Apple may be looking to introduce new Final Cut Pro subscription

Apple appears to be looking into whether to adopt a subscription model for Final Cut Pro, its high-end professional video editing software, which is currently a $300 one-off purchase from the App Store.

As spotted by Patently Apple, on Monday, Apple filled to update its ‘Final Cut Pro’ trademark in Europe, adding Nice Classification #42, which covers the “rental of software,” hinting that Apple could either be interested in relaunching the app as a pay-monthly product, or keeping some of its features back for paying subscribers only.

The site reports, “Apple’s ‘Final Cut Pro’ was granted ‘Registered Trademark’ (RTM) status back in May 2016. Apple’s RTM was filed only under International Class 009 covering the following: Computer software for creating, editing, processing, organizing, importing, exporting, and encoding video, movies, motion picture films, and multimedia content; computer software for creating, editing, processing, organizing, importing, exporting, and encoding audio, music, and sound content; computer software for creating and editing digital animation, graphics, and special effects; computer software for color correction of video and multimedia content; computer software for creating, processing, exporting, and encoding digital media.”

“The term Software rental was not part of their registered trademark back in 2016.”

Apple has recently been widening its array of paid services, with Apple Fitness+ being the latest pay-monthly product to be released.

The patent today doesn’t confirm that Apple will ever offer a subscription for Final Cut Pro, but it does show that the company has at least considered the possibility of adding some form of pay-monthly elements to the app, either that be in full or only partial.