6 useful Final Cut Pro 11 features that will have creatives excited - including iPad users

You don't have to be a professional video editor to understand just how practical, efficient, and impactful the latest update to Final Cut Pro is. Apple today is launching the high-anticipated refresh to its in-house editing program, Final Cut Pro 11, along with updates to its cross-platform variants: Final Cut Pro for iPad and Final Cut Camera.

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The big focus with Final Cut Pro 11 is unquestionably AI and how the Mac, powered by Apple's language model in MacOS Sequoia, can help automate and streamline your workflow, whether it's identifying moving objects for cropping and editing or transcribing and captioning. 

"Our creative apps give artists, producers, directors, and editors around the world the tools they need to express themselves and realize their artistic vision," said Brent ChiuWatson, Apple's senior director of Worldwide Product Marketing for Apps, in a Wednesday press release. Below, I've highlighted the best new features available with the free new update.

1. Magnetic Mask

Traditionally, you'd rely on a green screen or rotoscoping to precisely stitch out a subject in a video, which not only requires the necessary resources but a lot of time. The new Magnetic Mask feature leverages the M-series chip (specifically, the Neural Engine) to intelligently trace and select moving objects in footage, such as cars, people, and pets. With the smart object selected, you can layer it over customized backgrounds, color-correct it, and/or apply video effects.

2. Transcribe to Captions

Thanks to an Apple-trained large language model, the new feature takes spoken audio from your footage, transcribes it, and automatically applies it as closed captions throughout the video. However, it's currently limited to English only, with more languages coming soon.

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While there's been an uptick in AI-powered transcription services, this is one of the more natural applications, as content creators often rely on third-party services like Scribe and Rev. When I previously worked as a video editor, sending and receiving transcriptions for videos always felt like an extra step in the creation process, ultimately resulting in a significant amount of time loss during production. A proprietary tool baked right into the editing software -- if it works as reliably as Apple demonstrates -- would be very beneficial.

3. You can now edit spatial videos

When Apple first launched the Vision Pro, spatial videos were arguably its best feature. The emotional and immersive nature of 3D-looking videos was one of the more memorable aspects of the $3,500 headset, and it's something Apple has continued to build out with immersive videos and films. On Final Cut Pro 11, users will be able to edit their own spatial videos, so long as they're captured on a Vision Pro, iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Pro, or a Canon RF-S7.8mm F4 STM DUAL lens paired with Canon R7.

Editing capabilities include adding effects and color corrections to the footage and the ability to add immersive titles with adjustable depth positions. Users can also preview different left- and right-eye viewing angles on their Mac display or Vision Pro (via Mac Virtual Display).

4. Show and hide clips for a decluttered timeline

If you often find yourself with way too many video, text, and audio tracks to stay focused, there's now an option to show and hide clips. While it's not as flashy of a change as, say, editing spatial videos, the feature will significantly declutter timelines, allowing you to stay focused on only a few content pieces while hiding ones that can play in the background.

5. Small (but useful) iPad refinements

On Final Cut Pro for iPad 2.1, Apple is introducing a new Enhance Light and Color feature that adaptively adjusts aspects like color balance, contrast, and brightness in clips, whether they're shot in SDR, HDR, RAW, or LOG.

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The Apple Pencil Pro and Magic Keyboard will also register haptic feedback as you trim videos, drag media around the timeline, and resize clips via snap. Other changes include the ability to expand or minimize the timeline height with a vertical pinch, converting the viewer to Picture in Picture mode and new inks (such as watercolor, crayon, and fountain pen) for Live Drawing.

6. More efficient recordings with Final Cut Camera

While it's only been half a year since Apple released a version of Final Cut that works with the iPhone, the newest update to the app lets you capture Log-encoded HEVC video in either standalone or Live Multicam sessions. This type of footage gives you more control of the dynamic range and colors in post-production while taking up less file size than traditional Log videos.

You can also now preview built-in Apple LUT, saving you from guessing how aspects like gamma, luminance, and hue will affect the footage after capturing. Lastly, Final Cut Camera 1.1 introduces a leveler that helps editors better frame and compose shots.