I have to give Blackmagic Design a lot of credit. They released DaVinci Resolve for iPadOS in late 2022 and have continued to regularly update it with meaningful feature updates. It doesn’t have 100% feature parity with the desktop version, but the teams at Blackmagic are making a good effort.

Alongside the recent release of DaVinci Resolve 21 for desktop, the iPad version has also received a substantial update with many new features.

The New Photo Page

For the first time, DaVinci Resolve lets you manage and edit still images directly inside the app.

The Photo Page includes an image library with tagging, favorites, ratings, and album collections. Albums are managed at source resolution, and everything syncs to Blackmagic Cloud with multi-user collaboration support.

Native RAW support covers Canon, Fujifilm, Nikon, Panasonic, and Sony. What sets this apart from a standard photo editor is that your images run through Resolve’s node-based color pipeline, the same one used on Hollywood productions. Curves, qualifiers, power windows, LUTs, and ResolveFX are all available on your stills. Full-resolution exports require the Studio in-app purchase.

New AI Tools

Each major release of Resolve seems to add new AI features, and this update is no different. New AI features include:

• AI IntelliSearch lets you search for people or objects in your media
• AI Speech Generator transforms written text to spoken voice
• AI Face Age Transformer lets you age or de-age a face
• AI Face Reshaper for flexible reshape and resize of facial features
• AI Blemish Removal to repair facial and skin blemishes
• AI SlateFinder automatically detects slates and marks position
• AI SlateID reads slate data and populates clip metadata
• AI UltraSharpen for high fidelity sharpening of moving images
• Improved AI UltraNR quality for UHD and higher timelines

Other New Features

Per the App Store description, the rest of the app sees a number of improvements and fixes as well.

Cut Page

• Keyframes and curves support 4-point bezier retimes and editing multiple selected clips
• Keyframing ease options, loop, ping pong, reverse and stretch
• Subframe support for keyframing and markers
• Native support for OGraf HTML graphics and Lottie animations
• Resolve FX Picture in Picture effect
• Font browser and font preview preference for text and subtitle elements
• IntelliScript supports Final Draft or plain text screenplay imports
• Up to 2x faster AI Speed Warp Metal option
• Compare timelines with timeline backup snapshots

Color Page

• MultiMaster trim pass to grade single timeline to many deliverables
• Render Magic Mask in place as an external matte
• Clip groups now support grade versions
• Node stacks now support up to 8 layers
• Film Look Creator Aurora preset and new roll-off and softness controls
• Adobe RGB colorspace and gamma support

Media Pool

• Support for tabbed layouts
• Thumbnail, list and metadata views can be set for each bin
• Star rating support for clips
• Export media bin thumbnails as a PDF

Codecs and I/O

• Decode Apple ProRAW images
• HDR decode and encode support for HEIC, JPEG, PNG and TIFF
• Support for Insta360 I-Log color management
• Support for Sony Burano V3 clips

General

• Preferences and project settings can now be searched
• Multi-user projects support dynamic project switching
• Support for importing and exporting Final Cut Pro 12 FCPXML
• Up to 3x faster file sync performance to Blackmagic Cloud

Pricing and Availability

DaVinci Resolve for iPad is free to download on the App Store. The Photo Page, core editing improvements, and codec additions are all available in the free version. The Studio in-app purchase ($94.99) is required to unlock all AI tools, Magic Mask, Speed Warp, Film Look Creator, and full-resolution photo exports.

DaVinci Resolve for iPad requires iPadOS 16 or later and an M1 chip or newer for full functionality.