Cinematic editing for iPhone 18 Pro footage arrives with a macOS 27 catch
Final Cut Camera, Final Cut Pro, and Compressor updates connect, but the new effects require macOS 27 Golden Gate.
Apps · Macfolio · 6 October 2026
Apple released Final Cut Camera 2.4 on September 29, alongside Final Cut Pro 12.4 and Compressor 5.4 for Mac. Together they let editors adjust focus points and depth of field in regular video recorded with Final Cut Camera on iPhone 18 Pro, including ProRes and Apple Log footage.
Final Cut Camera 2.4 also adds variable aperture control on iPhone 18 Pro, aperture and shutter priority modes, video scopes, and clean SDI out.
The new editing does not come to every Mac running Final Cut Pro. Apple's release notes say the Cinematic features in Final Cut Pro 12.4 and Compressor 5.4 require macOS 27 Golden Gate.
Check the whole pipeline before a shoot
Our take: confirm the operating system on the editing Mac before relying on depth effects. A capture setting is only useful if the machine that finishes the project can use it.
Compressor 5.4 also removes distributed processing, so teams that share encoding work across several Macs should review that change before updating. Final Cut Pro 12.4 lists fixes for importing iPad projects and backing up libraries to network volumes.