A few days ago, Apple surprised everyone by announcing that Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro were finally coming to the iPad.
Die-hard iPad users have been asking, even begging, for years for these two business apps to be available on the iPad. From now on, not only will creative people have access to the same Mac applications on their tablet, but the idea is that by releasing “pro” applications for the iPad, Apple is showing its desire to provide more advanced and more productivity to the iPad.
To use Final Cut Pro, you need an iPad Air or iPad Pro with an M1 or M1 processor. Logic Pro, Apple’s audio and music editing app, is available on a wider range of iPad models using Apple’s A12 Bionic processor or later.
I tinker, but I’m satisfied
I’ve been tinkering with Final Cut Pro on an iPad Pro M1 for a few days now. I say “tinkering”, because video production is a field in which I am very new. When my kids were younger, I spent countless hours creating iMovie trailers with them. We had a lot of fun and I ended up mastering iMovie enough to feel comfortable editing. I would be embarrassed to look at them now. I’m sure they’re… not terrible.
This is the full extent of my experience in video editing. So when I think of Final Cut Pro, I think of sophisticated tools that are complicated to use; it’s intimidating for a beginner like me.
But iMovie has long been considered a stepping stone to Final Cut Pro, and that’s even truer now that Final Cut Pro has arrived on the iPad.
Being able to write over a video using the Apple Pencil and automatically apply it as a fancy graphic was pretty cool. Jason Cipriani/ZDNET
finger magic
I’m still very new to video editing, and Final Cut Pro still intimidates me. But now that I know there’s a lot in common between iMovie and Final Cut Pro, I’m more inclined to get back to it and learn.
Using Final Cut Pro when my iPad Pro is connected to the Magic Keyboard with Trackpad is more like the Mac experience. There are plenty of keyboard shortcuts and moving the mouse around to drag or trim clips feels routine.
But as soon as I untied the tablet from its magnetic mount and started using my finger to tap on video clips, swipe audio with Apple Pencil, or use the new scroll wheel (which is awesome, by the way), the experience made sense. The whole editing process felt natural.
Final Cut Pro projects you started on a Mac cannot transfer to iPad
Being able to write over a video with the Apple Pencil and automatically apply it as a fancy graphic was pretty cool. The same goes for the ability to place a graphic title between a subject and the background, all with just a few taps on the iPad screen. But my personal publishing adventure ended there.
It also lacks feature parity between the Mac and iPad versions. Jason Cipriani/ZDNET
Final Cut Pro isn’t perfect though. You can import your projects created on the iPad into the Mac version of the app, but Final Cut Pro projects that you started on a Mac cannot be transferred to the iPad. However, you can import your iMovie projects into Final Cut Pro on the iPad.
It also lacks feature parity between the Mac and iPad versions. The Mac version offers features like object tracking, advanced color correction, and third-party content options; the disparity is likely related to the difficulty of switching back and forth between the two devices.
Lack of support from the Stage Manager
Another surprising omission from Final Cut Pro is the lack of Stage Manager support (multi-window display of background apps). The only way to use Final Cut Pro is in full screen on the iPad. I imagine there are technical reasons for not supporting the latest iPad multitasking interface, but impossibility says more about Stage Manager than Final Cut Pro.
Apple may never explain why it took years for the iPad to get one of its own pro-level apps. I’m sure hitting a performance threshold made possible by the same M1 and M2 chips found in Macs has something to do with this. But I feel like there is a more important reason or reasons.
Initially, I want to titrate on Professional applications finally on the iPad Probut the more I used Final Cut Pro, the more I realized that Final Cut Pro on the iPad isn’t just a way to bring professional apps to the iPad lineup.
Rather, it’s about Apple giving content creators who grew up using touch as their primary method of interacting with computers a chance to leverage their years of experience and thought about touch by using the one of the best video editing apps available. It’s the touch experience that elevates the quality of Final Cut Pro for the iPad and gives it something the Mac doesn’t.
You can download and get started today. Each application is subject to a subscription (a first for Apple!), the price of which is currently set at €5 per month or €50 per year for each application.
Source: “ZDNet.com”