Most visual artists use Apple computers if they use any, and this is particularly true of film editing.  Apple’s Final Cut Pro software has carved out a hefty chunk of the film editing market, although Avid’s Media Composer and related products are still the gorillas.  Apple is due to release the next version of Final Cut Studio, but no announcement has been made yet – plenty of rumors and speculation, though.

Apple has announced the next version of OS-X, dubbed Snow Leopard, due in September  There will be tons of changes and additions, some esthetic and some more substantial.  But the most important and welcome change?  Apple will finally make the default gamma of it’s computer displays 2.2, just as in the Windows world.  This should eliminate no end of headaches for all sorts of visual design, especially web-bound work and cross-platform projects.

Final Cut Suite 3 will likely follow Snow Leopard, so should come a bit later in the Fall.  Rumor has it that FCS 2 (FCP 6 – the current version) will NOT be compatible with Snow Leopard  This will make the interval between versions a bit longer than in the past, but so what?  Rumors of Apple scrapping pro apps (Final Cut, Logic, Aperture) seem to have gone away – although everyone worries that they’ll be neglected in favor of iProducts…