I have used a lot of different video editing software programs for over 20 years. Most recently I have been using Premiere Pro. It has been a good program but there have been a lot of issues I have had with it. I have really been looking forward to the release of Final Cut Pro and now that it is finally here, it did not disappoint. In fact it is way better than I expected. Since most of the video I shoot is with an iPhone I wanted a video editing app that was designed specifically for these videos. I can now shoot at 4K and 60fps without having to worry about compatibility issues to video format conversions. But it not only handles iPhone videos well, it also handles videos from my GoPro, DJI gimbal, and older videos shot with old hand held camcorders. The app is very user friendly and extremely easy to pick up and use right away, even without going through a tutorial. It is intuitive and user friendly even for people who have never used video editing software. Yet it still retains much of the functionality that is expected from professional video editing software. The more I use this program the more I learn what it is capable of. I look forward to apple to continue to add features to the app. Final Cut Pro is way cheaper than Premiere Pro and yet it still can do everything that I was doing in Premiere Pro. In fact it is better than Premiere pro in a lot of its functionality. I will be canceling my Premiere Pro subscription and switch to Final Cut Pro.

It does the job but has many quirks and bugs. In the previous round it would crash randomly which was intolerable but this seems to be fixed now I am waiting to be sure. Unfortunately there are still many quirks that hold it back from being great. This is a skilled middle schooler not a heavy hitting pro. Although its possible to copy and paste your settings, it is not possible to apply them to all the clips in your project so as with many tasks in FCP for iPad you are forced into highly manual and iterative workflows. It does not support timelapse, i.e. setting single frame duration on a photo, as is done on the desktop version. The export process is extremely painful and frequently fails. The export is understandably long. This process needs to be maximized on your ipad screen so if it is 10 minutes or 1 hour that’s the time that your ipad will be locked up and useless for you. If you try to use “multitasking” with stage manager to add another window the export dialog will frequently close on you. In fact the swipe to close on the export dialog is a HORRIBLE misunderstanding of how anyone uses FCP. I don’t want swipe to close after my app has been grinding on a video for 45 minutes. If I bump my ipad and it is interpreted as a swipe I have lost all my work. If the job finishes and it pops the dialog the ipad can go to sleep, then swiping up to wake the ipad will close the export dialog. If the export saving process fails for any reason the popup does not come back it just disappears and your only option is to restart the whole process from scratch. Zero resilience. For a pay app, $60 a year they need to do better. This app should not be competing with the desktop for lesser functionality, it should be as good or better. If I can’t use it like a pro, then it is not pro.

I don’t know why apple dragged their feet for so long on this, being that the iPad with M1 & M2 chips have been more than capable of running Final Cut, but that being said, I can finally take my video edit workflows over to my iPad Pro and get some use out of it. I was really regretting the purchase when I realized there weren’t many apps (until recently) that really fit my needs and utilized the processing power of the iPad Pro.I’m so glad its finally here. The interface is familiar and intuitive. I haven’t found the ability to make compound clips yet, but maybe that’s not available or coming in a future update. Also, I’ve only been using it for about an hour — so maybe its there somewhere. But I’m really glad to see that I can easily make mulitcam clips, as that’s what I primarily use it for. I saw that LumaFusion added multi cam for an additional purchase, which I would have begun to use if this didn’t come out. Glad its here. Great work Apple!

Final Cut Pro on iPad Pro has crossed a line for me. This no longer feels like a simplified mobile companion to a desktop app. It feels like a real editing environment — fast, capable, elegant, and, in at least one important way, even better than the desktop experience. Using Apple Pencil to trim and move through footage with tactile feedback frame by frame gives the editing process a physical precision that is surprisingly powerful. It makes timing and rhythm feel more direct, more intuitive, and more connected to the work.What has impressed me most is that this feels like a no-compromise professional tool. The interface is clean, the performance is excellent, and the app finally makes the iPad Pro feel like what it has long promised to be for creatives: not just a consumption device, but a serious place to make things. I expected convenience. I did not expect to be this impressed.