Being an Apple user is sort of like being in an abusive relationship – one minute everything is heaven, the next you’re ready to leave. Boy, it’s a good thing I don’t allow comments on this site. People tend to either think Apple can do no wrong, or that everything they do is overpriced crap for suckers. Neither is true.
As a professional web developer, I live in a cross platform world. I use a Mac for work, but I co-manage Windows servers. In my house I run Windows 10, OS X, and Linux. I used to be a Mac snob, but I’ve matured. I run Windows 10 for gaming because it’s the best choice. And I run Logic Pro X and Final Cut Pro because they are the best choice for me. If I were strictly a Pro Tools guy, I might be running a PC tower for my home studio. I’m a tech guy. I’ve done support for both platforms. You can get great results on either. But the software is more important than the hardware.
So here’s the situation. I was using an iPhone SE (the original SE, the one that is basically a small iPhone 6) for years, and when I started my YouTube channel 6 months ago, it’s the camera I used. I recorded my video to the iPhone SE, and my audio to Logic Pro. Then I’d combine them in Final Cut Pro, so I’d mute the built-in audio from the iPhone and just use the Logic Pro audio. Except it didn’t line up. Research taught me that I needed to set Logic to use a frame rate of 29.97d. I found it interesting that although I was using three Apple products, they didn’t “just work.” I set Logic correctly and then things worked.
But my old iPhone SE decided one day that it wouldn’t allow me to talk when I made a phone call, so it was time for a new phone. I got… an iPhone SE, but the new one, based on the iPhone 11. They start at $350, but I paid a little more for the 128GB version. And I started making videos with the new iPhone, and immediately ran into trouble. Final Cut Pro wouldn’t recognize video from the iPhone SE. What? These are both Apple products. Yeah, but internally, Apple departments don’t always communicate very well with each other, apparently.
Turns out there’s a setting on the newest iPhones that’s turned on by default. The setting lets the phone save videos using less space, but if you use it, it’s not compatible with Final Cut Pro or iMovie. Did I mention it’s turned on by default? I was having to import from the phone into Photos, and then export from Photos and then import into FCP before I read about this stupid default setting. I turned off the “break your workflow” feature and now everything works again.
In reality, the PC world is no different – you have to jump through even more hoops to do audio/video, actually, and the software isn’t as good. Logic Pro X and Final Cut Pro are the best products in their genres, in my opinion. There are more powerful video editing programs, but they’re harder to use. Nothing anywhere can touch Logic’s price point of $199 when it comes to what’s included (plugins, instruments, samples, etc.) Apple just did a major, major update to Logic Pro. It was FREE to all registered users. The Apple ecosystem does work very, very well, in terms of iCloud. But there can be no excuse for Final Cut Pro not being able to import video from an iPhone, under any circumstances. And then there’s MainStage 3, a $40 software instrument that can’t be touched at its price point by anything else on the planet.
As I am fond of saying in my videos, so there you go. I love the Mac, I love my iPhone, I love Logic Pro X and Final Cut Pro and MainStage 3. I also love Ableton Live Intro, which I use for live gigs, but that’s not made by Apple. Still, there’s no danger of me throwing away all of these best of class tools to save some money on hardware. Still, I hate it when Apple doesn’t think of these things, which should be extremely, extremely basic. It’s like the decision to solder their RAM so you can’t upgrade – sometimes they do really, really stupid things, because they know Mac fans have made a commitment. I don’t like that. But until there’s software on the PC that can do what these applications can do, I too am committed to Apple. 99% of the time I love it. But there’s still that 1% that annoys the crap out of me.
PS – the iPhone SE (the new one) uses 29.99 frame rate. Because of course they changed it. Guess what doesn’t show up in Logic Pro as a possible frame rate? 29.99. So now I’m off to do more research. God forbid this stuff “just work.”
