Making the most of your iPad

Until recently I was an iPad virgin.

I’d occasionally dabbled with using an iPad mini and I seem to recall owning one of the first ones…but the iPad had never truly floated my boat. I could never see the need for it and it seemed a little superfluous to my needs.

This summer though, I bit the bullet and went balls deep into iPad life when I bought the 13-inch M4 iPad Pro. I didn’t hold back either. Initially, I spec’d it with the Nano texture finish (although I swapped that out) but kept the 1TB of storage that I’d originally bought it with – I do love me a bit of future-proofing!

But even having bought it – and it wasn’t cheap, I wasn’t entirely certain if I’d use it or how it would fit into my life, day and workflow.

All I can tell you is that I came to it with an open mind and a perspective of wanting it to work.

iPad life

I think when you buy one you kind of already have a sixth sense of whether it’ll work for you. Being a writer I kind of had a suspicion that it might be a great device for me to work on – and I was right!

Also, it has a different cadence to it – working on the tablet, as I am now, just feels more relaxed and kicked back. Within arms reach I have an M1 Max MacBook Pro an M3 iMac and an M3 MacBook Air – yet it is the iPad I have reached for.

There is one massive win for the iPad and why whenever I write I reach for it – and I’ll come back to that later.

This isn’t going to be one of those stories where a lifelong Mac user turns face and proclaims it’s only iPad for me from now on! Nope, a Mac will always be on my desk and I guess will be the beating heart and workhorse of my workday – well until the Vision Pro becomes a realistic contender that is!

Its simply unquestionably better at some things – drawing, re-touching (with the Pencil Pro) and note taking for starters all feel easier and more natural on the iPad. Now that the camera is in the right position FaceTime calls also feel easier on the iPad and you can also download movies from Netflix and the likes to watch offline, which makes the iPad the natural travel companion!

And due to the sheer volume of them out there, some of the best creative apps are still only available on the iPad as well – Procreate and Ulysses (which is what I am using to write this piece) spring immediately to mind.

Game changer

Apple silicon was a big breakthrough for not only Macs, and iPhones – but the tablet as well.

We suddenly got even more power – if that was ever needed – and massive efficiency improvements. It was a win/win. But Apple silicon wasn’t the only huge step forward that the iPad Pro got in recent years…

The switch to that Thunderbolt/USB 4 port has made huge changes as well. For starters, it can help save you a fortune in paying eye-watering amounts of money on Apple’s storage upgrades but as a creator, it opens up the opportunity for me to connect a camera to it and turn it into a production hub.

Quickly throughout the past few months, it has quietly and seamlessly pushed its way to the front of my desk on days when I’m in admin mode. Emailing, chasing up sponsor leads, accounts work and replying to viewers’ comments all now routinely take place on the iPad.

The iPads BIG win!

I mentioned earlier that there was one thing that wins hands down for me – and that is the Magic Keyboard.

Now I’m not here to defend the price of it – it is stupidly expensive, but if anything comes close in our Apple world of being value for money, then this £300 keyboard must be it.

In all honesty, I’m a pretty meh typist – but the action and set-up of this keyboard make even me appear to be halfway competent! For some reason, I type quicker and am more accurate when writing/typing on the iPad.

I think it is probably because it sits so flush to the desk – your hands and wrists seem to feel more naturally well placed and it’s ergonomically beautiful.

That display

And here we are this far into my story before we even get around to mentioning the stunning display it packs now as well.

By a country mile, this is the best display I have ever used! Now, I love my Studio Display and have written about it several times – but the display on this device has to be seen to be believed. It’s bright, sharp, and colour-accurate.

As a testament to how good it is, my final colour grade and check for all my videos is carried out on the iPad. It gives me the most honest feedback on the colour before hitting upload…

And that is why I mentioned in the title that the iPad can save you money. If you own a Mac and need a second display that also happens to be the quickest Apple device I’ve yet used – then you need look no further than your tablet.

Universal Control went a long way to bring the Mac and iPad together but Side Car takes it to another level – with a few simple clicks your iPad can become a second display for your Mac.

Multitasking…

And then we have to talk about Multitasking – the perennial elephant in the room!

Sorry to keep harking back to writing but it’s something that affects me. Being able to enter into either Split View or Slide Over gives me all the multitasking I could ask for. I can have Ulysses open to one side and Safari on the other which means I can research or cross-reference to my heart’s content – and all entirely distraction-free too.

So, I don’t know if it’s me or if I am guilty of missing something, but in answer to that age-old argument that you can’t multitask on an iPad – I’d say you bloody well can! I only have one pair of eyes – how much more information can they possibly be expected to absorb?

And the Final Cut…

This week I undertook my biggest experiment on the iPad when I edited an entire 11-minute video on it.

I shot the video using three iPhone Pros which were all running Apple’s Final Cut Camera app. I then bought the feed from those phones into the iPad using the Multicam feature in the iPads version of Final Cut.

To recap, I was editing three streams of ProRes 4K video and loads of B-roll shots from my Canon all synced with audio recorded in Adobe Audition on an iPad!

To flesh out some numbers for you here and bring into context how powerful the iPad was – each of those 4K feeds was over 60GB! The iPad dealt with it all and never missed a beat – not a single dropped frame. The only weakness was the Samsung T7 drive which overheated!

Yes, it was slower, but in fairness, I was still finding my way around Final Cut on the iPad – and this was by a long stretch the biggest project I’d ever edited on the iPad.

I chose to work from an external SSD (that USBC port coming into play again) as I knew that at the back end, I’d have to finish the edit on the Mac as I needed a few plugins.

iPad the pretty workhorse

This week I put my iPad through its most extreme test yet – and it came through with flying colours.

I had the idea last weekend and started the project with a little trepidation – but the M4 iPad rose to the challenge handsomely. Now I’m not suggesting that it’ll become my go-to for video editing, but now I know it can be done.

The summer seems a long time ago – those days when I wasn’t sure about how an iPad would fit into my day. It has become one of the tools I turn to daily and the more I use it – the more I find out about it and what it is capable of.

And sometimes – just a treat, I take it out of that keyboard and just use it on the sofa and enjoy the feel and design of that gorgeous 4mm body.

Whether I’m editing content, writing, emailing, browsing or watching Apple TV – the iPad has quickly won its place in my heart!