Bright Future; Slow Progress

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The lack of promotion and feature growth (and FCP still has room to grow) can cause the market to shift further away from it to NLEs like Resolve. Additionally, Apple's attitude my hurt plugin developers and they may continue to shift emphasis to other NLEs further hampering feature additions from third-party developers.

I understand the developers of FCP Command Post are working on BRAW support and Sony GyroData support for FCP. Still, they're concerned that without Apple's approval for them to be offered in the Mac App Store may kill those projects.

If if Apple isn't doing direct marketing their support (or lack thereof) for third-party developers is a serious concern. It may well make more sense for Apple to rely on third-party FCP promotion but that still requires Apple's involvement.

Additionally, third party development drives up the cost of ownership and also may require multiple purchases of those third-party apps in some cases for collaborative work.

You time Resolve improvements / updates / new releases using a chronometer.
You time Final Cut improvements / updates / new releases using next years calendar.

There are really only a handful of new features I'd like to see in FCP. However, what's disconcerting is that there are numerous bugs dating back to the original release that have never been fixed (sub-1-frame black, RAM leaks, etc). And if such bugs are systemic due to the software design, then there should be an official explanation of why they can't be eliminated. Add to this the half-measures that have never been followed up on. For example, adding audio roles without continuing that into the development of a functional mixer.

I agree that I don't think there's a ton of missing features keeping FCP from being a professional level, widely used editing app. I do think there are keyframe bugs (among other old bugs that Oliver mentioned) that should have been fixed by now, but every app has bugs that don't necessarily keep us from using them. I still think the biggest drawback to FCP being used more is that it has been designed to be such an insular editor. Although there are workarounds (mentioned in some great articles on this very website), FCP is really designed to be used by a small number of editors working on a single computer. The modular design of FCP, getting plugins to make it the editor you need it to be, can be very cumbersome for projects that require multiple editors over multiple systems requiring a great deal more prep than other editors typically need. At this point, I really wonder if we're not forcing FCP to be something it's really not meant to be, or needs to be?

"At this point, I really wonder if we're not forcing FCP to be something it's really not meant to be, or needs to be?"

I think that's a good point. I would tend to view it this way, too. Given the success FCP has had in new media circles - especially YouTube (which often presents very professional content) - why should Apple jump through hoops trying to pull in 1-5% of potential users?

I think we laid out the reasons for Apple to support this tiny yet influential market  in our open letter:
www.gopetition.com/petitions/support-ope...t-final-cut-pro.html

FCP X is like a sports car. People want it to be RV. Apple is busy building iPhones : )

In the next few months, Apple may launch new Mac Pro, with a big update for FCP X. Then, we can have one final chat about the future of FCP X.

Remember Apple Aperture? FCP today is like Aperture back in 2014...

oups !  so far that thread was nourished with intelligence. You've changed the paradigm ! 

Aperture is not a good comparison. The photo market shifted when smart phone photography and social media overtook photo creation and delivery from traditional means. Apple Photos was simply a better tool to address that shift. Even Adobe pushes people to use its lighter, more modern, cloud-centric version of Lightroom over Lightroom Classic.

OTOH, Final Cut Pro is now a better match to where video has headed - social media, influencers, one-man shops, etc. So, the more apt comparison would be Aperture to Final Cut Pro 7.

Nevertheless, there are plenty of things that could and should be added to enhance Final Cut, as Knut has pointed out quite comprehensively.

Oliver

Oliver Peters wrote:

Final Cut Pro is now a better match for where video has headed - social media, influencers, one-man shops, etc. 
Oliver

Yet even in that area, FCP is behind. The lack of built-in speech-to-text for captions and subtitles or text-to-speech for "artificial" voice-over is one area. The AI used to convert horizontal to verticle video seems subpar when it comes to keeping the perceived subject centered. Perhaps the lack of built-in QR code generation and the lack of built-in AI-based background removal is another. Similar features already exist in other NLEs, some of which are free (including ClipChamp and CapCut) but require paid plugins for FCP. Perhaps Continuity Camera support and maybe built-in screen capture would be useful. There are probably other features I can add to the list of features for your target market list that FCP lacks compared to competitors.

While there are certainly plugins for most of the above, adding them makes FCP one of the more expensive NLEs to own. In addition depending on such plugins may add to stability risks, compatibility risks and management issues.

FCP has fallen behind even in the areas of its apparent target markets.

This is a great video that sorta pertains to our discussion here:
What Is The Future Of Final Cut Pro? 

The assessment in the video seems right on.

I love Final Cut Pro.
I love the interface. I love the way of working. I love the integration with the OS.

Honestly I don't know what kind of new feature we can add on it.
I understand that the audio part is not so complete, and maybe more audio filters could be add. Same thinking could be done for the video effects side.
But nothing that you can have with some external software.
I understand that think to buy an external tool for color correction, noise reductions or video or audio correcting is not a good point for a NLE software... but if we think at the NLE software like the baseline for creating a good and professional video, I think FCPX is really complete.

Very often I can edit video starting with different clips coming from raw photos, smartphone photos and videos and videos coming from videocamera. And in really in very fast time I can create great videos, with good video quality, color correction, effects and so on.

I saw many people saying that the stabilization effects of Davinci Resolve is better than FCPX's one. And it is true. "Color correction tools are better on another software instead of FCPX"... ok it could be.... but as a start point we have a great software, with cheap price honestly, with great features and a great stability on our OS (occasionally bugs excluded ).... I agree that continuos improvement is good... but from my point of view, actually FCPX is a great tool that better of other NLE has a great mix between easy way of working and professional tools.