Is Final Cut Pro finally better on the M4 iPad Pro?

For the past two weeks I’ve been editing with the latest version of Final Cut Pro for iPad. For many experts, the app’s initial launch last year missed the mark. The tools were too limited for everyday use. The new version doesn’t necessarily change that. But despite many frustrations, I’m finally discovering the joy of using it.

Confusingly, a new version called “Final Cut Pro for iPad 2” (for all newer iPads, not iPad 2) was released this week. And perhaps the biggest new feature in this year’s release isn’t an outright Final Cut Pro feature, but rather a new app that integrates with Final Cut Pro functionality.

The new Final Cut Camera is a standalone app for iPhone that provides advanced camera controls. If you’ve seen the Blackmagic app or the recently released Kino app, you’ll know what to expect: picking, manual focusing, audio measurement, and more. You can’t add custom LUTs like you can in the other two.

The Final Cut Camera app can be used with Final Cut Pro on iPad to record live multicam sessions with video streaming from up to four iPhones or iPads. Final Cut on iPad puts you in the role of director. Monitor footage from your iPhone, zoom in, and instantly change white balance, focus mode, and more. This new feature appears to be particularly popular with video podcasts.

The preview you’re seeing is compressed, but it still looks great. When you stop your recording session, the highest quality files are transferred to your iPad running Final Cut Pro for rendering. The whole process was much faster than expected. A 10-minute session using three iPhones could be edited minutes later. Progress is shown in a new transfer indicator window at the top of the UI.

There’s one upgrade I’d like to see for this feature in the future: real-time editing. Currently, you have to sync all files and end recording first before you can start editing.

Multicam support is a great new feature, but it contrasts with how little Apple has done to improve the Final Cut Pro experience for iPad. A standout feature of this year’s update is support for external hard drives. This is important. Last year, this feature was strangely absent. But adding this feature immediately reminded me of how poorly Final Cut Pro for iPad (and iPadOS) handles file management.

All media files must reside within an FCP library file and the same library file must be stored on an internal or external drive. This means you can’t split media across multiple drives or cloud storage. One side effect of this method is that it is constantly duplicating files from one place to another.

And there is another issue that has not changed from last year. For example, you can’t import entire folders into Final Cut Pro; only individual files. Even after importing the files, you cannot organize them into separate folders or bins such as “A-roll”, “B-roll”, “Music”, or “Graphics”.

Another new feature in the iPad version of Final Cut Pro is Live Drawing. Apple Pencil lets you draw animations directly on clips. Apple’s latest Pencil Pro technology is supported here, but other than that it doesn’t have much to do with the Pencil Pro itself. I wish there was a way to program the haptic squeeze to do more on the editing side. You can also select multiple clips while hovering, right-clicking, and more. I think it’s useful and will speed up your work with pencil.

There are still a lot of important video editing features waiting for Apple to add, including compound clips, folders, adjustment layers, post stabilization, color tools like curves, sharing projects between computers, new LUT additions, 360 video, and more. Support, object tracking, linear keyframes, the list goes on. If you read my review from last year, you will find the exact same list there.

All those missing things really catch you off guard when you’re in the flow. I ended up making creative decisions based on poor software limitations.

Meanwhile, the mobile video editing app market is more competitive than ever. CapCut has been very popular among TikTokers. “Why I’m Switching to DaVinci” videos are all over my YouTube feed. And people still prefer the OG iPad app Lumafusion. In fact, three of the functions I need are already included in Da Vinci’s iPad app.

But after trying all the other apps I just listed, I keep coming back to Final Cut on the iPad, despite my frustration with the missing features. Because that’s exactly what Apple is doing. That’s the overall experience.

Apple calls these “touch-first” apps, and we finally understand what that means. Once you get past the learning curve, get used to the controls, and know your limits, you start to really enjoy it and enjoy it. Apple isn’t trying to replicate the Final Cut desktop experience, but rather is moving toward a new experience. And you can see how it interacts with the jog wheel and how the sidebar appears for left-hand editing.

I found that using Final Cut Pro by hand was the most immersive way to edit. It’s literally all at your fingertips. Even if it’s not as efficient as a mouse and keyboard, there’s something that’s starting to appeal to this more practical approach.

If Apple can see these easy successes, its vision for a capable, touch-first Final Cut Pro could actually succeed.

Photo: Vjeran Pavic / The Verge