Apple releases Final Cut Pro 11 with spatial video editing, transcribe to captions, and more

As expected, Apple today took the wraps off the next big version of Final Cut Pro, and it comes with a whole host of new features that will surely make video editors happy. Included in Final Cut Pro 11 is support for spatial video editing, transcribe to captions, magnetic mask, and more.

It’s noteworthy that Final Cut Pro 11 is the first release that isn’t a 10.x release since Apple dropped the ‘X’ from its name back in 2020. Apple also released an update to Final Cut Pro for iPad, version 2.1. These updates come hot on the heels of Logic Pro 11.1, which also released today, and features several significant enhancements for pro creatives.

Spatial video editing

One of the most noteworthy enhancements found in Final Cut Pro 11 is a feature that was previewed during WWDC this past summer. Apple is finally bringing spatial video editing support to Final Cut Pro users, allowing them to import spatial video shot on iPhones to the Mac, edit, and then deliver to view in Apple Vision Pro.

Spatial videos can be taken with the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, or any iPhone 16-era device. Once captured, it’s just a matter of dropping the spatial video in a Final Cut Pro project timeline, editing, and then delivering. Editing spatial videos works largely the same way as editing regular 2D videos, but there are new export controls to help facilitate final delivery.

Recently Blackmagic Design, creator of Final Cut Pro competitor, DaVinci Resolve, released an update to its NLE to include both spatial video encoding and spatial photo decoding support. I found the process there to be simple and straightforward as well.

Transcribe to Captions

Teased during its Mac mini video presentation, Apple has natively integrated AI-assisted transcription directly within Final Cut Pro. The new feature will benefit from the company’s new M4-era hardware, with speech to text processing up to 13x faster than Intel Macs.

The new Transcribe to Captions option can be found within the color correction and audio enhancements options, which looks like a little magic wand directly beneath the viewer. Users simply select the audio source from which to derive the captions, click Transcribe to Captions, and Final Cut Pro will handle the rest.

Needless to say, this new feature will be a boon to creators, especially those invested in short-form content. As I mentioned in a previous post, caption transcription is far from a new feature, and several companies, such as MotionVFX, offer excellent transcription solutions that work extremely well. The big difference here, of course, is that Apple’s transcription feature is natively built inside of Final Cut Pro, and is free to existing users via the version 11 update.

AI-generated effects

Coinciding with the AI-assisted Transcribe to Captions feature, Final Cut Pro 11 also implements new AI-generated effects, which greatly increases the amount of available effects. Final Cut Pro has long included a variety of effects, but having AI-generated effects provides users with a seemingly endless supply of interesting effects to choose from.

Magnetic Mask

Magnetic Mask was another feature revealed during Apple’s Mac mini event, and it’s the one we knew the least about going into today’s release. Apple didn’t actually mention the Magnetic Mask during the event, but the option was shown during the Final Cut Pro portion of the video.

At the time, we presumed that the Magnetic Mask would make deploying masks much easier with the help of snapping to high contrast areas.

9to5Mac’s Take

Final Cut Pro 11 brings several key new features to the table, with one such feature, Transcribe to Captions, among one of the most-wanted new features. It’s available as a free update to existing users.

What do you think about Final Cut Pro 11? Sound off in the comments below with your thoughts.