LumaFusion Beats Final Cut Pro to Background Exports on iPadOS

LumaFusion background export notification

LumaFusion, one of, if not the premier video editor for iPadOS, has been updated to version 5.4, with a number of new features and optimizations for iPad users. Chief among them is support for background exporting, enabled by iPadOS 26.

Background Exports Are Here!

This allows you to start exporting a video and switch to a different app while the export continues in the background. On iPadOS, the export appears as a Live Activity in Notification Center and on the Lock Screen, showing you progress.

When Apple’s Final Cut Pro launched on iPadOS in 2023, reviewers were surprised that it was unable to export videos in the background, requiring the app to remain open for the entire export.

Here’s the part where I mention that while that is technically the case, you’ve always been able to work around this using Stage Manager or by taking advantage of an external display (which is how I do a lot of work on my iPad Pro).

Some Limitations, but Not Because of LumaFusion

One interesting thing you’ll notice when starting an export is that the developer has chosen to present an alert, gently encouraging you to consider leaving the app foregrounded to ensure the export completes without issue.

Why?

This is likely because of how iPadOS is designed, and not the fault of the developers at LumaTouch. Even with the new Background Tasks API, there are still certain fundamental truths about iPadOS.

First, the app that’s in the foregeound always receives priority in terms of resource allocation. One of Apple’s reasons for taking a more restrictive approach to background tasks over the years is that they never want whatever the user is actively doing to feel slow because of a bunch of stuff running in the background.

Secondly, battery life is always a concern for portable devices. If I’ve learned anything from the iPhone Air release, it’s that even the perception of reduced battery life will set off some users. This means the amount of resources allocated to a background task can vary based on several factors including the amount of energy a task is using. A background task burning through too much battery is a candidate to get either throttled or killed by the operating system.

What all this means is that an app’s background task isn’t guaranteed to complete, even though it’s far more likely than it was before thanks to this new API.

There’s a WWDC session that goes into all of this and is worth watching if you’re interested in how Apple is approaching background tasks on iPadOS and iOS.