No, this is not clickbait. Actually, due to the (very) slow development tempo of FCP (Final Cut Pro), many FCP editors, fans, and enthusiasts, were concerned that the FCP will end like Aperture, which means EOL is close. Luckily, Apple’s FCP team confirmed that this is not the case.
FCP is moving slowly
This is not a secret that FCP’s R&D is moving like a turtle. Furthermore, when comparing it to the competitors.. well…there’s nothing to be compared, as Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve (the main contenders to FCP) release every new and major update almost every month on the clock. Premiere Pro has its own dedicated product development Beta cycle and roadmap, which pushes releases like hotcakes in order to boost R&D. And in the other corner, the Blackmagic team is working insanely fast and efficiently to push tons of new advanced features, making Resolve one of the best and most popular NLE out there. Just to think that Resolve was a pure color grading software a few years ago, and nobody believed it would become an NLE beast. Compared to these two, Apple’s FCP is a turtle. A very slow turtle. Therefore, after waiting so long for an update that has been recently released, it got a dull feature set. That raised some questions regarding the future of FCP.
Apple is not going to kill it
Luckily, we have an update from the FCP Creative Summit held in Cupertino this year. In this summit, the FCP team answered the audience’s questions regarding the future of FCP, the planned roadmap, new features, and FCP for iPad. The info is brought to you thanks to Richard Taylor, who is an Apple Certified Final Cut Pro trainer. This is the guy for any FCP questions you may have. Taylor has posted a live stream on the FB FCP page, summarizing the summit and throwing his input. Here are a few notes we took that have been mentioned in the livestream:
- Apple is not going to kill FCP, nor it’s not going to end like Aperture.
- According to Apple, FCP has a solid future.
- FCP is constantly evolving and developing, but Apple has its own pace.
- There’s a consensus that the Dev pace doesn’t meet the market’s demands.
- FCP and FCP for iPad are under the same dev team (there’s no dedicated team for FCP for iPad).
- Apple is very impressed with DaVinci Resolve as a professional NLE (Yeah – Apple has given a good word to Blackmagic).
- Apple did not discuss the FCP roadmap and future feature set.
- There’s a chance that FCP (desktop version) will be subscription-based (optional).
- Apple’s high-priority mission is to make FCP more fast and stable.
- You can watch the entire live stream in the Final Cut Pro Facebook Group.
Final thoughts
Apple will continue to develop and sharpen FCP capabilities. However, it will take time. Do not expect the same high pace tempo as the development sprints of Adobe (PP) and Blackmagic (Resolve). The features will be pushed as hardware becomes more advanced (M2, M3, M4, and so on). Nevertheless, the focus will be on speed and stability. Indeed, these are the most important factors of an NLE. Just a joyful thinking (don’t take it too seriously): What if Apple would buy Blackmagic? Then FCP would be significantly upgraded with Resolve functionality…Let us know your thoughts on this.
Watch the article:
You hit the nail on the head with your last question: “What if Apple would buy Blackmagic?” With Apple’s financial resources and their powerful computers, this business partnership would be a “win-win” for both companies and their respective clients. In 2002 Apple acquired Emagic, which turned into their current Logic Pro X; however, up until recently, the same turtle carrying Final Cut also carried Logic Pro X.
Apple buying Black Magic would be bad for the users and the industry, based on Apple’s disastrous history in that regard.
Nuke dominates professional compositing because Apple killed Shake by buying and trying to use it to force users onto macs. DD sold Nuke to The Foundry in part to fill that void.
LOL!! Seriously?? Richard Taylor of all people somehow “the guy for any FCP questions you may have”?! He’s just barely a hobbyist! One with way too much time and retirement money on his hands. You really have to be completely ignorant to all things FCP to somehow think that HE of all people is somehow a “go to”. Wow. 🤦🏼♂️
And anyone that actually thinks that after 4-5 YEARS of development spent on the iPad version that FC is somehow on its way OUT??! Doesn’t get much dumber than that.
And there was absolutely NO mention of a subscription model for FC Mac! Complete NONSENSE.
I’m in the middle of producing two feature-long documentaries and doing that in FCP is not possible. I’m a big fan of FCP for smaller projects because of its speed and ease of use – but for big projects it’s cumbersome.
I tried to import a 3-hour interview and the data that was created just by the cache files were insane!
Also, all my professional post-production collaborators are all on Premiere.
I think Apple just doesn’t want to serve the professional market. Besides social media producers.
