.
An Apple representative, speaking to The Loop, seems to confirm the theory that other apps will be released alongside FCP X:
Apple on Wednesday introduced Final Cut Pro X, but there was no mention of the other applications in the suite of video apps.
“Today was just a sneak peak of Final Cut Pro, stay tuned,” an Apple representative told The Loop.
The Loop has also received a series of high-res screenshots, one of them you can see above. We should know more about Final Cut Pro X in the coming weeks (Apple hasn’t posted a press release, or updated its website with a sneak peek) as Apple gets ready for a June launch, presumably during or soon after the WWDC.
Apple Announces Final Cut Pro X, Coming In June
Update #1: Final Cut Pro X will be released in June and it’ll be available through the Mac App Store. No mention of Final Cut Studio or Final Cut Express today. [via]
As widely expected, Apple just introduced a new version of Final Cut at the Final Cut Pro Supermeet during NAB 2011 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Touted as “revolutionary as the first version” from 1999, Apple introduced the new Final Cut Pro X saying that every major broadcaster and film maker nowadays relies on FCP for their video editing needs.
Basing on live updates coming from attendees at NAB 2011, Final Cut Pro X has been built from scratch, and it’s entirely 64-bit. It’s based on technologies like Cocoa, Core Animation, Open CL, Grand Central Dispatch and it focuses on image quality. It features a resolution independent timeline up to 4K for scalable rendering – in fact, it appears the old render dialog is gone entirely as the app uses the available CPU to keep files always rendered. FCP X allows you to edit while you’re importing thanks to its new engine, and it’s also got automatic media and people detection on import, as well as image stabilization.
Apple is promoting the new FCP X as a complete and total rebuild. Smart collections look very similar to iMovie, and overall there is a feeling Apple has borrowed some UI elements from the iLife application to make the general design more accessible, even for professionals. For instance, Apple has brought “single keystroke nesting” to Final Cut Pro – a new functionality that allows you to group chunks of media into a single clip in the timeline. The “inline precision editor” allows you to make edits by revealing media with an iOS-like menu.
More details from liveblogs:
- “You can view the media in the browser in a film strip type view. You can completely customize how you view media prior to the timeline.” - robimbs
- “4 window setup is now kind of truncated in 3 windows. The browser has the viewer built into it.” - robimbs
- “Auditioning: collect options during edit, choose later (simplifies versioning). This is loosely similar to Logic’s feature for grouping” - fcpsupermeet
Some notes of interested from Photography Bay:
10:33: Randy Ubillos, Chief Architect, Video Applications on stage. Demo FCP X live now. Beta version. “We hope it behaves.”
10:35: Audi R8 commercial spot cut on FCP X…
10:36: Demo’ing it live now. Showing off the keywording ability of the sections of the clip instead of the whole clip.
10:37: Offers filmstrip view for content. Looks just like iMovie’s functionality.
10:38: You can highlight sections of content in the filmstrip view and add keywords that way. The keywords show up as items in event library. Selecting those keyword items brings up just those sections of content. Looks like subclips, but it’s not.
If the new FCP X is still in beta, there’s shouldn’t be a product launch (or press release) coming today. Several attendees are reporting on Twitter the new timeline is very, very fast and are also mentioning an iPad app being demoed on screen. With background processing and the possibility to use all cores on powerful machines like a Mac Pro, Apple has focused on improving the reliability of Final Cut’s timeline by making sure to clips can be accidentally “destroyed”. The redesigned UI with a touch of iOS here and there and “magnetic timeline” should – basing on what we’re hearing from people at NAB – dramatically improved navigation and organization of large chunks of media.
FCP X features instant render in the background that doesn’t affect editing, also with 1-click instant color matching. Color correction, for example, has been built right into the timeline, enabling users to, say, distribute a “Ken Burns Effect” with a single swipe. Apparently there’s a lot of animation going on with windows, and attendees are reporting that – judging from the demo – Final Cut Pro X is incredibly fast in every task and processing that’s been done on stage.
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iPhone Tab Bar Lessons→
iPhone Tab Bar Lessons
Over the last couple of years, the iPhone has greatly popularized the tab bar navigational model for mobile handsets. Apple has put together a design rationale for the tab bar in their Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) along with lots and lots of other information — they do however leave some question unanswered. Having worked with interaction and graphical design for iPhone applications during the last couple of years I’ve managed to pick up some lessons the hard way, and in this post I would like to share my thoughts on a couple of do’s and don’ts.
Petter Silfver compares different tab bar designs from popular iPhone apps and gives some insight into Apple’s subtle design decisions that most of us won’t even notice, but are important to build a consistent and natural experience on iOS. Such as colors and hues in the tab bar, the ideal number of tabs, or the problems with a “More” tab that distracts users and hides important functionalities of an app that should be discovered naturally.
If you’re an iOS geek like me, a designer, or simply interested in knowing more about this particular aspect of Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines, check out the post here. It’s full of details, and it’ll make you re-consider the implementation of Instagram’s Camera button.
Tablets are changing the way consumers engage with content→
Tablets are changing the way consumers engage with content
With more than 165 million tablets expected to ship over the next two years, tablets are growing in popularity and changing the way that we consume content. People are spending considerable time with tablet devices and using them to play games, browse the web and search for information.
I’m not terribly surprised that tablets are becoming a hub for personal entertainment, but I am surprised at what people are using their tablets for (I figured news and reading would be on top). 28% of 1430 respondents (BGR) said the tablet has become their primary computer in the household, with 43% spending more time with their tablets than their laptops or desktops. 84% of those surveyed play games on their tablets, compared to lesser 61% who use their tablets to consume the news. Only 46% of those surveyed use their tablets to read e-books which is astounding.
Assuming that the majority of those surveyed owned an iPad, does this mean that less than 50% of iPad owners download, purchase, or read books from the iBookstore? What about Kindle and Amazon? With the amount of interactive content available on the iPad, it’s understandable people are seeking apps like Flipboard and are consuming media via their usual outlets, though I’m surprised e-books don’t have a bigger market or aren’t generating more attention.
The initial blog post doesn’t reveal too much, but the included PDF details a lot of interesting numerics for the small March survey.