[NOTE: This commentary was written before WWDC 2023. Maybe something will happen there that changes my opinion.
Update: It didn’t.]
“Underwhelming” was the word Joe A. used to describe the 10.6.6 update to Final Cut Pro on the Mac. I think that’s precisely the right word.
After all of Apple’s talk about listening to users and their pride in the future roadmap of Final Cut, the best they could do was Color Conform?
Personally, I don’t think Apple knows what to do with Final Cut. Nor does it know what to do with the high-end video market or the video creatives that work there.
In the past, Apple used Final Cut Pro to drive high-end hardware sales. But, with the release of Apple silicon systems – and their embedded Media Engine – even entry-level systems handle video editing with ease. The problem is that Apple does not have a history of developing high-end software unless it also supports sales of high-end hardware.
To Apple’s credit, engineering has continued to support the software. Bugs get fixed. New operating systems get supported. The occasional new feature gets released.
But implementing long-standing user requests or fixing age-old bugs? Not so much. When you compare the feature evolution of Final Cut to either Adobe Premiere Pro or Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut is left behind in the dust.
Now, it may be that Apple has great plans for the future, but, since Apple doesn’t publicly discuss its roadmap, all we can judge of the future is what’s happened in the past. And, for the last three years, that isn’t a lot.
I think part of the problem is that Apple views the market differently from the traditional user of Final Cut. Apple looks at the market, I think, and says: “Where can our hardware and software benefit the most people today?” Clearly, in media, that’s the world of social media, influencers, mobile devices and simple, yet capable, tools.
Long-time users of Final Cut, though, work in more traditional, more demanding, media tasks like feature films, broadcast television, documentaries, streaming – industries with tighter standards, higher budgets and larger teams than social media.
NOTE: It surprises me that, with the growth of stellar productions on Apple TV, Apple hasn’t added more professional features to FCP to support those high-end productions. The power of saying “This popular show was edited in Final Cut.” would be significant. Equally, it is significant that Apple says nothing about this.
It’s easy for “old-timers” to dismiss the rise of social media as amateurs and neophytes. I am guilty of this in the past. But, the audiences in social media are vast and, often, larger than traditional media. Their work is skilled, entertaining, and just as deadline driven as any network broadcast. They have different needs, require easier to use software because their teams may not be as well-trained, but they, too, like telling stories.
Being different doesn’t make them less.
Apple, I think, realizes that this new social media cohort needs different tools. The iPad version of FCP is an example of that. And that’s OK. It’s just that, at the same time, it feels like Apple is abandoning an older tool that was very successful for a long time. It feels like there is no one with the power to effect change inside Apple that really believes in Final Cut Pro for the Mac.
UPDATE: To me, this is the most important point. There is no driving force at Apple that wants to make Final Cut better on the Mac. Apple trots out FCP when it wants to brag about how many 8K streams of video a new piece of hardware supports. But, otherwise, FCP feels adrift. Adding features to the Mac version that support the more limited form of FCP on the iPad is not the same as improving the Mac version.
So, what’s the future of Final Cut? I have no inside knowledge. I’ve talked to no one inside Apple. I just look at what’s been said and done in the past. FCP isn’t going to die. Apple will continue to support and extend it. Bug fixes and new features will continue to be released, albeit more slowly.
UPDATE: A reader pointed this out: When Apple introduced the new M2 Mac Studio, they showed a photo of Saturday Night Live editing on a Mac Studio. What software were they using? Premiere Pro.
Should you give up on Final Cut? That depends. It’s still the fastest editing platform available on the Mac. It’s fully supported by Apple. And, for what it does, it works great. But, compared to the competition, what it does is not that impressive anymore.
Apple says they listen to the user community. But, when we look back over the last three years, Apple may be listening, but they aren’t doing anything with what they’re being told. Three or four major features over three years is not a sign of committment.
Given the vast potential of what Final Cut could do, Apple’s disinterest speaks loudly by saying nothing.