Sorry, but it’s painfully clear that what you say “is not possible” and “is cumbersome for large projects” is purely due to your complete lack of the most basic understanding of *how FC works* and Media Management 101! Because if you DID have that knowledge, you wouldn’t be writing all perturbed that “the data created just by the cache files was insane”, because those “cache” files (meaning OPTIMIZED… again BASICS!) are 100% OPTIONAL! So I have no idea where you get the hubris to think you have anything of value to contribute on the subject.
So maybe learn said basics FIRST?! Because THAT is the biggest and ONLY real problem that FC has: ignorant users that post stuff like this that only feeds the confirmation bias of other ignorant users and those that want to hate on FC no matter what anyway. Bravo. Thanks for that.
I (and many many others including various studios) have used FC on endless features AND docs and it absolutely FLIES. Premiere in comparison is a demonstrably slow, unstable JOKE with the most convoluted, archaic GUI and UX straight out of the 90’s. It’s just plain embarrassing. And yet people make fun of the fact that the word “Pro” is in FC’s name?? Hilarious. If that TURD Premiere is “Pro” then I hope to stay a beginner for life! Anyone that actually KNOWS what they are doing will tell you that FC is far superior to Premiere even on a bad day. So you go right ahead and have others dictate what you use. Good luck with that.
Information is the only cure for ignorance!
It is blindingly obvious why Adobe bought Frame.IO, and it’s not working. It’s losing users left and right to… Black Magic.
Black Magic is notorious for being very open and egalitarian. Black Magic even lets other companies use its in-house raw codec without licensing fees.
Apple on the other hand is all about being closed and proprietary. Most of Resolve users are not on OSX. That’s unlikely to change anytime soon, and with Intel, AMD, and nVidia all embroiled in a war for the high end computing and gaming markets, Apple has no chance there so it’s relying as usual on its closed ecosystem. That is anathema to Black Magic and its users, so there is zero chance of Apple buying Black Magic and an even lower chance of Black Magic surviving such a purchase.
That said, I seriously doubt that Apple actually cares about getting into the film market. There’s simply not enough money in it compared to the cell phone and YouTuber markets.
My guess is that Apple is not going after the Black Magic market at all on the software side; that’s why it’s happy to promote Black Magic products to get its PCs into creators’ hands.
My guess is that it’s because Apple wants to own the VOLUME market: influencers.
Ah yes, the classic the typically dangerous half-knowledge again of the usual “I can sound like what I’m talking about” crowd. Let me guess… suggesting that Apple somehow isn’t “allowing” other companies to use “its in-house raw codec” without licensing fees?? 😂😂 Ouch.
Oh right, and the reverse conclusion and underhanded insinuation is therefore that Apple isn’t “letting” BMD use i.e. implement ProRes RAW in Resolve?? That being the only possible explanation on your planet for it missing in Resolve, right? Oh right, and charges LICENSING FEES from whoever does?
Make random nonsense up to support your desired narrative while parading your complete ignorance of the actual facts around on your sleeve much? 🤦🏼♂️
You’re projecting.
Yeah, sure. 😂 I’m *completely* off base, right? Mh hm. You weren’t suggesting ANY of that.
You keep telling yourself that.
the real rub is that nobody, except the fan boys cares anymore. we have all moved on to better NLE’s with more features that work cross platform. Sorry Apple and fan boys but its a fact. The industry as a whole has moved on and you and Apple haven’t quite realized it yet. At some point Apple will EOL FCP just like they did Shake, Color and many other great Apple apps.
Did someone check their brain at the comment door? As if neither Adobe, Avid, or anyone else EVER EOL’ed an app?? 😂😂😂 Are you really THAT stupid? Never mind that both have EOL’ed MORE apps than Apple ever has, but you keep frothin’ at the mouth!!
Seriously? it’s been almost 12 years already and we are still having this discussion? I think that says everything you need to know about this NLE, for good or bad. If it were all Apple promised and the industry had embraced and not abandoned FCP after X was released, we still wouldn’t be going on about this. But let’s face it, the user base is the only ones who still cares. The rest of the professional editing world has moved on to NLEs that allow for cross-platform deployment, a huge thing in this time of remote work, and Hollywood is too deep into Avid, which was left out of the article and is not going anywhere anytime soon. The biggest thing that previously kept most feature and TV editors away from other NLEs was a lack of collaborative features. Now every major NLE, with the exception of FCP, offers collaborative features and the lack of that function within FCP is what will keep it and also ran.
Ah yes, the good ol’ BS “Hollywood!!” argument. 😂😂😂 As if anyone today gave a flying rat’s A$$ what the SUB TWO PERCENT of the entire market uses or not. LOL… maybe try getting out of your tired, backward little cronie bubble sometime.