My 15-year old daughter just recently got her first desktop. Why? Well, because instead of just consuming (which she does on her phone) or doing homework (chromebook), she wanted to do video editing, and also drawing using a Wacom tablet. She found that the non-desktop options were just not that great.
Had it been a passing fancy, no doubt she would have done without the desktop, but it wasn't, so she got a tricked out desktop (intended for gamers, I think) and now has the most powerful computer in the house. She still uses her phone and (when in school) her Chromebook, but when she's in creator (not consumer) mode, she uses her desktop.
> My 15-year old daughter just recently got her first desktop. Why? Well, because instead of just consuming (which she does on her phone) or doing homework (chromebook), she wanted to do video editing, and also drawing using a Wacom tablet. She found that the non-desktop options were just not that great.
My about-to-be-a-college-junior daughter has been creating for years on an iPad, and she's pretty good at it. She's transferring to VCU this fall for their graphic arts program and we just set her up with a new MBP and a Wacom Intuos. She started to practice on it but finds the experience of the external tablet and viewing an image on screen much less appealing than drawing directly on her iPad.
For certain tasks, the iPad is superior input device.
Maybe someday the iPad won't be hobbled by iOS and it will be fully suitable for desktop tasks too.
(Currently typing this on an iPad air with smart keyboard.)
A tangent, but I've found the iPad Pro to be fabulous for video editing. I haven't hooked it up to a keyboard/mouse combo, or plugged it into a monitor, but it's quite capable of both of those things.
I can tell you it's simply superior to a Wacom tablet for drawing, there I have a direct comparison. A PC/desktop will certainly exceed an iPad at some level: but now that the Pro model has an M1, it's unclear at what level that is. I certainly don't edit at a level where the difference between Logic and LumaFusion becomes apparent, and I expect that Apple releasing Logic for the iPad is a matter of when, not if.
The iPad is also as expensive as a good laptop, so in more than one sense those two categories are converging.
I'm sure your daughter made the right decision for her, I'm just taking the opportunity to build on your comment with a bit more evidence that the home computer is a vanishing breed.
This is honestly an absurd proposition. A 13 inch screen Ipad pro with a keyboard and 2TB of memory is $2500. Video editing is something you want power, and a lot of screen real estate, and a good form factor. Even with the GPU shortage, you can buy an extremely powerful, capable, video editing desktop with two large 27" monitors for $1k. Even before you consider limitations in sandboxing, multi-application usage, and freedom, the Apple Tax for this makes a non-starter. If you go with the lowest end specs, that is still $800, which you can buy a significantly more capable desktop for video editing at that point, then you will be editing video on an 11" screen, with no hotkeys or keyboard, and only 128 GB of storage (good luck).
It depends on what you're doing and what your budget is. Shoot & edit on one device, plus an excellent drawing experience, is pretty compelling when you're talking about a device for a kid to learn on, and the main things it'll be used for are video & drawing. You don't need 2TB of built-in storage for that, either.
Only way I can see that not being the option to beat, is if your goal is to learn the UI (not the concepts or techniques) for pro-tier desktop editing software. Then, yes, of course you have to have a desktop. I think "non-starter" is overstating the case against the iPad, for the particular tasks and user-profile stated.
> video editing desktop with two large 27" monitors for $1k
Most devices these days including the iPad and things like Go Pros film in at least 720P which absolutely fills up storage space in no time at all. I started filming my kids' sporting events in HD and editing them on my laptop and I completely filled up 1 terabyte of storage on my computer in no time at all. Then I had to start playing the game of moving older stuff to external storage which totally sucks if you want to go back to it quickly. 1 minute of 1080P video at 60fps is around 200MB depending on the format, an hour is like 12 gigs. The only reasonable way to manage almost any amount of HD video is on a desktop system with loads of cheap(er) storage.
Well yeah, for bulk video storage you could eat 2TB easily. Active files for an editing project at 1080P, especially if you're weeding through footage after each day of shooting (if you don't, you'll go nuts later), 512GB should be OK.
There's nothing absurd about it, you're just looking for something to get mad about.
Your reference to the so-called Apple Tax makes that perfectly clear.
What I actually said is that I, personally, find it fabulous for video editing. I made it clear that I'm an amateur who doesn't make heavy use of any advanced features, and furthermore said that I'm sure that the daughter made the right choice for her.
You blew into my mentions getting mad about price tags, which I never mentioned. Your assertion that someone can get better performance than the M1 for $1K including two large monitors (high DPI?) is something I'd need to see backed up, because quite frankly I don't believe you.