36 Responses to What’s the Future of Apple Final Cut Pro?
Newer Comments →-
Clayton Moore says:
June 2, 2023 at 8:24 am
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Larry says:
June 2, 2023 at 8:31 am
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Craig Seeman says:
June 5, 2023 at 6:23 am
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Ron B says:
June 5, 2023 at 12:42 pm
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Steven Flowers says:
June 5, 2023 at 2:32 am
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Larry says:
June 5, 2023 at 2:48 am
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Craig Seeman says:
June 5, 2023 at 6:24 am
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Patrick says:
June 5, 2023 at 4:16 am
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Philip Cutting says:
June 5, 2023 at 6:14 am
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Craig Seeman says:
June 5, 2023 at 6:37 am
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Larry says:
June 5, 2023 at 6:45 am
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Dan Brocett says:
June 5, 2023 at 8:47 am
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Mike says:
June 5, 2023 at 9:22 am
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Philippe Neron says:
June 5, 2023 at 10:09 am
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Kit Laughlin says:
June 5, 2023 at 12:39 pm
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Richard George says:
June 6, 2023 at 10:26 am
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Larry says:
June 6, 2023 at 10:44 am
Newer Comments →Great column! Spot on! Really, Really good! It should inspire lots of comments.
What jumped out at me:
“Apple used Final Cut Pro to drive high-end hardware sales.”
I know what has happed with Apple Silicon has to have been disruptive for Apple …. disruptive to itself.
“Now, it may be that Apple has great plans for the future, but, since Apple doesn’t publicly discuss its roadmap, all we can judge of the future is what’s happened in the past. And, for the last three years, that isn’t a lot”.
For me this falls under a habit that Apple has for secrecy when it may not even be necessary.
I’ll go even further however. When as you illuded to “……long-standing user requests or fixing age-old bugs”………. to keep your Final Cut PRO roadmap under wraps when people have been languishing as long as they have feels disrespectful to me particularly when it seems that Apple has not cared about FCP that much. Seriously, whats the point of keeping it secret. If it’s not that important. 🤷🏻♂️
“….Apple may be listening, but they aren’t doing anything with what they’re being told”
Actions speak the loudest in this case. What has been The Professional class of creators for decades is what has inspired the new generation. I don’t fault Apple for the mobile content market direction. It’s good business sense. But to act in such a way as to signal a class of customer who literary helped build this is just not that important anymore, dose not feel good.
Finally (in my opinion) to go all in on the future of content creation does not also have to mean ignoring the market who got you there.
I’m sure BlackMagic Design who got to the iPad before Apple, is paying attention.
Clayton:
Excellent thoughts. Thanks!
Larry
Apple’s secretive nature for FCP development is not only pointless, but it’s also self-defeating. Adding catchup tools that competitors already have should be announced in advance assuming they don’t want people to abandon their products. You’d think they’d [realize] that anyone that moves to Resolve or Premiere can move to Windows at some point.
Secrecy is for innovation to prevent competitors from developing equivalents and FCP is a long way from that position these days.
Hi-yo Silver, Clayton, hi-yo silver. Good points.
We use FCP to restore old film for documentaries we have recently restored film archive, for “Queen of Speed” which won an Emmy for ‘Best Sports Documentary’ and ” Explorer” A Sir Ranulph Fiennes’s Documentary for Universal Studios. There may not be as popular as Ted Laso but FCP is being used in restoring film archives and we will not be switching any time soon.
Steven:
Thanks for your comment.
Larry
If only Apple’s marketing and PR would show case or case study the use of FCP in “professional” production
This is a shame. As much as I believe the Magnetic timeline is the best timeline of all NLE’s, the fastest. It’s obvious that Apple is still … Apple, (they’ll do what they want – and us pawns are expected to follow). They didn’t learn from the disastrous launch of FCPX and frankly I don’t believe they care.
I’m switching to Resolve …(What Autodesk Smoke was in 2003).
Amongst my friends, there are probably 50 or more of them who own Macs or Mac laptops. Apart from myself, absolutely none of them run any significant Apple software. Why do they use them? It’s because they prefer the OSX experience to Windows! But still they use Office and Adobe for their work. They don’t even use the free stuff like Pages and Numbers! So maybe Apple sees the way forward is NOT pro apps but more emphasis on the operating system? Maybe portable apps are where future profit is to be made?
