Creator of Final Cut and iMovie Randy Ubillos is Retiring From Apple

Randy Ubillos, the creator of Final Cut Pro, iMovie, and Aperture, has announced his retirement from Apple.

After an amazing 20 years working on Apple products, today is my last day. I look forward to retirement and the adventures ahead. :-)

Notably, Ubillos was also the creator of the first three versions of Adobe Premiere. Moving to Macromedia he helped build KeyGrip based on QuickTime which was later renamed Final Cut. Macromedia couldn't release the software because it used technology licensed from Microsoft to Truevision that couldn't be used with QuickTime. Apple reportedly purchased the team as a defensive move and when it couldn't find a buyer it continued development and introduced Final Cut Pro at NAB 1999.


DVCreator's Josh Mellicker describes Ubillos as "brilliant, a visionary, and a true innovator."

With the original Premiere, he added a new dimension to the editing timeline, allowing “vertical” (compositing) as well as horizontal (storytelling) editing. Key Grip took this further, with keyframes, blend modes and keying. Randy is on a short list of my all-time personal heroes, I’ve known him for 12 years, and taught alongside him daily at NAB. Though we’re not close friends, I have been privileged to talk with him on several occasions and I feel like I know how he thinks. (Like Randy, when I design software, I always start from a blank slate and let common sense and user experience drive the process without any influence from “this is the way things have always been done.”)

Ubillos' contribution to Apple will definitely be missed but we wish him the best.

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