Final Cut Pro

Apple announces that Final Cut Pro X now has two million users

Apple announced at this week’s annual National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) conference that its Final Cut Pro X video-editing software for Mac has now reached two million users, or “seats“. Five years ago, the Cupertino company launched a major redesign of the app which temporarily killed many advanced features.

Needless to say, the move irked Apple's pro users some of whom have since switched to Adobe Premiere and other rival apps. Thankfully, Apple has since added back a lot of the missing features via free updates.

Final Cut Pro creator Randy Ubillos calls it quits after 20 years spent at Apple

Randy Ubillos, who created the first three versions of Adobe Premiere — the first popular digital video editing application — and whom Apple hired away from Macromedia to lead Final Cut Pro development, announced on Twitter this morning that he's ready to jettison from the mothership.

He was Apple's Chief Architect of all Photo and Video Applications across the company. He lead Aperture and Final Cut Pro development and was instrumental in bringing iMovie and iPhoto to the iPhone and iPad.

“After an amazing 20 years working on Apple products, today is my last day,” the tweet reads. “I look forward to retirement and the adventures ahead,” he added. His departure comes just 24 hours after Apple's senior PR director Natatlie Kerris announced, also on Twitter, her retirement to spend more time with her family.

Apple says FCPX is ready for the big leagues, showcases its usage in ‘Focus’ movie production

Focus, an upcoming movie starring Will Smith and Margot Robbie, has become the first Hollywood flick to have been edited entirely in Apple's Final Cut Pro X software, USA Today reported Wednesday.

In advance of the film's silver screen debut this coming Friday, Apple set up a dedicated webpage on its website to showcase how the romantic comedy was shot and edited using not just Final Cut Pro X, but other standard software readily available to anyone on the Mac App Store.

Apple updates its pro apps: Compressor, Final Cut Pro, MainStage and Motion

As we continue to chew on the ramifications of Apple's eyebrow-raising decision to stop development of Aperture and iPhoto for OS X and focus exclusively on the upcoming Photos for OS X Yosemite (due in 2015), the Cupertino firm has just issued a round of updates to its pro apps: Compressor, Final Cut Pro, MainStage and Motion.

New versions of these apps are now available in the Mac App Store under the Updates tab. I've included release notes for each app right after the break...