Android tablets are improving with powerful options like the OnePlus Pad and unique offerings like the Pixel Tablet, but the Google Play Store remains a disaster for tablet apps. Particularly when it comes to content creation, a task that tablets are well-suited for, it’s basically a black hole on Android.
By comparison, Apple’s iPad continues to chug along, providing users with apps that bridge the gap between the apps you may use on your laptop to create and edit videos and music. Admittedly, Apple isn’t perfect in this regard, either. Not all supposedly “tablet-optimized apps” are truly designed for the size and capabilities of the iPad. However, developers of powerful professional-grade content creation apps are designing iPad apps that take advantage of the potent Apple silicon M1 and M2 chips now available in the iPad Air and iPad Pro models.
Here are three iPad apps that Android tablets can’t hope to match, which will keep content creators from leaving Apple’s tablets anytime soon.
DaVinci Resolve
Finding a good video editing application for Android tablets is like trying to find someone who still believes in crypto — damn near impossible. Android has nothing that compares with DaVinci Resolve for iPad, and that’s a shame.
While the many budget Android tablets would be no match for Resolve, powerful premium options like the Galaxy Tab S8 would be capable of delivering solid performance. It leaves me wondering why Google hasn’t approached the very amenable folks at Blackmagic Design and asked them to make an Android tablet version. The answer is likely that there’s just not enough of a user base with Android’s minuscule premium tablet market share, but that’s the chicken or the egg problem for Android tablets. How do you get the users if you don’t have the apps, and how do you get the apps if you don’t have the users?
Content-creating Android tablet owners, if any exist, must be burning up with envy or frustration over this situation. DaVinci Resolve for iPad offers a user-friendly UI, a plethora of professional-level editing tools, and, best of all, you can download it for free. Adding insult to injury for Android tablet owners, Apple just rolled out Final Cut Pro for iPad, so it’s an embarrassment of riches for video editors on iPad.
GarageBand
I love music; I grew up in a home filled with music lovers, but I am not a musician. However, I love GarageBand and have spent hours playing with it, trying to create beats, rhythms, and music for my own entertainment.
GarageBand is the most famous music creation app in the world, and although there are several others, none are as universally known or respected. I have been to many live musical shows and have never seen a musician whip out an Android tablet. I have seen many talented musicians pull out an iPad and start performing.
With its litany of tools, easy-to-learn UI, and overall capabilities granting users a great deal of creative freedom, there is nothing currently available for Android that can compete. Again, the question is why? Android tablet makers have worked with developers for many years to create Android apps that should be on par with anything Apple comes up with, but the apps just aren’t there.
Procreate
Ok, it costs $12.99, but it's worth it. Procreate is a great creative application for iPad, and although you can search for Android alternatives, I have yet to find one that can match its UI, tool set, and overall functionality. Also, you get a lifetime of support and updates for your one-time payment.
Procreate has many drawing tools, and many third-party brushes created by a talented community are easy to import. Procreate also has some solid 3D creation tools that will allow you to render some pretty cool 3D artwork.
There are several Android reactive drawing apps like Clip Studio Paint, but most of the Android apps need more tools you find in Procreate. Sadly when you consider that so many Android tablets come with great pens like the Samsung S Pen and the OnePlus Pads Pen, it's terrible they don’t have access to applications capable of taking full advantage of them.
I will keep praying to the tech gods for better apps for Android tablets, but in the meantime, I will just keep editing videos and music and drawing on an iPad.
