Apple Launches Final Cut Pro 11, the First Version Change in 13 Years

Apple released Final Cut Pro 11 this week, marking the first major version change in over a decade for its professional video editing software. The update introduces several AI-powered features, including a new "Magnetic Mask" function that automatically tracks objects through video clips for targeted color grading and effects.

The suite now offers on-device automatic caption generation for dialogue tracks and adds support for spatial video editing compatible with Apple Vision Pro. Users can adjust the depth of titles and objects for 3D viewing. The update requires macOS 14.6 and at least 8GB of RAM, with some features exclusive to Apple silicon Macs.

Existing Final Cut Pro X users will receive the upgrade at no cost, while new users can purchase the software for $299. Accompanying updates include Final Cut Camera for iPhone, which now supports H.265 HEVC format for Apple Log footage on iPhone 15/16 Pro models, and Final Cut Pro for iPad 2.1, featuring enhanced automated color grading tools and new creative assets.

Projects created on Mac remain incompatible with the iPad version, PetaPixel reports.

FYI

[CEC-P]

There are still people in this world who thing that in a professional business environment, people should use Apple computers to do media production. Shocking, know, that people would be that uninformed and living in 2006. But for those less familiar who are going to say "yay, more pressure on Adobe and their bullshit" yes, however, Adobe Premiere Elements is a one time fee of $80-100 USD. Just saying.

Re:

[slaker]

DaVinci Resolve is free and cross-platform. You can spend $350 on a paid license. They send you a really nifty desktop editing device if you do that, but it's a big-boy editor that can do big-boy work.

In my experience, the only thing Premier is good at is crashing.

Re:

[slaker]

One of the frustrating things about Premier for me is the wide variance in sentiment about how well it works as an application. Both my partner and I do a certain amount of video editing. Her job means that she's basically married to the rest of Adobe Creative Suite, but she also says Premier specifically behaves poorly on the mix of Apple and Windows computers she uses.

Other video editing pros I've checked with say they can leave it running for weeks on Walmart-grade trash PCs and never see a hiccup.

That c

Re:

[MikeDataLink]

There are still people in this world who thing that in a professional business environment, people should use Apple computers to do media production. Shocking, know, that people would be that uninformed and living in 2006. But for those less familiar who are going to say "yay, more pressure on Adobe and their bullshit" yes, however, Adobe Premiere Elements is a one time fee of $80-100 USD. Just saying.

I have a team of 20 people who use a combination of FCP and Adobe Premiere (the latter on both Mac and PC). Those who use FCP rarely need support. Those who use Premiere are constant sinks on support. From what I can tell, Premiere is really good at one thing: crashing.

Re:

[CEC-P]

Let me point out that Premiere is a crashing nightmare from hell and Premiere Elements has crashed on me about 3 times in 10 years.

Re:

[omnichad]

Premiere Elements is consumer software that's not really cut out for pro work. Final Cut Pro (and Premiere Pro) is full-featured and has all the pro features you'd need for the initial edit of a Hollywood film or to edit a news broadcast. Or at least the pre-X version. I never updated or tried X. When I want to use FCP, I have old hardware set up and ready to use.

This is an entertaining and probably factually incorrect review of FCP X: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

Legacy code

[will4]

Looks like the force a release strategy to keep an ancient code base and legacy application from being broken on the newer OS versions.

Microsoft seems to be doing the same with 'updating' their legacy Windows desktop applications one at a time.

A guess is that companies are long-term reducing the lines of C/C++/Objective C they use in actively shipped products and lowering their dependence on finding experienced C/C++ developers willing to work on 20 year old code bases.

Re:

[codebase7]

A guess is that companies are long-term reducing the lines of C/C++/Objective C they use in actively shipped products and lowering their dependence on finding experienced C/C++ developers willing to work on 20 year old code bases.

LOL. Imagine thinking that C is going anywhere.

FYI: Most of these kinds of applications have long since reached feature complete status for the majority of their intended use cases. Beyond bug fixes for newer OSes, there's not much reason to push a major release, and that's the reason why most of these applications have become subscription services in recent years. There's just no justification for demanding a full price release anymore, and no justification for rewriting the thing from scratch. (No, peo

C not moving

[will4]

Systems built with C and C++ are not going to just be rewritten because of an obsolete technology stack.

They will slowly be decommissioned or rewritten, likely in a multi-decade timeframe. The mainframe's not going anywhere too, though the final group of people maintaining the code and the business system's are retiring or have already retired.

'Major Release' ... or not?

[mrthoughtful]

The change difference from 10.8 isn't huge, and for those who don't know it, Apple has been keeping FCP up to date regularly since it migrated to 10. My experience of FCP on Apple Silicon is extremely positive. They were built for each other - and with a flagship device running flagship software, it's no surprise to see full multi-layer, composite 4K 90 minute HDR/2020 HLG video being rendered in about six minutes flat. Yeah, it needs a lot of good storage - but what else is news?

They really liked that X

[Andrio]

Just like how MacOS X was the name for like 15 years. I guess Elon Musk managed to finally make the letter X not cool anymore.