Rumors of a Final Cut update have been around in earnest since Steve Jobs let information slip to a curious customer back in November. In an email response, Jobs replied, “A great release of Final Cut is coming early next year.” Early next year, which is now officially this year, seems to still be the general consensus. Hardmac, based out of France, has noted today that they’re hearing that a release will find its way to store shelves some time in March or April 2011.
The Hardmac report does get a little bit “iffy” though. They suggest that Final Cut will ship with both Snow Leopard and Lion versions, with some features being Lion only. As far as Final Cut is concerned, having Lion-only features is understandable, but why Apple would ship a Final Cut version that isn’t fully featured before Lion is released is beyond me.
It hardly makes sense. Apple doesn’t have a history of releasing partial updates for antiquated operating systems on “announcement” days. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d speculate that a Final Cut update won’t be shipping until Lion is out of the door. But, that’s based on the pretence that Final Cut would have 10.7 only features. That in and of itself is quite a leap to begin with.
There is one thing for sure though. Apple thinks this version of Final Cut is going to be “Kickass.” Jobs said so himself, so we should probably expect that Final Cut will need a lot of polish before it ships. The March-April deadline that Hardmac is reporting is only three months away.
Article Via MacRumors