Apple Takes on Blackmagic with Final Cut Camera

Last week, Apple released a new standalone camera app called Final Cut Camera. Perfect timing considering we'll be able to change the camera shortcut in iOS 18.

That's probably not the real reason as the app is meant for more advanced controls. And as you can imagine, there are a few of those on the App Store already.

The most popular one comes from Blackmagic, the company behind the Pocket Cinema Cameras and the Davinci Resolve video editing software - both of which I use for our videos.

The app just launched, but in its first two days on the App Store, it already saw more downloads than Blackmagic Camera got this entire month!

According to our estimates, Apple's Final Cut Camera got 481K downloads in its first two days on the App Store. And unlike what I expected, the US was responsible for only 21% of those downloads, but it was the only country with a double-digit contribution.

India, the UK, Turkey, and China round out the top 5 countries, but the downloads came from 100+ countries, which is really remarkable considering the release happened around the same as WWDC and wasn't showcased there.

Fun fact: Apple used the Blackmagic Camera app to capture last year's WWDC keynote.

Final Cut Camera is taking on the Blackmagic Camera app. Kind of. Afterall, most video editors are loyal to their editing platform. But for context, Blackmagic Camera never had as many downloads in a single day as Final Cut Camera - not even on launch day.

According to our estimates, Blackmagic Camera has been averaging around 9K downloads per day this year. It was a bit higher last year, but not by that much. Downloads have been fairly steady.

In total, Blackmagic Camera was downloaded 4.5M times since launch, and like Apple's camera, the US is the biggest contributor of downloads but not the only country. China, Russia, Japan, and Brazil are the other four top countries, but downloads are coming from 100+ countries.

I don't expect Apple's release to cause downloads to drop, but what's more likely is that we'll see Final Cut Camera's drop to Blackmagic's level within a few weeks.