Last year, Apple marked a major milestone in its development of the iPad as a professional-level device when it brought the two Mac apps that millions of professionals depend on on a daily basis to the iPad. Today, alongside the introduction of new iPad Pro models powered by the new M4 chip, Apple has introduced new features in Final Cut Pro for iPad 2 that greatly expand the capability of the app.
Live Multicam and Final Cut Camera
The major new feature in Final Cut Pro for iPad 2 is Live Multicam. This feature essentially places the power of a multicamera production studio in your hands.
To enable it, Apple created a new free video capture app for iPhone and iPad called Final Cut Camera. This app allows live video from up to four iPhone or iPad devices to feed into an iPad running Final Cut Pro for iPad 2. Not only are these video feeds recorded to the iPad running Final Cut Pro for iPad 2, but the app also creates editable preview clips that can be manipulated as the scene is being shot.
This means that you can remotely adjust the settings of each camera from Final Cut Pro for iPad. Settings that can be adjusted through Final Cut Camera include ISO, shutter speed, white balance, manual focus with focus peaking, and exposure. Plus the app provides monitoring features like zebras and audio meters.
A bonus of Final Cut Camera is that it can be downloaded and used as a free standalone camera app—you don’t have to use it with Final Cut Pro for iPad.
Support for Editing on External Drives
One new feature that we here at OWC are particularly excited about is external project support. When Final Cut Pro for iPad launched last year many were disappointed that it didn’t include support for editing projects housed on an external drive. Final Cut Pro for iPad 2 addresses this, adding full external project support.
Now you can connect a USB-C, Thunderbolt, or USB4 drive to your iPad and create, open, and edit projects on that external drive. Our Envoy Pro Mini, Envoy Pro Elektron, and new Express 1M2 make great additions to an iPad Pro video workflow. The Pro Mini packs up to 2TB of storage into an SSD the size of a thumb drive and the Envoy Pro Elektron now supports a whopping 4TB of storage. You can read more about these new drives here.
Apple has also added support for handing off external projects for import into Final Cut Pro for Mac and importing high-resolution files and pro codecs like ProRes and Log.
Pricing and availability
Final Cut Pro for iPad 2 will be a free update for existing users available “later this Spring,” according to Apple. The app is priced at $4.99 per month or $49 per year.
