As an iPad Pro first user, I dreamed about the day Apple would give us Final Cut Pro for iPadOS. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Apple drops Final Cut Pro for iPad with a press release. We got a few rumors about it and then a week later it was out for anyone to download. It even brought a one-month free trial. But now I am wondering: Are people actually still using it?
Final Cut Pro for iPad
Final Cut Pro for iPad was released via a press release, alongside Logic Pro, on May 23rd. The initial hype around it was insane. People on Twitter were acting like they were suddenly going to drop their current workflow to go full-on with the iPad. I was also very excited about it. I learned to edit on a 2012 Macbook Air with Final Cut Pro. So getting a “pro” level video editor on my favorite tech item of all time, iPad Pro, was going to be amazing. I was so ready to jump all in, that I signed up for the yearly pricing. But the moment I fired up Final Cut Pro, the excitement began to settle.
This is not a full review of the product, just my experience of it. But when I started working on it, it just didn’t feel the way I wanted it to feel. I have been a Lumafusion user since 2018, and I have all but perfected that software. I have my hotkeys down, I know all of my shortcuts, and I understand the file system structure and everything else needed to be efficient with that software. When I started on FCP, I immediately missed that. I edited on full video on FCP. It had some cool features that took advantage of the Apple Pencil, but the learning curve was something I just did not want to go through.
So after just a few weeks of using FCP, I went right back to my bread and butter. I could not leave the efficiency and familiarity I had with Lumafusion. Maybe I could have given FCP a longer shot, but there was not enough there to entice me to stick with it. So I no longer use FCP at all in any workflow. For every video I create for the channel, I use Lumafusion. Lumafusion also has a more robust feature set. It has had time to mature over time and learn what the user wants.
Wrap-up
There is nothing inherently bad about FCP. I do wish it had more iPad support because right now you need an M-powered iPad Pro or M1 iPad Air in order to use it. But if someone had never used an editing software and wanted to start somewhere, maybe I would think about recommending FCP. But the lack of features, the fact that it is subscription-based, and the learning curve are what pushed me away and took me back to what I knew best, Lumafusion. Maybe FCP will get more robust over time but as for now, even the App store ratings show that people just didn’t really like FCP.
What do you think of this? Are you an FCP user on iPad? Do you use FCP on MacOS? Do you even edit videos to begin with? Let’s discuss this in the comments below!
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