Regarding, “I think part of the problem is that Apple views the market differently from the traditional user of Final Cut. Apple looks at the market, I think, and says: “Where can our hardware and software benefit the most people today?” Clearly, in media, that’s the world of social media, influencers, mobile devices and simple, yet capable, tools.”
Sadly FCP isn’t even focused on social media influencers. Not only have Premiere and Resolve entered areas like speech-to-text captions, there are also ClipChamp and CapCut (social media consumer NLEs) which include that along with templates and FX. It’s as if FCP has no target market as even social media content creators have many other options.
In the past, when Apple introduced a new feature later than the competitors is was usually a much better implementation. Apple’s new masking, for example, seems like nothing more than a variant on the old “difference matte” rather than any kind of AI used in Resolve’s masking or even Sheffield’s FXFactory Keyper.
Apple can’t even tout affordability as one has to spend hundreds of dollars on plugins to do what other NLEs include natively.
Even FCP for iPad lags in many ways behind LumaFusion and Resolve for iPad. They’re behind on every Apple platform with no current signs of innovation let alone parity. I wish it were otherwise as the magnetic timeline is about the only thing left to keep me in the FCP ecosystem.
Craig:
Thanks for your comments. My guess is that there is no internal “champion” pushing for FCP to improve. Without that, it suffers from a general lack of attention.
Larry
I’ve been on FCP since the beginning. I agree with your analysis of the FCP X and Apple situation in general. Apple seems clueless about what they want to do with FCP X and they certainly aren’t innovating like BMD or Adobe.
After seeing Apple’s supposedly “woke” actions with messaging and marketing but then seeing Apple work at the behest of the CCP in hobbling AiRDrop in iOS in China to aid in the persecution of the Chinese people, I am completely disgusted by Apple as a company. They’re no better than Disney or other Evil empires that are pursuing business strategies that are detrimental to real people’s lives. As a free American, why would I support any company that bows to the CCP?
I don’t want the money I spend on Apple products to enable this sort of underhanded tyranny. This makes my decision to leave FCP and go to Resolve and to possibly to dump all Apple products altogether much easier. Microsoft, as a company, is hardly better than Apple but to my knowledge, at least they haven’t hobbled their OS functionality to please CCP tyrants. Yet.
This saddens me after being a big Apple supporter for decades but what I see coming from the Tim Cook era Apple is nothing but playing catch up, me too products and innovations and an increase in the stupidity of policies and politics that is alienating large portions of their loyal user base.
It’s frustrating the wax and wane pattern of interest Apple demonstrates for FCPX. Apple goes quiet, Pros complain, Apple shrugs, hardware sales dip, Apple reacts with a flurry of updates, Pros are somewhat mollified until the next cycle of indifference.
I agree that there needs to be an internal champion for the product and better engagement with the user base – and it’s obvious that is missing.
While I do less creative editing these days, I still use a wide suite of editing software in my day to day and I find it a little upsetting that I don’t use FCP much anymore, though Compressor still gets the nod fairly often. I want to like and employ FCPX more, but it’s just not what I need and doesn’t do what I want. That’s okay, and I hope more editors find it useful for what they need.
Just don’t break Compressor and I’ll be happy!
Great overview Larry. Not sure if Apple has lost its magic with FCPX but I am seeing this same issue in the DAW world with AVID. Steve Jobs always had a tech vision with Apple. These days, it “feels” like Apple is playing catchup with its competitors or is more focused (or distracted perhaps) with consumer social media hardware/software stuff. The Professional media editor, producer, artist has become the outlier and I am sure, targeted supply chain on the consumer side, is a big part of this problem.
Larry, sadly I think your assessment/musings on the future of FCPX is likely accurate. I recall Aperture, another pro app in its day, that Apple abandoned. As a now ex professional photographer, I recall the many colleagues who also used this excellent software and who were simply dismayed and felt abandoned when Apple discontinued it.
I see that the iPad version of FCP operates on the subscription model, too, and I see FCPX possibly going the same way.
It might be time to look at Resolve.
The fact that there are new Mac Pro’s and Mac Studio’s announced at least shows some level of attention to the professional market on the hardware side.
Richard:
I totally agree. Apple hardware continues to be outstanding.
Larry