Final Cut Pro Gaining New Features on Mac and iPad Later This Month

Apple today announced upcoming updates for Final Cut Pro, with the iPad and Mac apps set to gain new features that Apple says will streamline workflows.

final cut pro
Final Cut Pro on the Mac will be updated with organizational refinements like automatic timeline scrolling. Users will be able to keep their clips in view during playback, with the view able to be adjusted using keyboard shortcuts or the Zoom option.

The organization of the timeline will be viewable at a glance, and it will be easier to differentiate clips by assigned role using distinct colors. Apple is also adding tools for cleaning up complex timeline sections and fine tuning edits by combining overlapping connected clips into a single connected storyline.

On Apple silicon Macs, exporting projects in H.264 and HEVC will be faster than before as Final Cut Pro is able to send video segments to available media engines for simultaneous processing.

On the ‌iPad‌, the updated version of Final Cut Pro will include voiceover capabilities that will let creators record narration and audio directly into the timeline with the ‌iPad‌. In pro camera mode, stabilization will now improve shaky footage for smoother video, and there are new options for combining connected clips.

Editing is being sped up through new keyboard shortcuts for voiceover and grouping clips, plus there are new color-grading presets and titles.

The new versions of Final Cut Pro will be coming to the App Store later this month and they will be free to existing users. Final Cut Pro for Mac is priced at $300, and Final Cut Pro for ‌iPad‌ is priced at $4.99 per month or $49 per year.

Popular Stories

iOS 18

Apple Expected to Release iOS 18.3 Next Week With These New Features

Thursday January 23, 2025 6:41 am PST by
iOS 18.3 should be released to the public next week, following beta testing since mid-December. While the software update is a relatively minor one, it still includes a handful of new features, changes, and bug fixes for iPhones. Below, we recap everything new in iOS 18.3. Notification Summary Changes Examples of inaccurate Apple Intelligence notification summaries Apple Intelligence...
iOS 18

5 New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18.3

Friday January 24, 2025 1:55 am PST by
Apple is set to release iOS 18.3 next week, bringing further refinements to Apple Intelligence features, a couple of neat new capabilities to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 devices, and bug fixes. While not quite as packed with new features as Apple's preceding iOS 18 point releases, iOS 18.3 still introduces capabilities that aim to make your iPhone smarter and more intuitive. Below, we've...
Generic iOS 18

iOS 18.4 Beta Coming Soon With These New Features for Your iPhone

Friday January 24, 2025 8:16 am PST by
iOS 18.3 is expected to be widely released next week, and that means the first iOS 18.4 beta for iPhones should be just around the corner. Apple has previously implied that iOS 18.4 will be released in April, as that is when it promised to make Apple Intelligence available in even more languages. Below, we outline what to expect from iOS 18.4 so far. Apple Intelligence for Siri Siri ...
Apple Pay Walmart Feature

Walmart Stands Firm on Why It Doesn't Accept Apple Pay in the U.S.

Thursday January 23, 2025 7:32 am PST by
Walmart still does not accept Apple Pay or other NFC payments at its more than 4,600 stores across the U.S., and it stood firm on its reasoning for that today. A spokesperson for Walmart today informed MacRumors that its position on contactless payments has not changed since we last reached out about the matter in 2022. The big-box retailer said it remains focused on its own convenient...
apple tv 4k new orange

New Apple TV Launching This Year With These New Features

Wednesday January 22, 2025 6:01 pm PST by
A new Apple TV is expected to be released later this year. In this article, we recap rumored features and changes for the device. The next Apple TV will be equipped with Apple's own combined Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. He said the chip supports Wi-Fi 6E, which would be an upgrade over the current Apple TV's standard Wi-Fi 6 support. Wi-Fi 6E extends the...
iOS 18

Here Are Apple's Full Release Notes for iOS 18.3

Tuesday January 21, 2025 4:31 pm PST by
Apple provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate version of iOS 18.3 today, and with it comes release notes confirming what's new. While we knew about several of the features that are in the update, there are some lesser known tweaks and bug fixes. The update adds new Visual Intelligence features for iPhone 16 models, it tweaks Notification summaries on all...
iPhone 17 Pro Dual Tone Horizontal Single Feature

Kuo: iPhone 17 Models Won't Have Smaller Dynamic Island

Friday January 24, 2025 9:09 am PST by
The upcoming iPhone 17 models that Apple plans to release this year will not feature a smaller Dynamic Island, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said today. On social media, he said that he is expecting the size of the Dynamic Island to remain "largely unchanged" across the iPhone 17 lineup. His statement is contrary to prior rumors that we've heard about planned changes for the iPhone 17 models. ...
iPhone 16 Apple Store Levels

Gurman: Apple Stores Receiving 'Merchandise' Updates Next Week

Saturday January 25, 2025 5:07 pm PST by
Apple's retail stores will be rolling out "merchandise/floor marketing updates" next week, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Gurman did not explicitly say if the store updates are related to any upcoming product announcements, but he did mention that next week is around the time that Apple rolls out its annual Black Unity watch band for the Apple Watch. In each of the past four years, ...
apple power beats pro 2

Apple's First Product Announcement of 2025 is Imminent

Thursday January 23, 2025 2:48 pm PST by
It's also time for Apple's first product announcement of the year. Last year, Apple said it would be launching Powerbeats Pro 2 in 2025, and the wireless earbuds are expected to launch very soon. Powerbeats Pro 2 images found in iOS 18 code In his Power On newsletter last weekend, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said the Powerbeats Pro 2 are "due imminently." In addition to Apple filing the...

Top Rated Comments

MacFan782040 Avatar
16 months ago
These updates are very welcomed. But... the truth is these are very minor and FCP is still way behind Resolve, Premier, and even CapCut.

*sigh*
Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mystery hill Avatar
16 months ago
Editing on iPad is Hell. ('https://youtu.be/gosW702fFg4?feature=shared')

iPadOS has too many limitations.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Nermal Avatar
16 months ago

Final Cut Pro for iPad is priced at $4.99 per month or $49 per year.
I suppose it's too much to hope that this option becomes available for Mac. As a novice I'd happily pay a few dollars to "try it out" for a month or two, but I can't justify hundreds for something I'll rarely use.

Edit: It seems from the responses that I didn't word that very well (only 4 hours of sleep last night!). I'm not looking for the 90-day trial, I just want something I can use once for a few days, then come back to again a year later. It's rare that I need to edit things, and I don't really need much more functionality than what used to be available in QuickTime Pro.

Maybe I should try to learn Resolve instead...
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Ludatyk Avatar
16 months ago

Editing on iPad is Hell. ('https://youtu.be/gosW702fFg4?feature=shared')

iPadOS has too many limitations.
What does iPadOS limitation has anything to do with the Final Cut Pro app? It's hypocritical to try and criticize iPadOS in this scenario when Apple is attempting to update a "Pro" app for feature parity with their desktop app.

A comment like this is from the same people who criticize Apple for the lack of Pro apps.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MacFan782040 Avatar
16 months ago

And to think it was at the top, 12 years ago, when I was studying editing on the glorious V7.

That said, there's still hope.
Software gets better and worse all the time, case in point being Premiere pro, which had been losing traction every year for a while only to be massively improved with recent releases.
I just cannot fathom why -- in an era of enormous consumption of video content, AI tools, and GREAT iPhone cameras -- Apple is choosing to run away from FCP and let it die slowly. It. ? Makes. ? No. ?Sense. ? At. ? All.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ccsicecoke Avatar
16 months ago
It seems a lot of Mac users have switched to DaVinci Resolve + Fusion.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)