An epic strug­gle between the Titans of Old and New is brew­ing in Hol­ly­wood, with Adobe and Apple cast in star­ring roles.

Ear­lier this year, Apple sur­prised the indus­try with its newest ver­sion of Final Cut Pro X for pro­fes­sional video edi­tors, i.e. moviemak­ers. As is their wont, Apple “thought dif­fer­ent” about what video edit­ing could be and thor­oughly redesigned the work­flow. Many decried their heresy in chal­leng­ing the old metaphor, and Adobe took advan­tage by offer­ing Apple cus­tomers a steep dis­count for switch­ing over to their more tra­di­tional Pre­miere product.

To date, Apple has not backed down, and some open-minded blog­gers [1] have rightly noted Apple’s long his­tory of suc­cess­fully think­ing out­side the box. In fact, the orig­i­nal text from Apple’s Think Dif­fer­ent ad cam­paign from 1997 speaks vol­umes about their most recent announcement:

Here’s to the crazy ones. The mis­fits. The rebels. The trou­ble­mak­ers. The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things dif­fer­ently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the sta­tus quo. You can quote them, dis­agree with them, glo­rify or vil­ify them.

About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They invent. They imag­ine. They heal. They explore. They cre­ate. They inspire. They push the human race forward.

Maybe they have to be crazy.

How else can you stare at an empty can­vas and see a work of art? Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been writ­ten? Or gaze at a red planet and see a lab­o­ra­tory on wheels?

We make tools for these kinds of people.

While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the peo­ple who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do. [2]

Beyond this debate about video edit­ing tools, Apple’s quote says a lot about where true inven­tion comes from. Com­pa­nies like Tesla recently achieved recog­ni­tion as America’s 4th automaker (along­side GM, Ford and Chrysler), not by timidly play­ing by old internal-combustion-engine rules, but by tak­ing a big chance with a pricey, electron-sipping con­cept car that caught many peo­ples’ atten­tion. [3]

I think this story can be applied closer to home, in the small deci­sions any of us may make about start­ing a new busi­ness, explor­ing a dif­fer­ent coun­try, choos­ing a col­lege major or even apply­ing paint to can­vas. I like to remem­ber that not so many years ago, in the grand scheme of things, the world was decid­edly flat.

Ref­er­ences

1. For­mer Avid employee on Final Cut Pro X (MacDailyNews)
2. Think Dif­fer­ent (Wikipedia)
3. Tesla Going For Broke Or Big Time (Edmunds)

Posted on July 5th, 2011 by Sky
Filed under: Technology