In April, a group of film and TV professionals signed an open letter asking Apple to address longstanding Final Cut Pro upgrade requests and to better promote the popular and powerful program as a standard editing tool in their industry.
Cupertino offered some reassurance in a public reply to the letter on Thursday.
Apple replies to open letter about making Final Cut Pro a standard tool for film and TV industry
Apple responded Thursday to the open letter film and TV industry professionals sent it about a month ago urging the company to finally help Final Cut Pro live up to its potential as a standard editing tool for pros.
“The creative community has always been so important to us at Apple,” Apple’s reply reads. The response also pledged to address “your important feature requests” and said Apple is adding new training products, expanding workshops and setting up a consultation panel of experts.
The back story
About 20 years ago, Final Cut had a firm place in indie and professional moviemaking. But when Apple rolled out a major rewrite of the app in 2011, Final Cut Pro X, criticism poured in.
The revamp included major upgrades but left out what critics said were essential features, making the software unsuitable for professional work. Competitors like Avid and Adobe Premiere made the most of the situation and gobbled up marketshare.
At the time, Apple responded to the criticism with a series of feature updates. And although its reputation in Hollywood remains tarnished, Final Cut Pro has gained penetration into the independent video creator market on YouTube and the like.
The professionals who signed the open letter placed its emphasis on improving Final Cut Pro’s reputation and making some changes to increase its adoption in Hollywood productions.
The letter noted that Final Cut Pro does not work well with other production workflow tools. It added that Apple has not done enough to correct the application’s reputation in the industry. And that’s despite the fact that some of the most significant feature omissions have been rectified.
Further addressing these issues might help editors who would like to use Final Cut Pro but can’t get approval from their producers and directors.
Here’s Apple’s full reply, according to the website FCP.co:
To the authors of the recent open letter regarding Final Cut Pro in the TV and film industry: the creative community has always been so important to us at Apple, and we’re grateful for your feedback.
There have been many compelling projects created to date with Final Cut Pro — from Hollywood movies and high-profile commercials, to major television shows and impressive work by the biggest names in online content creation.
While we believe we have plans in place to help address your important feature requests, we also recognize the need to build on those efforts and work alongside you to help support your film and TV projects and keep you posted on important updates. This includes taking the following steps:
- Launching new training products and Apple-authorized certifications for pro video starting this month with our partner Future Media Concepts.
- Establishing a panel of industry experts for regular consultations, starting this summer.
- Expanding the content and frequency of Final Cut Pro workshops for major film and television productions.
We would love to work with you to help support your film and TV projects, and we will continue to explore opportunities that allow us to better connect and foster important dialogue with our devoted community of users going forward.
