It's kind of funny to see a somewhat iMovie-esque interface. There's an unwritten UI law that if it's more complex, with more knobs and buttons, it must be more "professional". Learning that complexity is a badge of honor that you have to earn. And as a result, there's a resistance in the pro world towards easy-of-use. I really hope Apple can buck that trend and remove what is ultimately just arrogance in that class of product.
When Apple is good at that, I love it. It's depressing when they misstep in this arena and put something out that, below the veneer, doesn't contain much content. On the other hand, something like MacOS X itself is something my mom can use and feel like a pro (while she and my dad frequently get lost and confused with their Windows laptop), but I can also, just one level deeper, use and customize to the fullest extent I need.
It's obviously yet to be proven since this is just a preview announcement, but I don't expect Apple to drop the ball on FCP. Maybe that trust is misguided but the wording between the lines of their presentation seemed to indicate they knew what they were up against. They opened this presentation by listing off the success the app has had in an extremely hardcore and demanding professional community. It sounded like they were trying to very clearly communicate to folks: "We know this app is operated by people who use it to the fullest extent, grinding their top of the line machines into the ground to produce content, and 94% of them already like it the way it is."
So, seeing the comments saying "this just looks like iMovie! They should call it iMovie not Final Cut!" when it looks like what Apple is trying to do is solve problems and add efficiency to the rote surface level tasks of daily FCP use, bum me out.
( and add some we-can't-resist specular shine to the UI chrome, of course)
It's funny, but also great that they're taking this step. The keyboard short-cuts are there for those of us that love them (they even mentioned this in the keynote), but the UI is far more friendly to mouse-based editing (especially with trimming controls).
Aperture 2 to 3 gained a much simpler interface, despite being a 'pro' app. FCX has taken this even further, and I'm glad to see it, because Aperture 3 was far better than 2.
I don't mind convention over configuration (a la Rails) but sometimes it can be quite a pain to move from a highly configurable product (ie Gentoo) to a simpler interface (ie Ubuntu). While I spent years using Gentoo, I enjoy how simple and easy it is to get a running Ubuntu install. Then I try to configure something the way I've always done and Ubuntu's automatic config tools overwrite the changes I made to various text files.
I hope in products like Final Cut Pro, Apple keeps things simple but completely configurable if you would like to.
