Blackmagic has officially announced DaVinci Resolve coming to the iPad before the end of 2022

Teased briefly by Apple during the iPad Pro M2 announcement, Blackmagic has today officially announced DaVinci Resolve for iPad and provided more details about its features and capabilities. It’ll be available at some point before the end of 2022 from the Apple App Store as a free download, with an upgrade to DaVinci Resolve Studio available as an in-app purchase.

It’s optimised for Apple Silicon and Blackmagic says it offers 4x faster 4K UHD ProRes render performance on the new iPad Pro with the M2 processor, with HDR support for customers using the 12.9″ iPad Pro with the M1 chip. A clean feed grading output can also be sent to an Apple Studio Display, Pro Display XDR or an AirPlay-compatible display to maximise the editing experience and quickly create grades or colour-correct clips straight from the iPad.

Apple teased DaVinci Resolve during the initial launch video at around the 8-minute mark, with some clips earlier in the video during the voiceover starting at around four and a half minutes in.

DaVinci Resolve for iPad will open and create standard DaVinci Resolve project files that are compatible with the desktop version of DaVinci Resolve 18. It includes support for h.264, h.265, Apple ProRes and Blackmagic RAW, with the ability to import from the iPad Pro’s internal storage, photos library, your iCloud account and even USB-C storage. It also works with external  editing hardware devices such as the DaVinci Resolve Speed Editor.

DaVinci Resolve for iPad is truly a revolution for post production. Customers will have the power of Hollywood post production tools for editing and color correction literally in their hands, creating a whole new generation of creative editors and colorists. Compatibility with DaVinci Resolve 18 and Blackmagic Cloud, mean that customers can collaborate on the same timeline with other editors or colorists as well as audio engineers and VFX artists from literally anywhere in the world. I think it will be exciting to try out the new iPad version and I can’t wait to see how our customers use it, their creativity will be mind blowing.

– Grant Petty, Blackmagic Design CEO

While not as full-featured as its desktop counterpart, it will initially offer the Cut and Color tabs, allowing you to quickly put together a rough edit on your iPad and dial in some colour correction or get a grade together to let you see how things are coming together on set. It’s entirely possible to create a finished video using just the Cut and Color tabs, but if you want more functionality, you can save out the project and open it up in DaVinci Resolve on the desktop to continue your work and refine the edit.

At the moment, the official list of DaVinci Resolve for iPad Features includes:

• Cut page for editing and the color pages are optimized for the 12.9-inch iPad Pro display.
• Up to 4x Ultra HD ProRes render performance improvement with the M2 chip.
• Supports Apple Neural Engine features in DaVinci Resolve Studio for iPad.
• Compatible with DaVinci Resolve 18 project files.
• Supports multi-user collaboration via Blackmagic Cloud.
• Supports H.264, H.265, ProRes and Blackmagic RAW media files.
• Supports clips from iPad storage, Photos library and iCloud.
• Import clips from external USB-C disks.
• Works with Apple Pencil, Magic Trackpad, Magic Keyboard and Smart Keyboard Folio.
• External monitoring via Apple Studio Display, Pro Display XDR or an AirPlay display.
• Supports HDR display on 12.9-inch iPad Pro with the M1 chip.
• Compatible with iPadOS 16 or newer.

An exact release date for DaVinci Resolve for iPad has not yet been announced beyond “later in 2022”, although given the iPadOS 16 or newer requirement – which still hasn’t officially been released yet – it’s not surprising that it’s not available right now. Perhaps we’ll see it released on the same day as the iPad OS 16 launch (October 24th) or we may have to wait a little longer.

Either way, when it is released, it will be a free download from the Apple App Store and you’ll be able to upgrade it to DaVinci Resolve Studio for iPad using an in-app purchase. Exactly what the differences will be between the free and Studio versions of DaVinci Resolve for iPad or what the limitations of the free version will be are currently unknown.

Also unclear is exactly which iPad models will be supported. The press release simply says that it requires iPadOS 16 or newer but only mentions iPad Pro devices. Whether it will work with non “Pro” iPadOS 16 devices like the iPad Air is unknown, but we have reached out to Blackmagic for clarification on device compatibility and will update this post if and when we receive a response.

Update: Blackmagic has confirmed that DaVinci Resolve for iPad will only work on M2-powered iPadOS devices. So, older devices that will still run iPadOS 16 will be unable to run DaVinci Resolve.