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

For the past two weeks, I’ve been editing the latest version of Final Cut Pro for iPad. For many professionals, the original release of this app last year missed the mark. Its tools are too limited to be used on a daily basis. The new version doesn’t necessarily change that – but despite my many frustrations, I’m finally discovering the joy of using it.

The new version of the app, confusingly called “Final Cut Pro for iPad 2” (it’s for all current iPads, not the iPad 2), was released this week. And perhaps the biggest new addition to this year’s release isn’t entirely a Final Cut Pro feature: it’s an entirely new app that integrates with it.

The new Final Cut Camera is a standalone iPhone app that offers advanced camera controls. If you’ve seen the Blackmagic app or the recently released Kino app, you know what to expect: peaking, manual focus, and audio metering. You simply won’t be able to add custom LUTs like you can with the other two.

The Final Cut Camera app can be used in conjunction with Final Cut Pro on iPad to record Live Multicam sessions streaming from up to four iPhones or iPads. In Final Cut on iPad, you take on the role of director. You can monitor images coming from iPhones, zoom in, and change white balance, focus mode, and more in real time. I can see this new feature being particularly popular for video podcasts.

The previews you’re seeing are compressed, but they still look great. After stopping the recording session, the full quality files are transferred to the iPad running Final Cut Pro and rendered. The entire process is much faster than I expected. My 10-minute session with three iPhones was available for editing minutes later. A new transfer indicator window at the top of the UI shows the progress.

There’s one update I’d love to see for this feature in the future: live editing. Currently, you will still need to end recording before you can sync all files and start editing.

Multicam support is a great new feature, but it contrasts with how little Apple has done to improve the Final Cut Pro for iPad experience. The standout feature in this year’s update is external hard drive support. This is important – this feature was strangely missing last year. But its addition instantly reminded me of how poorly Final Cut Pro for iPad (and iPadOS) handles file management.

All your media files must be inside the FCP Library files, and that same library file must be stored on the internal or external drive. This means you cannot split your media across multiple drives or cloud storage. A side effect of this method is that it means you are constantly duplicating files from one place to another.

And there are other issues that haven’t changed since last year. For example, you still can’t import entire folders into Final Cut Pro, only individual files. And once imported, you still won’t be able to organize the files into separate folders or compartments, such as “A-roll”, “B-roll”, “Music” or “Graphics”.

Another new feature exclusive to the iPad version of Final Cut Pro is Live Drawings. Using an Apple Pencil, you can draw animations directly onto your clips. Apple’s latest Pencil Pro tricks are supported here, but other than that, there’s not much to do with the Pencil Pro itself. I wish there was a way to program the haptic squeeze to do something else on the editing front – maybe select multiple clips while hovering or just right-clicking. I think this would be useful and make working with the pencil quicker.

There are still a lot of serious video editing features I’m waiting for Apple to add: composite clips, folders, adjustment layers, post-stabilization, coloring tools like curves, sharing projects between machines, the ability to add new LUTs, 360 video support, object tracking, linear keyframes – the list goes on and on. If you read my review from last year, you’ll find the exact same list there.

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

Meanwhile, the mobile video editing app market is more competitive than ever. CapCut is extremely popular among TikTokers. “Why I’m Switching to DaVinci” videos are all over my YouTube feed. And people still use the OG Lumafusion iPad app. In fact, three of the features I desperately need are already in the DaVinci iPad app.

But even after trying all the other apps I just listed, and even with all my frustration with missing features, I keep coming back to Final Cut on the iPad. Because there’s one thing Apple is doing here: the overall experience.

Apple calls this a “tap first” app, and I finally understand what that means. Once you get past the learning curve, master the controls, and are aware of your limitations, you start to really enjoy it and enjoy it. Apple isn’t trying to replicate the Final Cut desktop experience – it’s building a new one. And you can see the way you interact with the jog wheel and the way the sidebar comes in so you can edit with your left hand.

I’ve found that using Final Cut Pro hands-on is by far the most engaging way to edit. Everything is at your fingertips, literally. There’s something about this more tangible approach that I’m starting to find charming, even if it’s not as efficient as a mouse and keyboard.

If Apple can pull off these easy wins, then its vision of a capable, touch-first Final Cut Pro could truly prosper.

Photography by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge