Alright, FCP11 is out, and it's seriously underwhelming. Apple has been asleep at the wheel for a number of years / releases and that's really a pity.
Adobe Premiere and Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve are on fast update cycles and are now feeling more advanced than FCP. That's a real shame.
What's new? Not much really: Magnetic mask, basically AI powered automatic masking, and AI powered transcription.
That's it? Yep.
Note that DVR's Magic Mask was introduced 4 years ago, and it got AI powered transcription for at least a full year. PP has had it for even longer. And we already had third party tools and plug-ins doing these two things very well for many years as well.
So FCP is sadly LAGGING behind.
Well there is also Smart AR conform, Auto Enhance Light and Color, Smooth SloMo, Voice Isolation. I hope Apple is way better at implementing these features than the concurrence, because let me tell you, I am not in a rush to try them out. And if they are not substantially better than PP or DVR, I will feel even more let down by Apple.
Oh yeah there is also spacial editing and export to Vision Pro. Vision Pro is a lame, dead product. No one likes it. So unless you specialize in outputting programs for VP, this FCP "feature" is going direct to the graveyard, and it feels to me it's pulling FCP with it. Bad feeling.
So yes, that's really it, and it feels like nothing new and ground breaking. Still Apple calls it version 11. Really? 10.9 would have suffice. That's one more nail in the coffin of FCP. What's planned for v12, a new logo?
FCPX came out in 2011, we are now heading toward 2025, FCP will be 14 years old, and to me it has stalled. It is more stable, it is still more enjoyable to use than Premiere and Resolve, but the long list of improvements the community has identified and is craving for is not being implemented. Apple does not care. Apple is drinking the cool aid.
Both Adobe and Blackmagic are listening to their communities and implementing features that are useful to their users. In turn they feel recognized and appreciated. It's also making the apps more enjoyable to use and more powerful. And to me it feels like they are taking over FCP.
At this time I don't even feel I want to upgrade. Why bother? Everybody and his brother are doing AI transcription these days. Will Apple do it any better? It looks very limited at the moment.
Until I need to do some difficult moving mask in FCP, I think I'll stay on 10.8.