The one thing I'm quite confident of is that the iPad is superior for drawing to a PC and Wacom tablet, because I've used both. I'm quite confident from your pugnacious and unpleasant reply that you haven't used an iPad for either video editing or drawing.
If you are suggesting that desktop computers will be replaced by tablets, I say NO. They are supplemented by them.
I have an earnest question, as I have had to resort to mounting an SMB share in “Files” app because iTunes is an insufferable PÓS:
How can you access files on the device and transfer them to a computer, for example?
I think that proprietary platform limited software on iPad is not typically mature as a main video editor or DAW. I record audio and produce music, and while my iPhone and iPad are great for making midi sequences, and even though I CAN connect a usb audio interface, it’s clunky and the opposite of why I would use the device, aka on the train or away from home. I typically record my drum set or guitar or trumpet with a rather large setup involving a rackmount audio interface, hardware mic preamps of good quality, and let’s face it: drum sets are large.
I know many folks that use their tablet connected to their desktop DAW over the LAN to control parameters on a synth or effects processor. In live sound setups it’s a great remote. It’s not a replacement for a larger computer, and size and scale of peripherals and the tasks involved are large. The form factors have legitimately distinct purposes.
> A 13 inch screen Ipad pro with a keyboard and 2TB of memory is $2500.
The 2TB memory is accounting for like half the cost there. You can get a model with less built-in memory and just use an external drive and the price drops down to like $1400.
I haven't found 256GB to be much of a limit in editing video, and I do shoot 4K. But I've only really worked with a couple hours of footage at a time, and I'm comfortable with keeping my "b roll" on my NAS. 512GB would probably be a better buy.
Or Apple could stop ripping off their customers and we could just be comfortable paying them a reasonable amount of money for a reasonable amount of storage.
iPads and Apple’s processors had purpose built processes for video editing. My M1 Air is faster than my 2017 15 inch hexa core and respectably close to my 2070 Super in Handbrake. You can probably get away with an M1 iPad Pro for a LOT of tasks. The T2 in the touch bar chip on my 2017 is faster than the intel processor in some encoding tasks I’ve done.
As someone with formal training and experience in video production with Final Cut Pro and Premiere...I find editing on iPad to be an utterly infuriating experience.
I gave it a sincere try, but the UX is so utterly subpar that it's simply not worth the time or effort anymore. The file management on iOS is atrocious: support by various editing apps is questionable at best, and even if it wasn't, it's incredibly slow. Waiting while importing high-res videos off SD media to the file system, then turning around to wait an equally long time for the media to get imported into your editor is extremely irritating. There's also not a lot of serious competition in terms of quality editing apps. It seems like everything other than Luma Fusion is gimped to the point of near-uselessness for anything but the most basic of cut-and-crop type workflows.
iPad did have a slight edge in terms of render performance and efficiency versus ultraportable notebooks like the MacBook Air for a brief period between the A12x-based Pro release in 2018 and the release of the M1 MacBook Air in 2020, but now that the M1 Air is on the table, it's well worth the few extra ounces to go with a M1 MBA for mobile video editing.
Editing video on the iPad is, it pains me to say, "disruptive".
I believe you when you say it's infuriating to someone with formal training, used to the professional tools. I wouldn't know, this is how I've taught myself to edit video.
It's inferior and the software is cheaper. The hardware isn't necessarily, but it sure is if you own an iPad and don't have a dedicated machine for editing video.
And the experience is steadily improving, and at some point it might well "worse is better" the specialized hardware and expensive software which is the industry standard.
Or it might not. Time alone will tell.
It's worth pointing out that the current iPad Pro also has an M1, so the choice between an MBA and an iPad Pro is much less clear along that dimension.
I generally agree with you and recognize that I'm coming at this from a somewhat niche perspective.
I think the thing that frustrates me the most is that Apple has repeatedly failed to fix the performance and usability issues related to file management that have plagued iOS/iPad OS since the feature was introduced. Fixing the poor performance + increasing versatility of the file manager (or allowing 3rd party file managers like Android) would massively improve the editing workflow on iPads, and for me, would probably push it into the 'good enough' tier of performance that might lead me to leave my MacBook at home when editing video on the road.
There's definitely some latent potential for video editing to be redefined along broader task-and-genre lines. That is, in essence, the difference between "consumer" and "pro", because a pro is burdened by having to reshape the medium in utmost detail to fit a structure that they planned, while a consumer expects a readymade media which simply "filters" their efforts through a predefined strategy.
Since video editing is no longer governed by literal machinery, it can deprofessionalize into a set of smaller consumer languages, though if you imagine all the forms of editing that exist, it's unlikely that we'll have total coverage anytime soon.
