Final Cut Studio Update Scaled Back and Delayed?

Hardmac reports that Apple's plans for a thorough overhaul of its Final Cut Studio have "suffered significant setbacks" that will see a release pushed back to 2011 from a rumored goal of a 2010 launch and result in significantly scaled-back changes to the professional-level video production software package.

A few months ago we told you that Apple were hoping to release a new version of their Final Cut Studio suite in 2010. It now seems likely that this target has been missed according to one of our sources. The development of this software suite has suffered significant setbacks and it will be necessary to wait until 2011 to see its release; furthermore, the scope of the project has been reduced.

According to the report, Apple has temporarily abandoned plans to bring a single interface to the Final Cut package as internal development teams have been unable to reach agreement on how the interface should be implemented. The interface overhaul has now been said to be pushed back to the following release of Final Cut, tentatively scheduled for a 2013 release.

Additionally, the report claims that the Final Cut team's progress has been slowed as Apple has reassigned engineers to work on projects for the company's iOS devices.

Concern over the future of Apple's Final Cut offerings arose in February, when it was revealed that Apple had laid off 40 members of the project team. Several months later, a report claimed that Apple was looking to transition Final Cut Pro Pro from a strictly professional product to more of a "prosumer" offering, but Apple CEO Steve Jobs dismissed those concerns, stating that the next release of Final Cut Pro "will be awesome" and that the earlier job layoffs had been in support and not engineering. The following day, Apple issued an official statement similarly noting that the next version of Final Cut Pro will be "awesome".