It's 13 years now since Apple sprang Final Cut X on the world. That is little more than half the life span of the video editing software, which just this April celebrated its 25th birthday. This is many lifetimes in the world of consumer software, leading some to wonder if the company had secretly waved goodbye to the offering.

After 13 years of waiting patiently, Final Cut Pro finally takes it to 11, and now Apple isn't messing around. The software goes live for download Wednesday. Current users will get Final Cut Pro 11 from the company as a free update, but new customers will have to cough up $300 to download it from the Mac App Store during a 90-day trial period.

So, what, exactly, prompted the long-overdue leap to 11? Two letters: AI. Weeks after launching Apple Intelligence to iOS, iPadOS, and MacOS, it's deploying AI on new features.

At the top of this list is Magnetic Mask, which crops people and objects out of video with ease, sans green screen.

"This new powerful and accurate automatic analysis provides more flexibility in customizing the background and environment, Apple notes. The editor can combine Magnetic Mask with color correction and video effects to have control over and style each project perfectly," it added.

Another AI-driven feature here is Transcribe to Captions, which basically does as it promises: adds text to a Final Cut timeline. According to the company, that feature is driven by an in-house LLM.

The other big topline feature here is focused on Apple's struggling mixed-reality headset. After adding the ability to capture Spatial Video on the latest iPhones, that content can now be edited with Final Cut. It can be color corrected, effects added, and the depth positioning of titles adjusted.

While CEO Tim Cook has confessed that the $3,500 headset is not the next mainstream consumer product the company envisioned, Apple is allegedly working on a much more affordable model. The Vision Pro itself can record Spatial video, in addition to the iPhone 15 Pro and all iPhone 16 models. Canon also recently unveiled a new dual lens that will record the format on an R7 camera.

Other notable time-saving features in the new Final Cut are, for example, Magnetic Timeline-a quick way of shifting clips around while keeping the audio syncing with video.

The company claims that it built Final Cut Pro 11 specifically for its first-party silicon, the M-series of chips. Among other things, it says this will add support for playing back more simultaneous 4K and 8K ProRes video streams.

And with the much-awaited Pro 11, Apple will also be releasing the Final Cut Pro for iPad 2.1. The touched-based interface gets enhancements in light and color, a better workflow experience. That's also available starting Wednesday as a free download for existing users.