>> I can tell you it's simply superior to a Wacom tablet for drawing
IMO, yes & no. For certain types of work, an iPad Pro is amazing. For direct sketching, drawing, for sure. It's easily my favorite drawing table for these.
For certain other types of work, for example: colorists work of filling large areas precisely within black lines (like comicbook coloring) or maneuvering around a huge document, a commercial grade Intuos tablet (or the like) is a better match.
One of the biggest reasons is that the Intuos has physical, raised "quick action" buttons which can be programmed to switch between tools, so you can zoom, rotate, brush, erase without ever looking at a keyboard or even looking away from the screen. This is crucial in certain workflows. Edit: also, the fact that your hand is never in the way on an Intuos is really key.
Admittedly, this is a very specific use case, but I figured I'd mention it for completeness sake.
She's doing storyboarding-type work, and we did check into the iPad option first before getting the Wacom (which I think might be Intuos). It did not measure up. Of course, the iPad does all kinds of other stuff, but I think that might be the problem. The Wacom is made for drawing, and that's about it, and thus it is very good at it, apparently.
Ipad Pro, procreate, and if you really need to a paper-like sheet over it (various manufacturers).. it's 98% of what wacom experience is like (2% being the physical buttons). On the flip sode, taking your ipad pro out and drawing outside... A lot better than taking the portable wacom outside.
I have decades now (shit, I'm old) experience with these tyoes of devices in professional settings. There are two classes now, one with direct drawing over screen, the other indirect one. I have my brain and muscles trained for both, and I'd rather take the former than latter any day. It's more natural and in some cases necessary (hand-drawn animation is way slower by indirect method, if impossible).
Having said that, I'd only consider and compare three devices (there are more). Cintiq attached to a computer - fantastic experience and highly non portable and requires a lot of space. Allows for photoshop, which is still no 1, as well as pro 2D animation tools. Portable wacom/cintiq which is a pc in a fat tablet form.. not that great (heats up, battery, fat), but allows all wibdows tools you need.. and then there's ipad pro with its pencil. Procreate is fantastic and saves the show on the app front, apple pencil and screen surface is subpar experience to wacom nibs and surface (not cintiq one!!), but it takes like half an hour to get used to it and never give it a second thought. There are screen overlays which mimic wacom surface though, I just don't need it. Also, ipad pro has the advantage there of having less space between the tip of the pencil and the surface being shown (less of a gap between glass and drawing) and that amazing refresh rate is, well, amazing! I have "unlimited" budget for these things and my first tool to grab for drawing and painting is ipad pro. For animation and matte work (where you need different tools), it's cintiq on a windows machine (why not a mac is a different topic altogether).
That's the difference in a nutshell: I simply can't get comfortable with indirect drawing. Maybe with enough practice, but there's never been a forcing function to get that practice. It almost feels painful, to either look at my hand or look at the drawing.
Which leaves the Cintiq, and when I used one, I thought the screen quality couldn't touch the iPad, plus it's at least as expensive for a single-purpose tool. It wouldn't surprise me if the Cintiq's have caught up with iPad on that dimension now, my experience is about seven years out of date.
>> The Wacom is made for drawing, and that's about it, and thus it is very good at it, apparently.
They truly are. One thing I might also mention is that in my experience, the wireless connectivity is less than great for Wacom tablets. Way too much lag. I recommend using a wired tablet if at all possible. It may be that this is old advice, but I couldn't deal with any lag whatsoever when using one for hours at a time and disabled the wireless mode of my Intuos 4 (yes, it's quite old, but still works fine)
> A tangent, but I've found the iPad Pro to be fabulous for video editing
Doesn't the sandboxing and limited access to the file system get in the way?
Can you export video to non-Apple formats, collaborate with other people via a version control system, easily import footage from non-Apple devices, and so on?
Can you even cleanly separate your video editing project from your personal holiday photos/videos? (Does iPadOS expose a directory structure to the end user yet?)
> Doesn't the sandboxing and limited access to the file system get in the way?
Why would it get in the way? Any video editing software on it's going to be designed with that in mind, and will share with other video-related software just fine. Lots of desktop video editing software (Premiere, to pick one) start with "OK, step 1, import all the clips/videos for this project into this program" so even in the worst case it's gonna look a lot like the same workflow as video-editors are used to, and those workflows exist and became the norm on desktop before iPads even existed.
> Can you export video to non-Apple formats
Of course. Why wouldn't you be able to?
