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Random thoughts on the new M1 iPad Pro and video editing

Scott Simmons

I finally got a chance to watch the Apple keynote where they introduced the newly redesigned iMacs as well as the new iPad Pro with the Apple Silicon M1 chip. Despite what some click-bait blogs would have you believe, the iMacs seem underwhelming for the video creation and post-production customer. As good as regular Intel iMacs have been for those of use that have used them for post-production there are a number of things that point to way more pro Apple Silicon models in the future. I think this discontinuation of the iMac Pro coupled with the candy-color and lack of ports on the new iMac to signal more power is coming. Oh and there is the ever present leaks that point to bigger things coming as well.

While watching the very slick video I paused to read over one of the screens where they pull together a laundry list of new features for the products they are announcing, in this case the new iPad Pro.

The “high-performance video editing” of course caught my eye. The iPad has had decent video editing capabilities for years now but as we wait for the next “pro” generation of the Apple Silicon chips to make their way into desktop and portable Macs this current and very capable chip in an iPad is mighty intriguing. While no NLE maker has created the perfect video-editing-on-an-iPad pipeline that I once dreamed about some upcoming advancements might make that a moot point.

I think the biggest news of the day came not from the Apple keynotes video and the product announcement but from a tweet by the folks at LumaTouch about some upcoming changes to, I’m assuming, both iOS and the new iPad Pro. This change will allow the ability to edit footage off of a drive directly connected to an iPad without having to copy that media to the iPad internal storage. That’ll make their iPad NLE LumaFusion even more useful.

That’s big news for a couple of reasons. It signals the ever loosening of some of the iOS restrictions that might frustrate power users as they try to do “real” video work on an iPad. And it feels like that opens these new iPads to next generation of content creation tools. Once of those would most certainly be Final Cut Pro X as the leakers have said. While they did up the internal storage to 2 TBs that’s could take the cost of an a new iPad Pro over $2,000.

So what does that give the content creator and post-production professional on an iPad if all those things comes to pass?

  1. A large iPad with a big screen
  2. A powerful chip that is now also powering desktops
  3. A high quality screen with color accuracy that will be better than what a lot of videos editors use to do color work
  4. The ability to drive the interface and apps by a mouse or trackpad
  5. Connectivity and the ability to read/write to external storage
  6. Professional apps to harness the power
  7. 5G connectivity (as a bonus)

That seems like a pretty compelling formula for getting some real editing and post-production work done on an iPad. You’d probably need a good Thunderbolt 4 dock at some point because as good as the battery is there will be occasions where you need to edit and charge at the same time. All that said, as I write this, I still don’t see very post-production intensive, long-form content getting edited on an iPad. I think about editing on an iPad like I think about editing on a laptop. Give me another screen so I can spread out and be a lot more efficient.

But then look at this:

And the quote to go along with it: “For powerful creative workflows. Now with Thunderbolt, this is the fastest, most versatile port ever on iPad. It works with existing USB‑C connectors and opens up an extensive ecosystem of high‑performance accessories for iPad Pro — like fast external storage, displays, and docks. Transfer huge assets or even drive the Pro Display XDR at full 6K resolution.”

I never would have thought about an iPad driving a display like that. That begs the question of: why would you do this above when you could just use a laptop?  That’s an answer I don’t know. It will depend on the app on that iPad. But could I replace my MacBook Pro for portability and outfitting a home edit suite if it can do that? Perhaps. I struggle to see how Adobe Premiere Pro or Resolve might adapt to a true iPad NLE. Premiere Rush doesn’t count and a stand-along Resolve Cut page iPad app would still be very limited so I guess time will tell.

As I look at that image above and think about how iOS works a shudder comes over me … how difficult it would be to deal with an exported video file as it went into the sandboxed iOS abyss. Maybe that’ll get address too.

But I did love what I saw from LumaTouch so the rest of their discussion from this event is below.

 

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