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Friday, February 03, 2012

Sell your big mac, the future is here...

...the world has ended.   So it would seem in some quarters of the wonder interweb world.   The cause of the dismay?   A little app (and I mean app - for the iPad) called 'Avid Studio'.   I haven't tried it yet, lacking the vital hardware, but Elliot Bristow (and Richard) tipped me off.   According to the blurb, it's a video editing app for making storyboards, precision edits, with high-quality transitions, effects, and a soundtrack.  Cutting to the strapline 'easy enough for the hobbyist, powerful enough for the pro'.  Yes, there's 'export to Avid Studio' available.

So far so good, but the big news is the price - £2.99
Yes, you read it right, under three quid.   Not even worth claiming back the VAT (which you can't anyway because it's not a UK purchase).

Admittedly it's only out today, and untried and tested but I'm sure this hole will soon be filled.  Remember, it's an iPad app, search through iTunes, not even the App Store...
What's going on here?  It's a pretty aggressive move by Avid into the space we all thought FCP X was going to enter.  The price?  Well, Apple gets a cut of apps sold through the iTunes and app stores, so maybe Avid's thinking is to buy market share, get students and beginners familiar with the interface,  hence build a group of wannabe producers and craft editors who have grown up with Avid, but not share too much of the revenue of what's probably a loss-leader anyway.   Unless they sell thousands and thousands of course.  Being first is sometimes what counts in this space.

Based on my experience (watching someone else) of Avid Scorch - an impressive music score/transposition app for iPad at £1.99 - these guys know what they're doing.   Two real benefits for all of us:  at this price-point it's gotta be good for competition, and secondly there's now a good business case for buying that iPad.