> collaborate with other people via a version control system
Never seen it for video editing, including when I worked at a video production company, though that was years go so maybe version control's normal even for amateurs and small shops now? If it's around and popular I'd be surprised if there's not "an app for that" or it's not built-in to some of the higher end editing software on iPad. If things still operate like they used to then you're talking a NAS shared over SMB for largish projects, or Dropbox for smaller ones, for collaboration, probably, and both those are fine with iPads.
Not sure that they do. They could, but I don't know of any significant video editing plugin ecosystems on iOS. Stuff's too rich for my blood—$200 to make overlay text look a certain way? $400 for a noise-reduction algo? Not for me and my casual stuff. Again, if you want actual pro software, you're looking at one of a couple desktop application vendors, that's true. If you're looking for pro-tier software for home use, and learning that pro-tier software is your main goal and/or you actually need what it can provide, then you're probably talking Adobe Premiere, specifically, and yeah, that's desktop only (and about $250/yr). If you just want to learn the process and techniques of non-linear video editing and put together (potentially quite good) edited videos or films, the iPad's capable enough (with the benefit that, in the original use case posted here, it's also a damn good drawing tablet and you can use it to shoot your videos, too, again, if you don't have actual pro-level needs), but I wouldn't argue it replaces a desktop with Premiere, for a bunch of reasons including that everyone assumes you've got Premiere (and often Aftereffects, too) available, when it comes to plugins.
Haven't used one since the iOS/iPadOS split, so honestly don't know how much more flexible they've become.
More familiar with iOS on iPhones though, but can't see how I'd do 'serious creative work' - which usually ends up involving large numbers of files that need keeping organised - on an OS that's traditionally tried so hard to hide the underlying file system from the end user.
And I've never tried connecting a camera or video capture device directly to an iOS device, so not sure what is or isn't possible in that area.
> Doesn't the sandboxing and limited access to the file system get in the way?
No.
> Can you export video to non-Apple formats, collaborate with other people via a version control system, easily import footage from non-Apple devices, and so on?
An iPad Pro is great, but not superior to the Cintiq Pros imo. Especially the 24 inch and above. Once you’ve had the extra space you wouldn’t be willing to give it up for a 13 inch screen. I keep hoping for an iMac that you can use the Apple Pencil on for that reason ;P
The iPad Pro is a device that definitely can edit video, but I really only use it as a last resort. For me it has never been a question of power, but a question of comfort: the M1 could be the fastest CPU in the world, but what do I care when I can't run 32 bit software on it! And then there's the ergonomics... unless you're using a mouse/keyboard with the iPad, it's an insufferable experience: even then, it's not a given that your NLE of choice will even support keyboard shortcuts, and then we're back around to square one again...
Arguably, a lot of the same things that are wrong with 32 bit software. If we're being pedantic, both of them should still be supported: but they aren't.
> So, I talked to Steve on the phone [about adding a standard pen and penholder]. I said, “Look Steve. You know, you’ve made something that is perfect for 2-year-olds and perfect for 92-year-olds. But everybody in-between learns to use tools.”
-- Alan Kay
Non-slave adults are the vanishing breed, the onslaught against general and self-determined computing is just one of the symptoms of that.
> So, I talked to Steve on the phone [about adding a standard pen and penholder]. I said, “Look Steve. You know, you’ve made something that is perfect for 2-year-olds and perfect for 92-year-olds. But everybody in-between learns to use tools.”
-- Alan Kay
Steve Jobs was right since most modern smartphones don't use styli. (Nothing against the Samsung S pen though.)
Alan Kay was right because the Apple Pencil is pretty great:
It's superior in the short term, more convenient, but in the long run it will leads to those people going away, and having no means to fight back against being made to go away.
> tricked out desktop (intended for gamers, I think)
Generally this is just a marketing/SEO thing. A huge percentage of desktop hardware and accessories get the word "Gaming" slapped on the front even though they have nothing to do with gaming. Keyboards, mice, mousepads, headsets, speakers, monitors, cables, etc.
Principally, I think "gaming" now means "graphically high-powered". If you are going to be word processing, internet browsing, etc. then this is not as important and may not be worth the cost. So the desktops with a beefy GPU, etc. get called "gaming" as a shorthand for that.
Indeed, I know a few people who have been holding out for months and months to buy a GPU on its own.. and they have settled for just purchasing a whole prebuilt system because they're sick of waiting. Pretty frustrating all around :(
Had it been a passing fancy, no doubt she would have done without the desktop, but it wasn't, so she got a tricked out desktop (intended for gamers, I think) and now has the most powerful computer in the house. She still uses her phone and (when in school) her Chromebook, but when she's in creator (not consumer) mode, she uses her desktop.