Filmmakers write open letter to Tim Cook begging for Final Cut Pro commitment

On Tuesday 19th April 2022, a group of over 100 people in TV and film production worldwide sent an open letter to Tim Cook of Apple about Final Cut Pro.They used the letter ask Apple to publicly stand by the use of Final Cut Pro - Apple's video editing application for professionals - in TV and film industries worldwide.It wasn't a criticism of the Apple team developing and marketing Final Cut Pro. They have worked very hard for over a decade on making Final Cut Pro better and better. This open letter is aimed at the executives who set the priorities of the Final Cut Pro development team and the Apple managers whose policies limit the public marketing of Final Cut Pro to a couple of website updates a year and some mentions in Apple keynotes about how much faster Apple hardware is getting.

Dear Tim Cook,We are professionals working in Hollywood and other high-profile movie and TV markets all over the world. We are excited by Final Cut Pro. We think that it is the biggest leap forward in editing technology since the move to digital. We think it's incredible.We also think it's incredible that some of us still can't choose it to do our work. Work that could easily include productions for your very own Apple TV+ service.Final Cut Pro is a wonderful application used by many YouTubers, education and small business content creators worldwide. We know why it is successful. It is liberating, efficient and fun to work with. But, unfortunately in professional film and TV, editors who use Final Cut Pro are a tiny minority.We ask Apple to promote Final Cut Pro publicly and add the few remaining features that our industry has consistently stated are needed.We'd love to see Apple publicly support and certify the suppliers of the third-party products and services we use to integrate Final Cut Pro into industry-standard workflows.We welcome your forthcoming brand-new FCP Certification exams. We need more experienced film and TV production crew members who also know how to use Final Cut Pro.We also hope to see Apple ensuring that improved Pro Apps support is widely available and that Final Cut Pro can also be bought through current industry suppliers. This is is essential for big productions to accept Final Cut Pro as legitimate.If Apple renewed its public commitment to the professional filmmaking industry and its visionary product, we believe an increasing number of editors would discover the joys of using Final Cut Pro.We hope you will start showing that Apple aims to make Final Cut Pro the best application for editing TV and movies. We believe that this could lead to a Pro Apps renaissance as pioneering as your amazing M1 Max MacBook Pros and the M1 Ultra Mac Studio.It's wonderful that Apple TV+ has become the first streaming platform to have a Best Picture Oscar winner with CODA, but it's disappointing to know that Final Cut Pro is so unlikely to have been a possible choice as the film's editing app.We hope you will encourage our industry to see Final Cut Pro as a professional choice for editors of future award-winning TV shows and movies, and for millions more editors all over the world.Thank you,