New patent shows a little early Apple thinking on Final Cut Pro X
Last week Apple was awarded a patent concerning how to highlight discontiguous groups of clips on a timeline.
Even though it is a new patent, it shows Apple’s thinking back when it was applied for. This patent took years to be awarded, so any feature hints found in the application document have been superseded by what Apple chose to implement in the intervening years.
Patenting concepts that apply to editing software requires a description of a sample editing user interface. Here is an example from the patent:
The imaginary sample editing application shows a combination of Final Cut Pro 7, iMovie and Final Cut Pro X. Layers from Final Cut Pro 7, iMovie’s way of having content in more than one place at a time (clips would appear in ‘All Files,’ ‘Video’ and in an interview folder). The viewer/inspector/timeline layout are from Final Cut Pro X.
The parts of this illustration that interest me are the labels above the viewer and the inspector. The viewer has three control areas: ‘Display Types,’ ‘Viewer Tools’ and ‘Overlays.’ The inspector seems to have two tabs at the top – ‘Inspector’ and ‘Transcript’ with clip ‘Specific Controls’ at the bottom of the inspector.
This patent was applied for in May 2009. Interesting that Apple considered including a clip transcript panel in a clip inspector. I also hope that Apple will expand the way overlays work in the Final Cut Pro X viewer.