After more than a decade, Apple has released Final Cut Pro 11, its first major update to the non-linear editing app. New features include AI-powered masking, spatial video editing for projects destined for the Apple Vision Pro and the ability to generate captions directly in the timeline, as well as some general workflow improvements. Final Cut Pro 11 is free for current users while newbies will pay $299 for a one-time purchase. Improvements have also been made to Final Cut Pro for iPad and Final Cut Camera, adding new creative options across Mac, iPad and iPhone.

The Verge is “particularly impressed by the speed and accuracy of one new feature coming to the desktop: Magnetic Mask,” explaining that “with one click, you can easily isolate a subject, like a person, from the background and apply different color adjustments to that part of the footage.”

The feature lets editors isolate people and objects within a video clip, eliminating time-consuming rotoscoping or the need for a green screen.

After testing the feature on both talking heads and fast-moving sports footage, The Verge concludes that while the automatic masking isn’t pixel-perfect each time, it can be by manually fine-tuning with a brush or by adding or removing tracking points and letting Final Cut Pro analyze the footage.

Magnetic Mask and Transcribe to Captions are features that leverage the power of Apple’s M-series chips. They join existing AI-powered features made possible by Apple’s Neural Engine, including, Apple says in a feature-packed newsroom post:

• Smart Conform to easily make social media-friendly versions of projects in square or vertical formats.
• Enhance Light and Color to automatically improve the color, color balance, contrast, and brightness of video or still images.
• Smooth Slo-Mo to generate and blend together frames of video — including footage captured on iPhone 16 Pro in 4K 120 fps.
• Voice Isolation to enhance speech and optimize sound levels while reducing background noise from audio captured in the field.

Apple says the automatic captioning capability, Transcribe to Captions, was “a highly requested feature.” It provides fast and accurate closed captions generated in the timeline using an Apple-trained large language model that transcribes spoken audio.

“Final Cut Pro 11 joins other pro editing apps like Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve in offering VR/AR video editing,” which “allows users to import and edit AR/VR video directly in the app, while adding effects, color correction and more,” reports Engadget.

The updates of Final Cut Pro 11 make it a viable competitor with Adobe Premiere Pro and Blackmagic’s DaVinci Resolve, according to PetaPixel, which notes that after languishing in version 10 (though Apple eventually removed the numeric identifier) “it remains unclear if Final Cut Pro 11 will occupy the same position of influence as Final Cut Pro 7 Studio did when it was replaced 13 years ago,” but it has made “crystal clear that Apple is serious about professional software.”

“The company’s broader investment into professional software, a space that once looked abandoned, also speaks to Apple’s ambitions as a one-stop shop for creators at large. Hardware, software, services, everything under one roof,” notes PetaPixel.